Search a title or topic

Over 20 million podcasts, powered by 

Player FM logo
Artwork

Content provided by Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra, Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra, Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://staging.podcastplayer.com/legal.
Player FM - Podcast App
Go offline with the Player FM app!

433: Magic Mike Food Pr0n

1:25:05
 
Share
 

Manage episode 487809043 series 1407543
Content provided by Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra, Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra, Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://staging.podcastplayer.com/legal.

In this OG episode of Overtired, Christina Warren and Brett Terpstra navigate through sleep habits, medication discussions, and mental health struggles. They reminisce about theatrical experiences with Magic Mike, the allure of cooking shows, and gardening adventures. Brett’s journey into movie recommendation tools and Christina’s nostalgia over MTV highlight a fun and chaotic discussion. Plus, they reflect on the legacy of computing pioneer Bill Atkinson. Tune in for a blend of tech tips, personal anecdotes, and community app brainstorming.

Sponsor

The latest 360-degree camera from Insta360, the Insta360 X5, launched April 22nd and shoots full 360-degree videos in incredible 8K30 resolution. To bag a free 114cm invisible selfie stick worth US$24.99 with your Insta360 X5 standard package purchase, head to store.insta360.com and use the promo code overtired.

Chapters

  1. 00:00 Introduction and Catching Up
  2. 00:18 Sleep Struggles and Medication
  3. 02:35 Mental Health Corner
  4. 03:15 Cleaning and Organization Challenges
  5. 08:05 Selling on Facebook Marketplace
  6. 14:05 Job Hunt and Unemployment Fears
  7. 21:54 Sponsor: Insta360
  8. 23:22 Rhubarb Salsa and Cooking Adventures
  9. 29:38 Magic Mike Trilogy Discussion
  10. 35:55 Audience Participation and Movie Experiences
  11. 44:22 Marvel Movie Experience in Stockholm
  12. 45:05 Disappointment with Endgame
  13. 45:28 Star Wars Prequels Hype and Letdown
  14. 47:52 Batman vs Superman Premiere
  15. 49:14 Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis
  16. 54:08 Movie Recommendation Apps
  17. 01:01:31 Privacy Concerns with Media Consumption
  18. 01:05:38 Bill Atkinson’s Legacy
  19. 01:08:38 MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis and Butthead
  20. 01:11:19 Typo Negative and Music Reactions
  21. 01:14:29 Letterboxd API and Movie Recommendations
  22. 01:19:12 Gratitude for MacUpdater

Show Links

Join the Conversation

Thanks!

You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network

BackBeat Media Podcast Network

Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.

Transcript

Magic Mike Food Pr0n

Introduction and Catching Up

[00:00:00]

Christina: Welcome back. You’re listening to Overtired. I’m Christina Warren, joined as always by Brett Terpstra. Jeff Severns. Guntzel could not be with us today. Uh, we miss you, Jeff. Hope you’re having fun with the family. Um, so it’s a, it’s just a classic OG Overtired for once.

Brett: Yeah. Are you tired?

Sleep Struggles and Medication

Christina: Um, I was a little bit, so I went to bed.

So we are recording this right now at 11:00 AM um, uh, Pacific. Um, so a little bit later than we usually record, but I went to bed around 4:00 AM Pacific. So I woke up originally I did actually set an alarm. We were going to record at 10 and I set an alarm for nine 30 and I woke up and I sat, I hit snooze and I was about to text you and be like, I could really use another 30 minutes.

And you had texted me literally that second, asking for like 30 minutes or an hour, and I was like, perfect. And then I think I slept maybe 20 more minutes. Um, and then, and then I woke up and um, and, and

Brett: So yeah, you’re tired.

Christina: Yeah, I mean,

Brett: be tired.

Christina: well, I should be, but I got like, you know, uh, six, six [00:01:00] hours or so, so that’s, that’s pretty good.

Brett: I got nine hours of sleep last night and I’m still dragging, but I think it’s because for like two weeks now I’ve gotten six hours of sleep every night and that kinda racks up over time. And then the night that you do sleep well, then all the sleep deprivation like hits you the next day. I could barely get out of bed this morning.

Christina: No, totally, totally. Um, yeah, I have, I, I don’t know if it’s because of like medication switch or what, like, and it’s a weird thing because I, I, the amount of dray I’m taking right now, I feel like is probably the right amount, but I don’t know if I need to like, but this is what the hard thing is.

Like I’m, I’m taking 15 milligrams. I probably need to maybe take it like. Twice a day, um, like in terms of like maybe half, one, half the day, but half the other, I, I, I don’t know. But, but the 15 milligram will last me the whole day. The problem is it’ll also like, basically last me the whole night too. And so I am, [00:02:00] I’m at like,

Brett: I thought, I thought that’s what you, I thought it had a shorter half life,

Christina: I don’t know, it may be something in my biochemistry has changed, so, which is possible because like technically I could be taking 15 twice a day, but if I did that, I would not be sleeping. I might be more productive, but I wouldn’t, I, and actually I’m not even sure if I would be, but, but I would not be sleeping.

So I’m, I’m kind of at like the weird place where I’m getting, you know, five or six hours a night, like pretty consistently. So, um, but yeah. And, and it’s, it, I, I need something to help me sleep, but it,

Mental Health Corner

Brett: I feel like this segues nicely into a mental health corner.

Christina: I was gonna say, we were, we immediately went into mental health corner without even doing any chitchat.

So.

Brett: that’s why, that’s how Mental Health Corner became the first, first thing on the show is we just always naturally, we’re like, so here’s what’s wrong with me

Christina: what’s wrong with me this week. This, this, this is the, it was like Doctor Corner, and then we, like colloquial called it like mental health corner and then it became a thing. [00:03:00] Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. We’ve been doing this show for so long now. I mean, like intermittently, but, but, but we’ve been doing it for so long that like, yeah, this is how this happened.

Um, do you wanna go first? Do you want me to just finish mine? ’cause I don’t have a lot.

Brett: Oh, go for it. Yeah.

Christina: O Okay. So yeah.

Cleaning and Organization Challenges

Christina: Um, I haven’t been sleeping super well, but I ha it hasn’t been bad either. I just need to kind of figure stuff out. I’ve been trying to clean my office that has actually, like, that’s a massive like, mental health stressor because I have a bunch of boxes and stuff that I need to go through and I need to whatnot and, and we have like a storage unit and, and I’m, we can put stuff in.

My problem with that is, is that I’m like, okay, if I put this in the storage unit, I’m never gonna see it again. And there is some stuff in here I would like to potentially use, but.

Brett: are you currently in the same room you usually podcast from?

Christina: Yes.

Brett: Because from where I’m sitting, you’re, you’re sitting in an empty white room like John Oliver during the pandemic, so I would say you’re making progress on

Christina: Oh [00:04:00] yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, without a doubt, I got rid of my shoe rack and, and put shoes that I will be using, like in kind of like a, an area and then put some that are in boxes that I haven’t worn that I might sell, that I might do, you know, potentially to go into storage. And then I, I threw a bunch out, but like, there’s a whole half of the room that you can’t see that is just like boxes and stuff that I need to go through.

And, and the easiest thing to do would be to just like pack it all up and put it in storage. But if I do that, I know I’m not gonna go through it. And so it’s just, I don’t know, it’s, it’s a really stressful thing of being like, okay, how do I get enough time to like, basically have to kind of sift through and go through every single thing I have, be like, you know, keep storage, whatnot.

Um.

Brett: Do you have, do you have enough room to temper? Oh, you must. ’cause it was there to begin with. So I’ll tell you what I do and you can take it or leave it, but I like to put everything that I’m not currently using, everything that I don’t have an immediate use for into a big pile of boxes.

Christina: Right?

Brett: And [00:05:00] then over the next month, if I do need something, I go dig it out of the box and it becomes like a stay thing.

If I, if there’s anything left in that box at the end of the month, I move it into a longer term storage. And basically anything I don’t use in a year, I give away or sell if possible. But like, just like putting it all in storage and then pulling out what you actually like because you can’t make that decision in the moment.

Christina: no, but the problem is, and and you’re right, that is the right thing to do. The problem is, I don’t know exactly what I have. And so if I just put it in storage, then it, it, then that doesn’t solve anything. And then like, the problem is, is that there are things, I know I have, I don’t know where they are.

I might rebuy them. Like that’s the problem. So, so you’re right, like the way that you’re talking about approaching things is correct, but like, I don’t know what all I have.

Brett: I do have that problem of like forgetting that I already own something and buying it again because I can’t keep track.

Christina: right. Well, I mean, I ran into that. I couldn’t [00:06:00] find a certain cable for something, and so I spent $70 on a freaking AC adapter for a thunderbolt dock. And then, and this is like the shittiest thing, I found the newer version of the Thunderbolt dock.

Brett: UN unboxed,

Christina: UN uh,

Brett: I mean no. Still boxed.

Christina: Still box. Yeah. Completely unopened. So like. So I’m like, okay, well then why the fuck did I just spend $70 on the safety? Alright, whatever. But like, uh, you know, but there’s shit like that, right? Like, I couldn’t find a certain, a c cable for my camera that I needed to plug in, so I bought another one, and then I literally found that when I was going through, so I was a motherfucker, right?

So there’s, there’s stuff like that that I just, it’s gonna take me, it’s just gonna take forever to go through and, and that’s just emotionally really taxing to even think about. And so, um, and then if I have to like, use my office for, for work related things, like, then that is another complication. Like, how the hell do I, like, find the time and the space, like do this and still have like a, a cleanish working [00:07:00] environment.

So it, it, it is what it is. But, um, but other, other than my hoarding and, and you know, like organizational and executive function, uh, deficits, um, I’m doing pretty well.

Brett: All right. Um, yeah, I would say, uh, that leads me to a whole conversation about Facebook marketplace. But, um, l is currently applying for additional part-time jobs and, um, does not have the emotional. Capacity right now to deal with that and like working around the house and working in the garden and organizing a room.

And yeah, I get that there are limits to like, everything takes emotional energy. Like whether you realize it or not, you’re investing emotion into everything. And things like cleaning are intense.

Christina: they are.

Brett: Like even [00:08:00] just, even just like straightening up the house is an emotional journey for both EL and me.

Selling on Facebook Marketplace

Brett: Um, but so are, do you sell stuff on Facebook Marketplace?

Christina: but I should, um, because, um. I mean, I think that would probably be better than than eBay or other places.

Brett: Yeah, I’m not sure, uh, ’cause I haven’t, Facebook marketplace has always just been so convenient to get into that. I haven’t, I haven’t sold anything on eBay in a decade. Um, but so Facebook marketplace, if, if you’re post gets no traction in the first week, it expires your listing. So I have stuff like, I have this pep link.

Router that you can plug in two different cable modem or at two, any two ethernet sources, um, from different ISPs into one router. And it does load balancing between the two ISPs, which is [00:09:00] if you’re running a business and you want a hundred percent uptime, you get two different ISPs and you plug it into this and it’s for people who need it.

It’s a perfect solution and I, it is not the kind of thing that Facebook marketplace excels at selling. Um, uh, since I lost my job, I have been doing a better job of, of putting my huge pile of leftover shit on to, uh, Facebook marketplace for sale and. So like I, I put up a pair of echo dots, like current generation, uh, unopened, uh, for $40 for the pair and they retail it, I think 30 bucks a piece.

Uh, so it wasn’t a huge deal, but

Christina: It’s a good one.

Brett: yeah. So it you 20 bucks and those did not sell as a pair. People picked them up individually. I sold them 20 bucks a piece [00:10:00] and those sold in like a day. But I have an echo show

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Brett: also unopened that I got during a prime day when I was feeling impulsive. And it has, it gets no interest.

I marked it to like half, half of retail value, completely on open brand new current version. And I cannot get even a single person interested in it.

Christina: Yeah.

Brett: have a. I have a bike. Uh, Al has a bike that we’re trying to sell and its tires need to be replaced. Like they won’t inflate anymore, but we don’t have a bike rack that can get it to the bike shop.

Um, and I’m, I’m gonna have to actually buy the tools to replace a tire on my own. ’cause I haven’t owned any of those since I used to raise mountain bikes. So nobody will buy it without being able to ride it, even though it’s, it’s a $750 bike [00:11:00] that we’re offering for $250 barely used. And still people are like, well, I really need to see what it feels like.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. There’s, there’s, there’s, I mean, the thing is, I mean, it’s convenient and, and I, I’ve never bought anything off a Facebook marketplace, I don’t think, but I know people who have and, and, um, and I, that’s probably what I’ll use to try to sell some of my stuff, assuming, you know, um, uh, it’ll be the sort of stuff people will want.

Um, just because eBay’s such a fucking pain and, and they take so much of, and I don’t even care about how much they take, like, at, at a certain point, but it’s just like, if it’s such a pain, then, then it’s gonna be like more effort than it’s worth, than at that point I’m kind of like, well, then I’m just gonna fucking, you know, donate it or, or throw it away or, or give it to Goodwill or whatever.

You know what I mean?

Brett: And that also is an emotional expense. Like putting it up for sale is an expense dealing with people who wanna buy it. It’s like when you have a garage sale and people try to haggle on something that does have some sentimental value to you, or like you value it in a way that they don’t. And you have to like, [00:12:00] um, uh, concede to their, their preferences in order to make the sale.

And again, it’s all emotional energy. Selling stuff is hard.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, and that’s why usually I don’t even fuck with it. I’m just like, fine, just get rid of it. Just take it,

Brett: I, I give so much away. I like, I always, before I put anything up for sale, I ask my friends because if a friend can use something I have and save me the emotional journey of dealing with buyers and actually transactions and all of that, and they’ll just take it, that actually gives me like an emotional surplus.

Like I feel like I’ve done a good thing. I’ve helped somebody out. Something I owned was helpful to somebody else. I feel good about that, that that’s, that’s, that’s good. Selling stuff is a negative though.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then, um, I, I, I, I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure that it was fake, but, but there’s, I saw this very funny, um, uh, [00:13:00] comedian bit, um, about Facebook marketplace. This reminded me of it. I’ll see if I can find a clip of it. It was, it’s like, I think she was Australian. She might have been British, uh, but she was like talking about like the most unhinged Facebook marketplace story where some, she was trying to sell like a bed and, uh, like a bed frame.

Brett: Yeah, I’ve seen

Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brett: who it was,

Christina: Yeah. It, and it’s, and, um, something

Brett: actually, I believe it. I think it, I think it could have been real.

Christina: maybe, I mean, I, I,

Brett: seemed believable.

Christina: of it seemed believable until the, the end story where going into like the, the, the, the, the wrong apartment. That, that was the part that, like, that, that didn’t seem, um, that, that I was like, okay, now, now I’m not actually sure about this.

Brett: all right. Well, we’re, we’re gonna find it and we’re gonna share it, but we do not, we do not take responsibility for its veracity.

Christina: But it is very funny. I don’t actually care if it’s true or not. It, it’s funny enough, and the song is, is funny enough that I’m like, this is good. Like, I don’t, I don’t actually care. Um, all right. How, [00:14:00] how, how are you doing? How’s, how’s your mental health?

Brett: All right. Well, I am.

Job Hunt and Unemployment Fears

Brett: My, my severance runs out this week. Um, I’m not broke by any means yet, but, uh, once my severance runs out, then I should be eligible for unemployment. But I have this major, like emotional blockade, to applying for unemployment. Like part of me is just dreading finding out I can’t get unemployment.

Um, like I already have contingency plans. I know what I’m doing, um, next, but it’s still like, uh, it’s a fear of rejection

Christina: Right.

Brett: keeping me from doing it.

Christina: And I understand that I, I would like point out like you as much as it would suck, like if it will be, you know, ’cause I don’t know how much Minnesota gives, but I, I think they, they offer a, a pretty decent

Brett: be like four to 600 a week.

Christina: Right. That I [00:15:00] think if you can like, frame it in your head that like, that, that is worth like, the risk of finding out if they’ve rejected it or not.

Did you talk, did you, did, did you talk to a lawyer before? Um, all this and, and, and they didn’t have an answer for you?

Brett: No,

Christina: No.

Brett: no. So Shopify said they were going with a more qualified candidate. I. And if I wanted any feedback, they were available next week, and this is last week. And I said, sure.

I would, I would be interested in feedback so I can, you know, better myself for future applications. Uh, they never replied to that email. And then two days later, the job I applied for showed back up on LinkedIn, um, which leads me to have all kinds of dark thoughts about, they must have contacted Oracle.

And Oracle did something to disqualify me. And like if it weren’t for that, I would’ve had the job because they had no other

Christina: [00:16:00] Right.

Brett: Um, so I emailed them about, I was just like, Hey, I saw this job come back up. Is it the one I’ve already been passed over for or is it something else I can apply for?

And I never got a reply to that either. So I, I have fears, I have, I’m worried about what that means for my. Um, higher ability in other places, which makes me completely, um, reticent to continue with the job hunt. I’m still sending out resumes ’cause that’s easy to do. Um, don’t know if I want to go through another like four hour interview process and not get a job.

And like my independent coding is going really well. And I really think, I really think, um, there’s a lot of potential for just being independent at this point. And I figured out how to have like 401k and [00:17:00] health insurance and all of this as an independent developer. And the only thing keeping me from wholeheartedly pursuing that is that it, it scares Elle and those conversations are.

Difficult, they’re very emotionally charged and I get very defensive very quickly.

Christina: Right, right. I mean, and, and, and I, and I can, I can see both sides of that. I can see your side obviously, and that, like you, you’re like, I think this is viable. This is going to, you know, help me. I’m, I’ll be happier, I’ll be more productive. I can potentially make more money or, or as much, you know, doing this.

Um, and, but I also see their perspective, which is, you know, we need reliable income and, and, you know, and they remember potentially like what things were like before. Uh, and, and, and, and in that case, you know, it, it wasn’t always. Reliable, um, in, in some ways. And so I, I, I can see both of those perspectives.

I, I feel [00:18:00] like I will, I will just give you, from what I’ve observed from my friends who’ve gone through job hunts and, and just even myself going through interview processes at places where I, I didn’t ultimately end up taking jobs. Um, unfortunately, the, the, if you’re going to go with like a, a, even smaller places at this point, like bigger places, the, the process is going to be the same process you went through, uh, at Shopify.

It, it’s not going to, I mean, period. Like even if you have an in, even if it’s, feels like it’s a guarantee thing, it’s a slog. And, and I have friends who are going, who are actively seeking jobs right now, and it does become almost a full-time job to apply for other jobs, right? Like, that’s like, it becomes a, a whole thing and it’s shitty and it’s, and it’s bad.

But like that’s, you know, like ideally, I think what a lot of people like try to like. You know, optimize their, their, um, either, you know, when they’re being paid for unemployment or if they have severance, you know, from another place or whatever. They try to optimize their time for that, you know, for, for interview prep and for, you know, leak coding [00:19:00] exercises depending on what they’re doing.

And for, you know, outreach and, and that thing. Um, so I, I think that like the, the loop thing and, and, and then multiple rounds is unfortunately going to be, at least at bigger places, is just gonna be a reality. Smaller places might be different in terms of whether or not Oracle has blacklisted you or something. would, I would, my, my gut says that Shopify would not be able to get that information unless, until they were going to extend you an offer and, and so. Um, I don’t think that that happened in this case. If, if after the formal round, like usually they would, they would extend you a, a, a verbal offer and that’s when the background check process would start, where they would contact your former employer to verify employment and maybe to verify other things.

They’re not supposed to be able to ask about anything else. Like that’s not supposed to be a thing that’s allowed. Um, and now if people know people places and they ask questions, that’s different obviously, but like. You know, that’s not supposed to be a, a thing that happens, especially if you [00:20:00] weren’t like hired for, if you weren’t like, um, you know, fired for, um, like committing a crime or something.

And you know, like, and even then, I’m not even sure if that is information that they’re allowed to share, to be honest with you. Um, and so, um, but like, like if you’ve emb embezzled or something, right? Like I, I feel like if that would come up maybe on a criminal, um, uh, background check, but usually I, I don’t even know if they would be able to, if employers would be able to, like past employers would be able to share that sort of information.

So I don’t know why they pulled the job and then re-listed it. It’s possible that they found out that from the, the, the candidates they got, they just didn’t find people that they wanted for whatever reason. And then they re-listed in hopes of getting different candidates set. I have no idea. Um, but I, I, I feel like the only way that, that you had, you would just, it makes you feel any better that would.

Have, have them be like, oh, we blacklisted Brett would be, if they just happened to know someone who knew the details. Um, and, and [00:21:00] that

Brett: the thing though.

Christina: and that that

Brett: only. If

Christina: right and that feels

Brett: people at Oracle who would say anything bad about me,

Christina: Right. And so that makes me think that that’s not what happened.

Brett: yeah, I wish they would just like tran be transparent and tell me what was up. Like, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna sue anybody. Um, unless they, unless they had some protected reason that they admitted to,

Christina: right?

Brett: um, we didn’t hire you because we found out you’re pansexual, then yeah, that’d be a problem.

But I, I imagine that’s not the reason. Um, so yeah. Anyway, anyway. Can I tell you about Rhubarb’s salsa also?

Christina: Yeah, absolutely. Should we, uh, should we do our sponsor read first?

Brett: Should we, what time is

Christina: It’s, it’s 24 minutes in.

Brett: Okay? Yeah. Perfect time. Would you like to do the read?

Christina: I absolutely

Brett: for it.

Sponsor: Insta360

Christina: Today’s episode is sponsored by Insta 360, a leader in 360 degree action [00:22:00] camera technology. Their latest 360 degree camera. Insta 360 x five, launched April 22nd, and it shoots full 360 degree videos in incredible eight K 30 frames per second resolution.

Since it films in all directions at once, you don’t even need to aim the camera. Just hit record. Live in the moment and choose any angle you want in the edit with Insta three Sixty’s mobile app, it’s easy, smooth, and packed with AI tools for faster workflow. From immersive POVs to unique third person shots, X five is every camera you’ll need in one x five also includes Insta three sixty’s toughest ever lenses with drop resistance capabilities.

The lenses are completely replaceable, so you can risk the shot with confidence. The X five is also waterproof with IP six, eight waterproofing to 49 feet, and the invisible dive case for seamless 360 degrees stitching to 197 feet. To bag a free a 114 centimeter invisible selfie stick worth 24 99 with your Insta 360 X five standard package [00:23:00] purchase.

Head over to store dot insta three sixty.com and use the promo code Overtired available for the first 30 standard package purchases only. For more information, be sure to check out the link in our show notes. Once again, that is store dot insta three sixty.com. Use the promo code Overtired. Thanks, Insta 360 for, uh, your support of the show.

Brett: Yeah. Thank you.

Rhubarb Salsa and Cooking Adventures

Brett: Um, okay, so rhubarb salsa, my, we, we, we got a bunch of rhubarb. We ultimately, we’re probably gonna grow our own rhubarb, but right now we get a CSA. And one of the things that we’re getting in that, do you know what A CSA is?

Christina: I don’t.

Brett: Um, I can’t remember what it stands for, but it’s basically you pay a farm.

Or a farmer, um, a set price, and they give you a. Bundle of whatever’s in season that week and every week you get a big bag full of greens and root [00:24:00] vegetables and eggs and just like everything that a farm produces. Um, and it’s, you don’t always know what you’re gonna get, the one we’re doing right now.

You can go in at the beginning of the week and, uh, there’s like a checkbox you can like, choose. Here’s what’s available. You choose what you want. One of the things we’ve been getting is rhubarb. And I love a good like rhubarb strawberry crumble. It’s one of my favorite desserts. But we needed something else to do with the rhubarb.

So l made rhubarb salsa, which involves rhubarb and jalapenos and green peppers, and I’m not even sure what else. But then you ferment it for like a week and you get this kind of fizzy, spicy, sweet salsa out of it. And it, like the first bite I had of it, I like my brain just lit up. I was like, oh my God.

[00:25:00] Um, the last time that happened to me was when we made, um, soy, uh, what was it? It was a, it was like a white fish, uh, sauteed in a soy sauce, like maple syrup mixture in orange juice. And then with a wasabi mayo and a mango salsa topper in corn tortillas. So it was like a taco. And the first bite I had, I was manic at the time.

I had that, so I was already, like, my brain was lighting up like crazy and then I had a bite of that and it was like fucking doing cocaine. It was just. Insane. So now I’m stable and I had a bite of this salsa and immediately my brain was like, yes, this is it. So last night we had, uh, Chipotle black bean tacos with mango, with like a lime cre, and then this [00:26:00] rhubarb salsa on top of it.

And oh my God, it was so good. I, I had, I would never have thought, you know what we should do with this rhubarb is make a spicy taco salsa. And it worked out so well. I was amazed.

Christina: That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Brett: Do you, do you do much cooking?

Christina: No, no, but I, I, I, I mean, I, I, I, I aspire to maybe one day be in the place where I, no, I, I actually, I don’t know. I, no, I don’t. Um,

Brett: That’s just not, that’s not you.

Christina: yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s not, um, but, uh, um, yeah, I, uh. It’s not me, but I, I like people who do, like, I like, it’s weird ’cause I like to like watch like cooking shows and hear about people who cook stuff, but like, I have zero interest in actually doing it myself.

Um, uh, the the like, the things that I am interested in and like the time that I have to do stuff is just like, there are too many other things that I’ve [00:27:00] prioritized more, but I, but I enjoy like, watching people who are really into it, I’m like, oh, that seems, that’s really cool. Like, it’s not my thing, but like, that’s really cool for others.

Brett: I love cooking shows. I have an, a subscription that I got as a birthday present to Cook’s Illustrated, which I read like it’s so fucking hustler and it’s, it’s food porn. It’s all food porn. I watch multiple, I have multiple YouTube subscriptions to chefs. And even when I am at a phase of my life where I’m a practicing vegan, I still like watching like cooking shows that deal with more of an omnivore diet.

And even if I’m not going to eat the stuff, I love watching the techniques and I love watching food be transformed into dishes. Um, our corn, uh, we’re growing corn, it’s like eight inches tall now. And [00:28:00] the, the. Farmers Almanac saying is always Kneehigh by the 4th of July, and I think we might make it, um, and our squash, I right.

So behind me in this room, I don’t think you could, right there, can you see that little sprout right there?

Christina: Uh, a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett: Yeah. It’s blurry, but, uh, we’re, we’re sprouting squash plants in my office. Um, that will be transplanted probably today out into the garden. Uh, I have, I, I think I’ve talked about the three sisters planting method on this show before, but, so basically you have, you have corn and then you plant beans and the beans grow up the corn, and then you plant squash.

And the squash protects the roots from the sun. The big leaves of the squash plant do, so like the three, they’re, the three different plants are kind of synergistic in their growth cycle. Um, so we’re doing that [00:29:00] in a, in a. Four by six raised bed. Um, I’m pretty excited about it, just like seeing it all come together.

Um, but yeah, so I’m gonna be doing a lot of cooking with, and we have so many tomato plants and I don’t really like tomatoes, but when I grow things myself, I like them better. So I’m, look, I’ve had a elsman sauteing up some cherry tomatoes that have been just good enough to like, just eat, just pop in your mouth and just eat, um, sweet and acidic at the same time.

Anyway. Okay. Sorry, I went off on a, I went off on a rant.

Magic Mike Trilogy Discussion

Brett: I did want to talk to you about Magic Mike. Uh, you, you mentioned to me last week when I was on my kick of like, stick it and, and uh, bring it on and, um, pitch perfect and all of that. You, you mentioned Magic Mike, uh, and Step Up, all the Step Up movies, uh, and, and I was like, I hadn’t.[00:30:00]

I had seen Magic Mike. I think I had seen XXL. I had never seen the last dance, so I, and we also talked about movie bundles last week. So when I went looking on iTunes, ‘cause I couldn’t find it on any of my friends’ plexes, um, I went on iTunes and there was sure enough a bundle for the Magic Bike trilogy.

So I just bought it and I watched them all and the first one has a ton of heart and like I was it, not only was it just a amazing dance moves, it was like dramatic and I had an emotional response to it. XXL and the last dance were good in so far as they had great dance moves, great choreography. I. Great acting, but they didn’t have the heart for me that the first one had.

Um, and [00:31:00] before the show, you were talking about how you saw, I think you were talking about XXL,

Christina: Yeah.

Brett: second one. You saw it in a theater with a bunch of people who were really into it.

Christina: Yes.

Brett: me about that.

Christina: Okay. So, gosh, I guess this was a decade ago and, um, whenever it came out and I, I saw it, it wasn’t even the first week that it was out. I think it had already been out. And this is what was impressive. ’cause it did really well at the box office, you know, especially for a sequel and, and a fairly, you know, not like a super high budget thing either.

Like the first movie was a big surprise hit because it was kind of like this dumb, you know, like. Like concept. And you’re like, what do you mean? Like, it’s about this guy who’s like a male stripper and, and you know, you know, doing the dancing thing. Like, what do you mean we’re doing this? And it’s like loosely based off of like Sha Tibs own experiences.

And then you’re like, and it’s Steven Soderberg, and you’re like, why in the hell is Steven Soderberg making a movie like this? Right? Like, like this, this is like, you know, the Ocean’s 11 guy and like the, you know, like the out of sight guy. Like this is like a, a big time, like, [00:32:00] you know, respected like artistic director.

Like what the, what the fuck is he doing? And then to your point, it’s great, it has heart. Like the, the dancing was awesome. Like, it was just like this complete surprise. Um, and then the sequel, I, I loved, I didn’t like it more than the original, but I really, really liked it. It’s, it’s essentially the same movie as Pitch Perfect Two, but I prefer it to, to pitch Perfect two.

A ton. Um, and I think part of it, when I look back on it was, I was telling you this before we started recording, I saw it in New York City, like at a theater in Chelsea and like a, a Wednesday or a Thursday afternoon, like I said, it wasn’t even release week. And I went with my, my coworker, um, Heidi, and the theater was, was pretty full and it was almost all women.

And everybody was like so into it, like, into it, into it. Like they were, you know, they were, we were all cheering and we were just having like the best time. And it was one of those movie experiences. Like I look back on, I’m like, man, that was really cool because you don’t expect, I dunno, I didn’t expect, especially like in New York City, like, it wasn’t even like a, a [00:33:00] suburban like kind of theater.

It was like. It was just like a, a local kind of neighborhood theater, and it was just like a, an afternoon like show. It was like six o’clock. It was like, you know, we went directly after work. It wasn’t one of those things that you would expect there to be a lot of people there. Um, even back then, like now, you definitely wouldn’t expect a lot of people, um, the movie theater, but, but even back then, I was like surprised, like so many people were, were in the theater.

And then the audience though, we just had like the time of our lives. Like we just with, with all the, the, you know, dance sequences and when they’re, they’re, you know, going to the, the various parties, you know, at the, um, you know, like fraternities and stuff. Like, it was just, it was freaking, it was just really, really fun.

And so. Don’t know for me, like that heightened that experience so much that I was like, man, I, and I don’t even know if I’ve watched it since then to be honest with you, but I, I bought the, I also bought the iTunes bundle, um, but I was just like, man, this was a great movie. I had a great time watching this.

And, and I, I had, I think, seen some of the dance sequences again. Um, but I was like, man, I just had like, [00:34:00] the time of my life. Um, the third one, it was good, it wasn’t the same, but I also didn’t see it in the theater. And at that point, you know, so much time had passed between like the second and the third one that I, I, I feel like,

Brett: The third one really tried to have heart.

Christina: it did and sort of where it came back for that

Brett: be dramatic, and it just, it didn’t hit me the way the first one

Christina: No. And that, that’s hard, right? Like you almost never do. Right. Like, I mean, in all honesty, the fact that we’re talking about, like genuinely saying that there are three Magic Mike movies and that the first one is really good and I really like the second one as well. But the third one, like none of them are bad.

Brett: Hmm

Christina: Is actually hysterically. Like that’s, uh, that’s, this should not be an actual conversation that we’re genuinely having where we’re like, no, you can actually watch all three of these movies. And they’re pretty good. Right? Because usually how these sorts of things would work historically would be you have one that’s really good and then you maybe have a sequel that’s okay.

And then the, [00:35:00] the by, by the time you get to the end, we’re at like direct to to, to video. It’s a cash grab and it’s terrible. Right? And like, it wouldn’t even be a thing where you’d be like, yeah, it’s, it’s worth your time. And this is one where I would be like, no. I mean, it’s not gonna be the greatest thing you’ll ever see, but it’s got some hard, and it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a solid ending.

You know, they also at that point, like they were doing like the Vegas, um, show and, and things like that, right? So it, it became this franchise, which is wild again, because I remember when that movie came out in like 2011, I think it was 20 11, 20 12, and, um, like. We were a shocked that Soderberg was making this movie, and then B, you know, that it was this hit.

And then C like when I look at it, I’m like, this, like launched this whole fucking franchise of other things. And you’re like, okay, you know, who would’ve thought like this movie that like, was kind of a punchline, you know, for, for like film snap types, like became like an actual franchise.

Brett: right.

Audience Participation and Movie Experiences

Brett: So let’s talk about the difference that [00:36:00] audience, we’ll say audience participation makes. Um, so like if you were, if Kid Today and someone said, you should see Rock Rocky Horror Picture Show, and you loaded it up on Netflix or wherever it is, and you watched it in a room on your own, you’d be like, all right, it’s kind of kitschy, it’s kind of funny.

Uh, I, okay, I don’t understand the, but if you see it at like a small theater with a crowd that knows all the songs and participates, holy shit, you walk out of there going, oh my God, this might be the greatest movie ever made. I saw. I saw the Blair Witch Project at a small theater in Minneapolis as a pre-release.

It hadn’t come out yet. Nobody knew. Nobody knew it was fake yet.

Christina: Oh man.

Brett: I’m in there with a crowd of people who are, they’re movie lovers, and they’re there to see a movie [00:37:00] and the like. There was a, a woman next to me, like the scary part. She was like grabbing my knee, like without thinking about it. Just like so scared, like just freaking out.

And the whole audience like audible gasps, like people, like, just like freaking out through the movie. And it changed it. Like it was like when I first saw it, I was like, oh my God, this might be like the best horror movie I’ve ever seen. And then I watched it years later alone in a room. And it was, it was okay.

Christina: Yeah. But but that

Brett: audience participation when you’re in a, when you’re in a theater, it’s same with going to a Star Trek movie or a Star Wars movie in the theater versus watching it at home on Netflix.

Christina: No, totally. I.

Brett: Or on Disney Plus, whatever. A huge difference.

Christina: no. Totally, totally. And it’s, it’s interesting you say that about Blair Witch, because I remember when that came out. They ran, they ran this, I don’t know if it was on Sci-fi [00:38:00] network, it was on something they ran on cable this, and it turned out that it was like a, a, you know, a whole like campaign thing.

And, and I guess they made it clear that it was promo for the movie, but we didn’t really know that then. And I remember watching it and we all thought it was like, oh, the Legend of the Blair, which I think that’s what it was called. And it was before the movie came out and we all thought it was real. And so it got people hyped for the movie.

It was like, holy shit, they found this documentary footage and we all have to go see this movie. By the time I saw the movie, um, which was like a day or two later, you know, it was already out that, that the whole thing was fake. And, and I still had fun when I saw it in the theater, but it, but it was, it was lessened, right?

Like, like it wasn’t, it wasn’t the same thing. Like, I remember ’cause I was, I was like 15 or 16. When that movie came out. And so I, I was like really hyped to see it. And that was like, that summer, there were just amazing movies. That’s probably one of the best movie years ever was the Blair Witch Year and, um, 1999 and like genuinely, like, [00:39:00] I think there was even a book about it, but like, that is like one of the, the best movie years ever, ever, ever.

Um, and um, like you had the sixth Sense that year and you had Fight Club and you had American Beauty and you had like, there were like so

Brett: like, I think it was 94, 95 for Hard Rock when like all the use your illusions and the black Metallica, black album and ac like everyone. Yeah. All within like a year. Yeah.

Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like, like the 1999 movie year was like, like a goaded goad year, but, but bla witch was like this phenomenon, right? And, and I, I, that would’ve been so cool to see that, like, pre-release before any of that where like, you think that it’s real, like with people who are really into it.

Because when I saw it in the theater, like people were into it, but, you know, at this point I’d already been spoiled. The internet, you know, was, was only, you know, the web was only a few years old at this point, but I’d already been spoiled, like by the internet, that it was fake from like the movie forums.

Um, and like, I think that maybe regular people who were seeing it, it hadn’t quite like, passed onto them yet. Like, I don’t think it was quite like on the [00:40:00] radio yet that like, oh yeah, this

Brett: Not, not terminally online people. Yeah.

Christina: right. And I already was terminally online even though I was like on freaking 56 K dial up, um, because we, um, didn’t live in an area that could get cable yet.

But, um, like it was, but yeah, so it wasn’t, it wasn’t the same thing, but that would’ve been so cool. And you know, you’re right, like. A a, a mediocre movie can be made infinitely better with a good theatrical experience. And a good movie can also be made like significantly better. Right? And the inverse is true too.

Like a good movie can be weakened if you have a bad crowd. Like I remember seeing Castaway and which is a good movie. But that movie, there’s like a big portions of it that are silence. And for some reason there was like some like parents who had like some 2-year-old child with them in the movie who kept talking throughout the whole thing.

And like, here’s the thing, I’m sort of sympathetic to parents at movies, sort of meaning this is a r rated like film that like, in my opinion, like, [00:41:00] fuck you. Like I don’t give a shit if you can’t find a babysitter. Like there are 200 other people who paid money to be there. Like I don’t actually give a shit.

Like, especially opening weekend, like fuck off. Um, and they were rude about it. Like, ’cause the thing is, is like, ’cause I’ve, I’ve, you know, had to take kids to movies before and like if they’re gonna cause a disturbance, then the correct move is you walk out, like that’s what you do. Like you walk outta the theater and you calm them down.

And then if you come back in, you do. And if not, that’s, that’s just the breaks. Like it’s, it’s, it’s shitty. Like parents don’t at me, but like, it’s not my responsibility that, that you like made the decisions that you made. Right? Like there, there’s a social contract in my opinion that if it’s not a, if it’s a kid movie, it’s different.

But if it’s not a kid movie, like. Whatever. Anyway, this kid, like, talked and was crying and was being, you know, a kid like throughout the entire, like, large checks of the movie. And actually, I will never forget this, ’cause one of the funniest things happened at the end when like the credits come up, you know, the, the, this family’s kind of like leaving or whatever, and they, they, they waited.

Like if it were me, I would’ve gotten outta that movie theater as fast as [00:42:00] humanly possible just to like, avoid anything. And they almost seemed proud, but somebody, somebody called out next time use a condom. And, uh, and it, which is still to this day, like one of the greatest, like, and everybody applauded like when that happened, like everybody literally in the theater, like applauded.

And, and that still is like one of the funniest like moments I’ve ever witnessed. Next time use a condom.

Brett: I don’t remember what movie it was, but I was in the theater and I was in the second section and someone in the second row from the top of the first section was texting on their phone, and it had a really bright screen and everyone, everyone was grumbling about it. And eventually I yelled something like, Jesus Christ, shut your fucking phone off.

And the whole theater applauded. At least everyone behind this person was like, yes.

Christina: Well, [00:43:00] I guess because that’s the thing, right? Like it’s one of those things, it’s like, you know, um, people don’t realize yeah, how bright screens are and that that will completely distract, like the experience. And it’s funny because, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m talking about how like, movies are better when you see them with people, which is true.

But the inverse is also true. And this is part, this is kind of why like movie theaters are struggling, is that so many people have had bad experiences where people are texting or people are talking, or people are drunk, or people are, you know, they have their kids or

Brett: and you can completely avoid that at

Christina: You can at home, but, but you also miss out on those magical experiences of like, you know, 80, 90 people, you know, watching Magic Mike on a Thursday, you know, like, like, like literally like women, like, like very happy.

And, and we were like in our, in our, you know, twenties, thirties, older, right? Like, there wasn’t like teenage girls, like this was like, and it wasn’t like college, college. These were like, like, you know, people who like. Left work, you know, and like come and gone to the movies, you know, at like, like five or six o’clock at bed in the afternoon, right?

Like this wasn’t, you know, this sort of crowd that you would kind of expect that [00:44:00] sort of thing one, which was awesome. And, and that can make it, or, or, you know, going to like a, a midnight, you know, uh, premier of, of a big, you know, now I think it’s, it’s, it’s less of a thing just because there’ve been so many of them, but I mean, um.

I will say this, I saw, um, end game, the, the final, you know, Avengers movie until they do like the re routes or whatever. I saw that in, were we in Sweden? We were in, yeah.

Marvel Movie Experience in Stockholm

Christina: We, we were in Stockholm and, um, my, uh, one of my colleagues, he, he, they, they got us all tickets. There were like, like 10 of us who, who were there, you know, for a work thing.

And, and there were Swedish subtitles, but it was in English and like made like t-shirts for us. So we all had like, you know, kind of like Avengers or Marvel themed like shirts and like the, you know, the, it wasn’t like, um, uh, Swedish movie theaters, at least the one we went to, like are not as nice as like the big US multiplexes.

But it was still a nice experience. But like everybody, like it was opening day, like had the time of their life. And I will never forget, I will never forget, like watching like the final big like Marvel movie like in another [00:45:00] country, you know, with like a whole

Brett: No, that’s

Christina: thing. Like, that was so cool.

Brett: That’s interesting.

Disappointment with Endgame

Brett: So I watched Endgame at home with my partner and it was like a remote group watch with, with Elle’s sister and. I fell asleep. Like that movie to me was, it was, it was overdrawn full of too many inside references. Um, just kind of a travesty.

Star Wars Prequels Hype and Letdown

Brett: But to that end, do you remember the hype around the Star Wars prequels before the first one

Christina: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, I, I do. ’cause I was a hater. I was a big hater.

Brett: I don’t know if you are familiar with the fact that punk rockers are generally nerds and, um, when, when, so I was in Minneapolis when the first Greek will came out, and the lead singer of my [00:46:00] band, who he was. A dangerous, dangerous person who everyone was scared of. But he had a big Rebel Alliance logo on the back of his punk rock spike jacket, and he led the charge to get about 200 punk rockers to pitch in money, to rent out a whole small theater

Christina: Oh my

Brett: for the release of the first

Christina: Of, of, of episode one. Wow.

Brett: yeah, and we both know it was not good, like it was full, but when you’re in a room full of nerds who have that kind of hype built up and they’re

Christina: Oh, no. You’re gonna

Brett: because they want to love it

Christina: right. You, no, you’re, you’re, you’re, it’s, it’s gonna be the, the crash comes the next day. The

Brett: Yep. Exactly. Exactly.

Christina: you go, what the fuck was this? Why was this jar, jar beings puppet there? This child actor is terrible. Like this whole thing is, and, and you know, like, for, for, for me.

Brett: lot of talk in the community after

Christina: Yeah. For [00:47:00] me, my, my, my big takeaway was ’cause I didn’t expect the movie to be good because I didn’t really think the prequels were that good. And I was like, deep into my, my, I’m, I’m, I’m, you know, a, a, a film snob phase. Um, and look, I was correct, the, the, the prequels were, were trash and I saw all of them.

But like, it was one of those things where all my friends wanted to go. So I had to go. And then I remember like watching and I was like, why in the fuck would Natalie Portman do this to her career? Which is honestly still a question I have. Right? I’m like, you know, it didn’t, it didn’t drill anything.

’cause she’s so talented. But like, she’s literally the most talented actress, like of her generation, like, in terms of a sheer talent perspective, in my opinion. I think Natalie Portman is, is the most talented. And, and I’m like, what the fuck are you doing? You know? But like, but at the moment, I mean, I, I think I was a hater, so I don’t think that I was like that enamored with episode one, but I saw it at midnight with, you know, people and like.

It’s infectious, right?

Batman vs Superman Premiere

Christina: Like I even saw, God, what was it I saw, I went to the, the world premiere of, um, of Batman versus Superman at, um, radio City [00:48:00] Music Hall. And like, you know, the cast is there and the whole thing. And like, and it was, you know, this and Radio City is a, a huge, huge venue, especially like if you use it as a movie theater.

And even then, because of, you know, you’re with like however many, you know, hundreds of people might have been a, you know, a few thousand, I’m not sure. Um, you’re pro probably a few thousand. Um, you’re like, you’re hyped on it. You’re like, okay, all right. Zach Snyder, I’m, I’m, I’m in. And it wasn’t until like the car ride, like back that I was like starting to thinking about.

I was like, well, okay, I like Jesse Eisenberg, but like. So much of this didn’t make sense. And then like, then the next day I’m like, oh yeah, no, this was, this was hot garbage. But like, at the time, you know, like they, they kind of get you, like if you’re not, if you’re not, you know, uh, thinking critically, it, it, and, and, and I look back at that experience, I’m not mad.

I saw the movie in the theater, um, especially the way that I did. Um,

Brett: Yeah,

Christina: but

Brett: to the theater is fun. It doesn’t, even if the movie’s shitty, [00:49:00] like, and often, often, if it’s really shitty and the group experience is everyone’s pissed off, it’s still fun

Christina: Oh,

Brett: part of a group and you’re having like, it’s like going to a soccer game where your team loses. It’s still fun.

Christina: totally.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis

Christina: Well, I saw, I saw for instance, Ford Coppola’s, uh, movie Megalopolis in the theater with my friend Colin, um, back in like October. And there were only a few of us in the theater, and, and we got in trouble because we talked during like, the previews and I was like, okay.

Like,

Brett: What,

Christina: and I’m like, fuck off. Like, I, I’m gonna talk during the preview, it’s not a big deal. But we didn’t like talk, but like the movie itself. Um, and, and we didn’t get like a special guest, like during our, our, you know, screening or whatever, which, which some cities did, which is, which is fine, but like, it’s this long ass movie and it’s fucking weird as hell when the whole time I’m watching it, I’m like, I cannot wait to watch this high out of my mind because if this is this like, bizarre, like stone sober, like I can’t wait to see this in another setting.

But it is one of those things where I’m gonna be honest with you, um, I don’t think, I mean, [00:50:00] look, I actually really respect the fact that Francis Ford Coppola was like, yeah, this is what I’m gonna do with my money and my legacy. I’m gonna spend a hundred million dollars plus my own money on, um, this. And it’s, it’s. It’s interesting, like I’m glad the film was made. It is not a good movie, but I’m, I’m glad that films like that exist. Right? Like, I’m glad that he did what he did. Um, and, and I think it takes balls to just be like, and I also really respect the fact that like, his kids were in no way not supportive. Like they were like, it’s your money dad.

Do it. Right? Because, you know, there are a lot of kids who be like, dad, that’s our future. You know, don’t, don’t, don’t spend $150 million of your money. Because the studio looked at it and they were like, this is insane. We’re not gonna pay for this. um, and, and yeah. Um, but like the, some of the acting performances were actually really good.

The disappointing thing is that like. John Voight, who I’ve never seen give a good performance ever was actually good. So was Shy [00:51:00] LaBuff. So like the two most canceled people, like in the movie actually gave like the two best performances, which is, it is what it is. But like it was, it was a weird and kind of bizarre movie.

And in its long as I’ll get out, but I was just like, I’m so glad I’m seeing this in a theater with like my friend and like three, like octogenarians, because those were the only like five of us who were like watching this movie. Like when it, when it came out and, and it was funny because we had a choice.

We were like, we could see that. Or Joker Two and Man, did we choose correctly because Joker two I tried to watch in a hotel, like after it, you know, it was out for like two or three weeks and then it came to HBO and I fell asleep like 25 minutes into it. I was like, I can’t, I can’t with this. Like as soon as they started singing, I was like, oh, okay, so this is real, real, real fucking bad.

Um. Wound up having like, literally like one of like the, the longest running number one hit songs ever. Which is funny. The, the, the Lady Gaga, uh, Bruno Morris song, which I don’t even like, but like, [00:52:00] man, man, that movie is a, was a colos. Flub. I feel like even in the theater, that would be one of those scenarios where it’d be like, no, you know what?

I, I have better things to do with my, with my time. But megalopolis, no, I didn’t. And I’m like, I’m incredibly grateful that I gotta see that in the theater

Brett: I never

Christina: five people. Yeah. I mean, and I, I can’t necessarily recommend it. Um, certainly not sober.

Brett: the way I wanna spend an evening. Although I could get, I have mushrooms.

Christina: Yeah, if you have mush. Okay. Honestly, honestly, like, like under like the, like UN UN like high or, or on mushrooms or something, I could definitely see it being.

Certainly interesting. ’cause the thing is, is like, it has some interesting ideas. It’s about like this idea, it kind of takes place like in this esque kind of world, and this, this kind of builder, this, this, this great guy who’s wanting to kind of like, he’s trying to like chase, I think like a former love.

I don’t remember all the story, but like, there’s, it, it’s, it’s like a, it’s like a more modern, like esque like Roman empire type of situation, but yet it takes place. But like, Roman’s [00:53:00] now New York and, and, and there’s magical kinds of stuff. I don’t know. It’s, it’s a, it’s a weird fucking movie. But, um, so, but the acting, like the acting is actually good and the, and this story is, is bizarre and, and this special effect stuff is weird, but, um, but like Aubrey Plaza is in it.

She’s really good. Chloe Fineman from SNL is in it. She’s really good. Um, you know, Adam Driver, who is always good, but like he’s. You know, other thing, like, it, it’s a really good cast and, and obviously everybody shows up ’cause they’re like, well it’s France, Ford Coppola, you know, even if this is a shit show, I will work with him.

And, and like that’s, I would love to see like a true, like behind the scenes like documentary, like oral history of how that movie was made. ’cause it took like 30 years he’d been trying to get it made for forever and everybody was like, no. And then finally he was like, well, fuck you. I’ll just, I’ll sell my, you know, um, vineyard and I’ll just do it myself. Okay. You know what, man? Like, you gave us the Godfather and, and the conversation and like, you know, uh, like you, you, you, [00:54:00] you gave us so much cinema that like, you know, apocalypse Now, like you, you can do, you can be a fucking weirdo. Like, I’m, I’m good with that, so.

Movie Recommendation Apps

Brett: So speaking of recommending movies, are there any good? So when some, I’ve been watching a ton of movies lately and some nights I’m like, I wish I could find a movie like that. Had the same hit as X and not x this, but like as blank, and I have not found a decent app. For even related movie recommendations, let alone like here’s, I would love an app where I just, it gave me a list and I was like, yes, I like this.

No, I don’t like this. And it came out and would give me decent recommendations. I have not found an app that gives me anything I actually wanna watch yet.

Christina: I, I, I feel like there probably, I’m sure there are probably a [00:55:00] million things like that, but it’s funny you say that because that’s actually a thing that I’ve been vibe coding for me and some of my friends is like a movie and TV show recommender. And so what, what we’ve been doing is basically like, ’cause a lot of times, like we have a, a group chat that there’s like, you know, 14 or 15 of us in it.

That are, you know, people are, are intermittently like active, but like people will recommend like TV shows or movies or whatever. And a lot of us have similar tastes. And so I was like, okay, well we need to have a way where we can like basically, you know, each add a recommendations and, and like say who recommended it.

And, and then I, you know, I was planning around May I stuff and I was like, well put in like similar to shows and, and I will say at least so far, I mean, I don’t think it’s like a perfect thing to do what you’re doing, but like when I, you know, kind of the thing that I’ve been vibe coding has actually.

Shown me like pretty decent similarity stuff right now. I think the cool thing would be like, so it’s like if I enter in like the Pit, then you might also like, you know, TV shows like, like er or you [00:56:00] know, like, um, you know, Grey’s Anatomy or, or, or whatever. Um, or, or if you like, you know, the, the, the studio you might like, um, you know, hacks or Broad City or, you know, in some other types of, of shows, you know, kind of comedy things in that, in that vein, I don’t know how deep it goes.

Um, I feel like that would be the thing that would be really, really good. But, um, that’s something I’ll look into, um, if I ever get this app in a state that I, I can share it more broadly,

Brett: I think what I would be interested in, and it’s entirely possible that nobody has tagged movies in this respect, but I would be interested in movies that had the same vibe,

Christina: yes and

Brett: subject material, but the same like vibe. Like it’s gonna make me feel

Christina: Right.

Brett: similar. So like I ended up watching neighbors and, and Neighbors to the.

Christina: I, I love those

Brett: movie. Yeah, they’re good. And [00:57:00] ultimately, like I, they’re just funny. They’re not, they, they have no like dramatic emotional impact,

Christina: no, no, no. They’re, they’re just, they’re good to have on the background.

Brett: and I was looking for another movie like that where it’s just stupid. Where it’s just stupid frat boy humor and, and what’s his name? What’s the main character?

Uh, the actor

Christina: That Seth Rogan.

Brett: Seth Rogan. Yeah. Like that kind of like Seth Rogan kind of feel, maybe without Seth Brogan. Um, and that is really hard to like qu qualify. Um, and I don’t know if there’s like even a database you could access that was like,

Christina: There probably are. Oh, I’m sure there are. I’m sure that like Rotten Tomatoes and, and like IMDB, which their API is, is, um, like they, they price it specifically that they don’t want people to use it. I don’t know how well people have used like the, the, the, the movie [00:58:00] database for things like that. I’m sure people have have done

Brett: TMD, the movie database, actually their API is solid.

Christina: is, and that’s what I’m using for my

Brett: info out of it.

Christina: Right. That’s, that, that’s what I’m using for, um, for my like, you know, like, uh, share a show, um,

Brett: Yeah. I built TMDB into Search Link and it is so much better and more accessible than

Christina: Yeah, IMDB has better data, but the, the pricing, like it is, it’s one of those things where like you have to call to basically get a price and, and have like a, a, like a Amazon like level like service agreement. Like it is not a thing. Like you could scrape it, I guess, but like, it is not like in terms of doing it from an API level, like they, they don’t want you to use it, is is, is really what it comes down to.

But like, I’m sure that, that like Rotten Tomatoes and other things, like, I’m sure that they have that stuff. I just doubt that they, they wanna make it accessible. But I’m sure there are people who’ve built sentiment analysis things based on movies. Oh, you know, what would actually be the perfect thing to use for this?

And I don’t know if they have an API, I’m, I’m gonna check this right now. Letterbox, [00:59:00] letterbox is the thing that would, that would be the, the best way, uh,

Brett: They would have

Christina: do this. Um, because. Yep. There is an API. Um, and so, uh, I don’t know exactly, um, like what, what it all, what it all, uh, has, but they, they do have, um, an API ’cause that would be the thing.

Brett: a, I built a really simple movie search using letterbox API, but I’d never dug into anything close to sentiment analysis or reviews or anything like that.

Christina: Yeah, because I bet that, I mean, because, because if anybody was gonna do, like, if you, if there was any place that you could trust for that, like that would be the thing, right? Where if there are users you follow or things that you like, like, ’cause that’s, that to me would be way better than like, whatever aggregate data like Rotten Tomatoes has, um, would be, you know, polling people who put something like on their list and if people liked it or didn’t like, you know what I mean?

Like, I feel like that would be the thing that if you were able to plug into that, I’d be like, okay, if enough people who watch this movie also watch this one and [01:00:00] like it, then you can see that there’s correlation because usually there is, right. Like that, that was kind of how like the, the musical genome thing, um, project worked with, with things like last FM and stuff like that was that they were able to, you know, show yeah, there is a certain correlation for these things and, um, uh, not always, and, and, and you can kind of get stuck into a.

A rut of just like, you know, this is kind of Spotify’s problem. A little bit of like, just like listening to everything sounds the same. But, um, at the same time, I will say my Spotify recommendations, for instance, are, uh, it, it’s, it’s embarrassing how much better they are than, than Apple musics, for example, like Apple Musics and, and I, I listen to more music on Apple Music actually.

And so Apple Music should have a better way to recommend things to me. And they don’t. All they do is just recommend things that I’ve already listened to where, and they always have, but been able to, especially on recommendations like Spotify will actually introduce me to new artists, whereas Apple will not, the only way I ever introduced to anything new on Apple [01:01:00] is on their human curated playlist, where if I happen to see that they’ve added something, you know, for a new thing and I go, oh, I don’t know who this is.

And I go, oh shit, this is really good. But then that didn’t come to me like I had to seek that out. And that’s human creation, right? Whereas Spotify, like Discover Weekly will give me sh like bangers and,

Brett: week I find new stuff.

Christina: Definitely. Right. And, and even the autoplay stuff will introduce me to like, I’ll be listening like, oh, who is this?

And I’ll be like, oh, okay. I didn’t, I, I’ve heard of this artist, but I didn’t ever listen to them before, you know, and I, I like this. Right?

Privacy Concerns with Media Consumption

Christina: So, um, yeah, I feel like Plex, I think is like having like their, they’re always having business model problems because, you know, it’s hard to make money when essentially you are, you know,

Brett: Your business is Piring.

Christina: Correct.

And, and you’re trying to pretend like it’s not. But it is. And like we all know that it is. And, and I, I, I’m like, in my case, a lot of times I’m like, I legally own many of these movies and TV shows, but it is more convenient to have them in the format that I have them in. Right. [01:02:00] Um, and, and then you obviously want your friends to have it, but like, I feel like this is an area where Plex, especially if they did ratings and whatnot, like could really offer up great recommendations and stuff if they were able to kind of, you know, use that kind of thing.

Like they would have really good insights into that. But.

Brett: would be so cool.

Christina: But, but I also understand that they probably don’t wanna get too into that A, because their users would freak out and have freaked out anytime they were even like, oh, you’re watching this, you know, sharing what you’re watching with your friends.

Which to be clear, I don’t really love that feature. I turned that off immediately. I was like, I don’t need people to see what I’m watching. Like, if I wanted to share, great, but I don’t want that auto on. That’s, it’s like the, it’s also like the Spotify listening thing. I’m like, Uhuh, no, no, no, no. You don’t need to know how many times I listened to this song in a row.

Like, that’s, that, that’s family business, right? That’s family business. Like this is, you don’t need like my, my like, you know, weirdness does not need to be your whole thing. Um, and, and I think content that I’m watching is even more personal, right? Like, because

Brett: just as a side note, [01:03:00] that’s, that’s all public for me. If you go to Brett turp.com/soundtrack, you can see what I’m listening to. But my script will, if I listen to a track repeatedly, it only shows it once, but if you hover over

Christina: Oh, you can see how many

Brett: uh, like 144 plays.

Christina: wild. Which is, which is awesome. And again, like if you wanna share that, I, I’m like, not opposed to it, and I might even be interested in doing something like that myself. What I am opposed to is being like, okay, if I wanna like, let people service that on my own listening page, great.

But I don’t want them to just be able to click on my profile any random person and be like, oh, this is what Christina’s listening to right now. Like, fuck that Uhuh. Um, but like, and, and I feel kinda the same way about like Plex. Like I might actually enjoy a, like a, a a slash now feature. Like, this is what I’m watching, this is what I’m listening to, whatever.

Um, but I also turn that stuff off on steam. I’m like, no, you don’t need to see how many hours have been playing Star Valley.

Brett: You know where it kills me is on, um, on [01:04:00] my fuck, what’s it called? What’s Facebook’s, uh, or meta’s? Um, goggles.

Christina: Oh, the, oh, the Oculus.

Brett: Oculus on my Oculus, like for a while it was sharing how much time I was spending in different apps, and I have one that I literally only use for porn.

Christina: Right, right,

Brett: so I was getting questions from friends who are like, Hey, what are you, what are you doing with, uh, because they were like, he’s spending a lot of time there.

It must be a good app.

Christina: right, right.

Brett: I, I, I’m, I’m an honest guy. I

Christina: you are No,

Brett: what I was doing with it, but then I shut off that fucking sharing feature.

Christina: Well, no, that’s the thing, right? I’m like, I’m like, I don’t need people to know like what I’m watching or what I’m listening to. You know what I mean? Because Yeah. Because sometimes yes, we are adults and like people, and I’m like, A, I don’t wanna share that.

And b, like, I don’t want you to know that. Right? And, and, and I will go this far farther. I don’t wanna know what you’re doing. Right? Like, I like all power to you, but I don’t actually, when I see this, like, I don’t actually wanna know that [01:05:00] my friend was watching porn on their plex or on their oculus or, or whatever.

Like, do it. I love that for you. I don’t actually want to, I don’t need to know this. Um, and, and, you know, uh, I, I’ve seen that on Steam too, where people like, I’ll see like their sex games and I’m like, cool. Awesome. Really did not need to know that.

Brett: Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. Didn’t need to know about it.

Christina: I didn’t need to know about your sex simulator, which is like, awesome.

That’s, that’s like the happy for you. But like, no, the same way. Like, you don’t need to know that I’ve spent like 600 hours playing the sims. Like, these are just things that we don’t need to, like, unless we choose to share, we need to do.

Bill Atkinson’s Legacy

Christina: Um, I know, I know we’re, we’re coming up on gratitude, but I did wanna mention real briefly, this is kind of a, a sad and weird segue, but, um, bill Atkinson, uh, a computing pioneer, um, uh, died and, uh, he was the creator of Mac Paint and, um, uh, HyperCard and the whole, he was able to figure out how to make windows overlap onto one another.

[01:06:00] Uh, and, and the quick draw framework, uh, you know, for the Mac, which was like a, a massive, massive thing. He created kind of like the, the modern, like, kind of like a dithering um, uh, algorithm.

Brett: owe a lot to him.

Christina: We owe a, a ton to him. And I, I don’t think I ever met him, but I obviously was like aware of him and like, I don’t know, like hypercar alone, like is a direct reason why like I got into computers and, and building stuff because like I went hypercar to the web and um, when I was in elementary school.

And so, uh, like, you know, thoughts to his family, but what a great legacy.

Brett: I should ask Sal Sago for a quote about Bill Atkinson passing. I bet, I bet. I bet that would make a good blog post,

Christina: I bet it would.

Brett: with Al Sago about Bill Atkinson.

Christina: Totally, totally. Um, Andy Hertzfeld, um, folklore.org, which is basically just in a, kind of a hibernated state now, but, but it’s, it’s still like [01:07:00] archived. Um, which has like all the stories about the development of the original Macintosh. Um, there are, are a ton of, of, of, um, you know, bill Atkinson stories, um, in there.

Um, and I was watching this video, um, I’ll, I’ll put it in the show notes, um, uh, yesterday, uh, that somebody edited together, like some of the first demos, um, from the first Mac and, and like seeing like, uh, bill show off Mac paint, um, to people and like hearing the applause. Um, I mean, it, it was such a fucking good demo and, and it’s just so

Brett: a link to that, add that to the show

Christina: Yeah, I’m going to, yeah, I’m going to. Um, because it, it was so cool to see and, and it was also wild, just like looking back and like seeing how young all those guys were and, and, and, and the one female member of the, of the deaf team, um, uh, were when they, you know, when, when the Mac, um, came out and, um, just freaking like unbelievable talents level.

But, but, but, but he, uh, [01:08:00] um, his, his demo of his of Mac pain is so good and everybody’s applauding and, and then, um, he passes it off to the guy who did McElroy, right? And, and that guy like takes a second to say, um, you know, uh, you know, Mac pain is great, but like without quick draw or whatever Bill’s, quick draw, like, none of us would actually be up here.

None of this would be possible. And, and it was just such a really nice like, um, like pure kind of moment of like this guy’s friend being like, no, like I’m, I’m excited to show up, but I’m showing off, but. You know, like props to my friend Bill. It was really, really nice. Um,

MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis and Butthead

Brett: of super cuts, and we don’t have to talk about this at all, but I will put it in the show notes. There was someone put together a. Complete playlist of every video ever shown on MTV’s head, banger’s ball.

Christina: my gosh.

Brett: Yeah, it is quite the trip down memory lane. Um, [01:09:00] it was kind of fascinating, but I, uh, I, I know that’s not for everybody, but for, for me, I grew up on

Christina: Yeah,

Brett: Headbanger’s ball, on my pirated, my pirated cable running into the secret TV I had in the closet in my bedroom.

Christina: That’s wild. I, I mean, I remember head bangers ball. I was much more of like a, I guess 120 minutes person. Um, if I had to pick. And even then I was late 120 minutes. ’cause I was, I was too, I was a little bit too young for all of that. But like, I, I remember like the mythos of that and That’s awesome.

That’s so cool that they did that. ’cause like that’s ’cause that was like an institution and, um, I, I spent

Brett: like the crossover between Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis and Butthead was

Christina: Well, and that’s what I watched. I loved, I loved, loved, loved Beavis and Butthead and I was much older when I realized kind of like what they were kind of like making fun of and whatnot, the music videos. But like, I just, I liked the little sketches, like the music video commentary was funny, but like, a lot of it was for stuff that I had no idea what it was or anything.

And I [01:10:00] just, I just, I loved bes and butthead. I thought it was just the funniest sh uh, stuff. And I was like in third, third and fourth grade and I just really loved it. But I spent like, my childhood and, and like adolescence frankly as well. Like, and, and then into college. Like I just. It, it was MTV and, and VH one.

Like, it was like those two networks. Well, and then the e network too. And the E network started up and started getting bigger. It was like, you know, those three things, but like, but, but especially like MTV and VH one, like, I would just like watch, like basically on like a running thing. Like I was, I was thinking about this the other day because.

Um, uh, Chapon did a, a cover of Hearts Barracuda, and it’s good. Like, it was really good. Um, she, she killed it, but it made me like, wanna go back and like, watch original heart stuff. And then I was like, okay, how did I get into heart? Because they were not a band really, by the time I was aware of music, like they would already kind of reached their peak and were gone.

And I was like, oh yeah, the, the VH one behind the music. And fortunately, like three months ago, ’cause a lot of these things get taken down very quickly. Somebody did [01:11:00] upload the, the entire like 45 minute, like, behind the Music of Heart and like, and I was like, man, yeah. ’cause they, they were like, you know, they were like Fleetwood Mac, like they, their dramas like Fleet Fleetwood Mac, but like with sisters, which honestly makes it even messier, right?

Like the whole thing, right. And, and, uh, so, um, yeah.

Typo Negative and Music Reactions

Brett: Have you, have you ever heard Typo Negative? Are you familiar with typo?

Christina: I am.

Brett: Um, there’s, I can’t remember her name, but there’s an opera singer who does like reaction videos, um, to. Like any kind of, any kind of musician she’ll, she’ll do like a reaction and analysis of the voice and the intonation and then even get into like the lyrical impact and things like that.

And she did. I. She’s just like, she’s this peppy person who had never heard of Typo negative, but one of her viewers asked her to do a typo negative reaction. Um, [01:12:00] and it was very charming watching her first reaction to, and this was like during typo, negatives, like vampire phase when they were really into like the, just the kind of the vampire mythos.

And she was like, oh, I get this. It’s like deep voice. He is got this deep, deep voice and he’s like seven feet tall. And he is, he’s playing a double bass, like it’s an electric base, like holding it up. And, and she like listening to her analyze it. She was really into it. So as a result, I was like, oh, I gotta go back and listen to Typo negative more.

And I learned in the process that there was this album called Origin of the Feces that. Was supposed to be a live album. And I learned in my kind of deep dive into Typo Negative that it was not at all a live album. It was a studio recording [01:13:00] in into which they interjected crowd noises and glasses clinking, and people booing and like, made it sound like a really poor live performance that that made you feel bad for the fucking band.

But it was all very intentional. Um, anyway, like that there, there’s a, like that guy had some lyrics, especially I think his previous band was a lot less PC and they really pushed the limits of like fascist Nazi kind of lyrics. He was like a New York Jew. Who, I don’t, I don’t even know where it all came from, but I think he was just trying to push people’s

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Brett: there’s some questionable stuff that Typo negative and Peter Steele did. Um, so I’m not gonna be like, oh my God, I’m so into these guys. But that [01:14:00] some of the sounds on, especially on their later albums when they went a little more like pop metal, when it was like super melodic and heavy at the same time, they kinda led, they, they invented goth metal.

Like that didn’t exist before. Typo negatives. So I mean, you gotta give ’em some props.

Christina: Um, yeah, for sure. No, you definitely need to give them props and, and I that, um, I, I’d like to see that reaction video. That sounds good. Um,

Brett: I’ll see if I can find that.

Christina: I put it in the show notes.

Letterboxd API and Movie Recommendations

Christina: One thing just to circle back when you’re talking about movie recommendations thing, I happen to search GitHub to see, ’cause letterbox does have an API, but apparently it’s sort of private.

But I came upon this project that, that Sam Lerner, um, created, um, a, a few years ago, but, but it looks like he’s still, um, updating that is called Letterbox Recommendations. And he basically scrapes publicly accessible letterbox data and creates a movie recommendations model with it that can generate recommendations when provided with a letterbox username.

So the whole concept is, is if you’ve rated a lot of movies on letterboxed, you can give it your [01:15:00] username and it can then give you recommendations based on your ratings compared to others.

Brett: cool.

Christina: So that’s, that seems like that that’s exactly what we were kind of talking about. Um,

Brett: I, I would have to actually go in and rate some movies, but yeah.

Christina: for sure.

Brett: what I’m talking

Christina: Yeah, exactly. And you might even be able to do something otherwise. And then he and I, I, I put in our show notes, I put like the link to the front facing, um, thing that you can do, but it also has like, um, a GitHub project because he has it, you can run it on your own. Um, and then he also, um, has a, a, a kagel dataset that’s up to date with, with his latest, um, crawl.

So you can crawl your yourself if you wanna do things and whatnot. So you might even be able to, like, you could probably modify it based on some of those parameters where you could even be, there’d be a way to modify this where you could be like, enter in a movie and get recommended movies based on other things.

Right. Like, there’d be a way to probably accomplish the

Brett: I’ll play with

Christina: doing. So,

Brett: like a fun thing to do while I’m unemployed.

Christina: yeah. I mean, look, that, that could, that, that could be [01:16:00] whatnot. And, and it’s interesting ’cause I’m now like looking through just like, um. Uh, oh, and this is cool too. Somebody has created a way to connect, um, your letterbox list to a radar, which is like the, the front end for Usenet to, to download content, um, for your plex.

Um, I’m, I’m running, I’m seeing all kinds of, um, uh, information and here just, you know, searching letterbox on, um, on, on GitHub. So that’s, uh, that’s pretty

Brett: All right, cool. Should we do our gratitude?

Christina: We should, we should, uh, do you, do you have, um, do you have one? ’cause I’ve, I’ve got a, okay. Go

Brett: do. So I’m I, and I can’t. I’ve lost track of what we’ve already talked about, but my pick this week is Flo Todo. Um, there are multiple single site browser apps out there that will turn something like, you know, Facebook into its own isolated web browser that doesn’t give data to anything else and makes it so [01:17:00] that I can separate my Facebook time from any anything else?

I have one for Facebook, one for LinkedIn. Um, I’m not on the machine that I actually run these. I have one for Blue Sky. It actually runs Deck Blue. Um, and so all my social media sites get their own Flo Todo web app. And I like Flo Todo because it’s super bare bones and super lightweight and the apps it makes are just wrappers.

That, that are basically little sandbox wrappers that take up about a megabyte and they load instantly. And they don’t, they don’t have a lot of frills. They don’t do a good job of like, with, uh, like notifications and, and badges and things like that. Uh, if, if that’s what you want, you, you wanna go with something more like Unity or Coherence X, um,

Christina: Or, or, or, or, or you wanna [01:18:00] use, um, an in Chrome and Safari’s gotten better with this, but I don’t, I don’t use Safari. Um, uh, but, but no, but, but, but Chrome, like, uh, you know, if, if apps can, can be installed as a progressive web app, then, then that does a lot of similar things. Not, not to the way that it will do, like what this does where it’ll isolate your data.

But, but it’ll, but if you, you want notifications in like a separate

Brett: if you, if you just want to separate out that kind of browsing. Yeah. Um. So single site browsers are awesome. Flo todo is lightweight, fast, and, uh, for what I need it to do, it is the easiest. Like it creates web, like if you punch in a URL and hit save instantly, you’ve got your, you’ve got your SSB.

Um, so I’m, I’m, I’m a fan. I can’t remember if I paid for it. I think I paid for it. It was like a one time,

Christina: Yeah, it looks like it. Yeah, it looks like they have like a, a basic, um, uh, version, and then there’s like a pro version that that’s, that’s 20 bucks. [01:19:00] Um, I will note, actually, and this is kind of a sad, I guess, uh, uh, update, but, um, I, uh, I might have mentioned this, um, I, one of the episodes that you weren’t on, but I’ll, I’ll mention it again just because I’m reminded of it.

Gratitude for MacUpdater

Christina: So, Mac Update, which is an app that we’ve talked about a lot of times, um, that developer has announced that he is going to basically be discontinuing the app, um, as of January. Yeah. I gu I guess he’s not making enough money off of it or whatever. He’s, he’s offering it for sale potentially, or licensing if people want to do it.

I, I don’t, I don’t have the means to be able to actually maintain it. Um, but like, but I would be

Brett: pick that up

Christina: but I,

Brett: I literally have that app open on my desktop right now.

Christina: totally. And, and so, yeah. And so I, I want, I, I think that it’s, it’s a, such a good app. Um, I mean, look, I, I’ll put this out there on, on the show. This is a weird gratitude, but I am very, you know, I have a lot of gratitude for this app.

If there are some people who would potentially wanna, like, go in with me on, like, looking at like, how much it [01:20:00] would be to buy this app, I, I mean, I would be interested in, like, I could, I could do things on, on a business side. ’cause I do feel like the price he was selling it for was probably, you know, uh, too low.

And I don’t know how big the market would be for people who’d be willing to pay, you know, $30 a year or whatever for app updates. But I, but I don’t feel like it’s zero. Um, so if, if there are people who are listening to our show who might be interested in pursuing with me and like what it would cost to do this or, or if I don’t have to be involved at all, this is just something that you feel like you, you want to do, um, you should reach out to him.

But, um, but I, I, I don’t know, I feel like. I feel like this is, this is the sort of app that we, we need to, you know, keep around.

Brett: Yeah, I agree. It’s so useful.

Christina: so useful. The only thing I can imagine is,

Brett: nothing for it.

Christina: yeah, but he basically does, it’s like the pricing right now is, uh, you know, it’s free to scan Only the standard edition is, is three 90 a person. The pro edition is, is, is $10, [01:21:00] $9 rather.

Brett: no. I thought it was more than that. Yeah. It should definitely be more than that.

Christina: And I feel like it should be a,

Brett: a, that’s a $30 app and possibly a subscription

Christina: no, I think it’s a subscription. I think it’s a $30 a year subscription is what I think it is. I mean, maybe 50, but I think 30 is probably the right thing. And, and that way, and the reason is because it’s not free to be able to, you know, there’s real bandwidth costs in having to ping in the like store, like the,

Brett: I use that app every day. I, yeah, I, I would be interested, I would back Christina on this. I don’t necessarily wanna maintain the app, but I would pitch in on keeping it alive in whatever capacity I could.

Christina: Yeah. Um, yeah, so he basically, um, you know, um, but he expects it. He just says, um, e says Mac updater three does require server support and our daily maintenance to keep working, expect support until, you know, [01:22:00] January 1st, 2026. So, ’cause he, he’s, he’s made, you know, kind of a, um, a is it, you know, take it over if your company wants to either continue Mac update or, um, or enter the app updating market, get in touch about the possibility of acquiring, you know, um, you know, whether it’s infrastructure and, you know, maintenance infrastructure or if you wanna license their tech.

Um, like, I don’t know, I, I remember what happened with

Brett: We could wait it out. We could wait it out and if no, like larger company steps up, I bet he would eventually give it away for free.

Christina: Maybe, maybe. I mean, I wouldn’t wanna pay nothing for it. Like I, I I don’t feel like that that’s, that’s fair.

Brett: No, but then it would be up to us, be like, no, we think it’s worth this. And we give him that.

Christina: yeah, I just, I, I’m just saying if there are people out there who, ’cause my whole thing is like, I don’t have those, the skills to, to maintain and, and keep it like running and updated. I would have skills to potentially like come up with like a business model and um, figure that sort of stuff out. But, um, you know, [01:23:00] ’cause I, ’cause I feel like there are a lot of things there.

Honestly. Maybe we should talk to the setup folks. ’cause this feels like this would be granted, you know, they want everybody to go through their store, but this could be like a complimentary. Thing, you know, for apps that aren’t in setup, right? Like, I don’t know, um, just, just spit balling out there. But yeah.

Um, immense gratitude and thanks for, for MAC data, uh, for, for being a real one over the years. And, and if anybody out there is in a position to help, or if you want to potentially, you know, um, if you have the technical skills and you would potentially wanna go in on something like this, like with me, and I’m, I’m not like, and I don’t even know if I have, I don’t know what he’s charging, so I don’t even know, like if I’m in the financial position to be able to like, make a real, like run of it.

Right. But, but this is one of those apps where I like look at enough, I’m like, fuck, this is actually really good

Brett: we, we would look into it with you. Give us a, give us a sh give us a shout.

Christina: Yep.

Brett: All right. So do you have a pick

Christina: Um, I think that’s actually gonna be my pick. Actually. I was gonna come up with [01:24:00] something else then I was thinking about, I was like, no, I actually think that, um, that it’s that. And then, uh, the other thing that I will, uh, call out is, is again, like the sand learner, uh, letterbox movie recommendations thing.

Um, which, uh, you know, like that’s, that, uh, that GitHub project looks pretty fun, so.

Brett: All right. Well, what do we, we did about an hour and a half almost. That’s fun. Just the two of us. This is, this was an OG episode.

Christina: was, this was like a very classic A DHD like og Overtired pop culture heavy. Yeah. It was good stuff.

Brett: we’ll, uh, we’re, we’re working on some more guests. Hopefully Jeff will be back, but. But you get what you get when you listen to Overtired.

Christina: You do. So, um, we, uh, we, we miss Jeff of course, but I’m glad to still talk with you Brett, and uh, get some sleep.

Brett: Get some sleep.

  continue reading

231 episodes

Artwork

433: Magic Mike Food Pr0n

Overtired

51 subscribers

published

iconShare
 
Manage episode 487809043 series 1407543
Content provided by Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra, Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra, Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://staging.podcastplayer.com/legal.

In this OG episode of Overtired, Christina Warren and Brett Terpstra navigate through sleep habits, medication discussions, and mental health struggles. They reminisce about theatrical experiences with Magic Mike, the allure of cooking shows, and gardening adventures. Brett’s journey into movie recommendation tools and Christina’s nostalgia over MTV highlight a fun and chaotic discussion. Plus, they reflect on the legacy of computing pioneer Bill Atkinson. Tune in for a blend of tech tips, personal anecdotes, and community app brainstorming.

Sponsor

The latest 360-degree camera from Insta360, the Insta360 X5, launched April 22nd and shoots full 360-degree videos in incredible 8K30 resolution. To bag a free 114cm invisible selfie stick worth US$24.99 with your Insta360 X5 standard package purchase, head to store.insta360.com and use the promo code overtired.

Chapters

  1. 00:00 Introduction and Catching Up
  2. 00:18 Sleep Struggles and Medication
  3. 02:35 Mental Health Corner
  4. 03:15 Cleaning and Organization Challenges
  5. 08:05 Selling on Facebook Marketplace
  6. 14:05 Job Hunt and Unemployment Fears
  7. 21:54 Sponsor: Insta360
  8. 23:22 Rhubarb Salsa and Cooking Adventures
  9. 29:38 Magic Mike Trilogy Discussion
  10. 35:55 Audience Participation and Movie Experiences
  11. 44:22 Marvel Movie Experience in Stockholm
  12. 45:05 Disappointment with Endgame
  13. 45:28 Star Wars Prequels Hype and Letdown
  14. 47:52 Batman vs Superman Premiere
  15. 49:14 Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis
  16. 54:08 Movie Recommendation Apps
  17. 01:01:31 Privacy Concerns with Media Consumption
  18. 01:05:38 Bill Atkinson’s Legacy
  19. 01:08:38 MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis and Butthead
  20. 01:11:19 Typo Negative and Music Reactions
  21. 01:14:29 Letterboxd API and Movie Recommendations
  22. 01:19:12 Gratitude for MacUpdater

Show Links

Join the Conversation

Thanks!

You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network

BackBeat Media Podcast Network

Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.

Transcript

Magic Mike Food Pr0n

Introduction and Catching Up

[00:00:00]

Christina: Welcome back. You’re listening to Overtired. I’m Christina Warren, joined as always by Brett Terpstra. Jeff Severns. Guntzel could not be with us today. Uh, we miss you, Jeff. Hope you’re having fun with the family. Um, so it’s a, it’s just a classic OG Overtired for once.

Brett: Yeah. Are you tired?

Sleep Struggles and Medication

Christina: Um, I was a little bit, so I went to bed.

So we are recording this right now at 11:00 AM um, uh, Pacific. Um, so a little bit later than we usually record, but I went to bed around 4:00 AM Pacific. So I woke up originally I did actually set an alarm. We were going to record at 10 and I set an alarm for nine 30 and I woke up and I sat, I hit snooze and I was about to text you and be like, I could really use another 30 minutes.

And you had texted me literally that second, asking for like 30 minutes or an hour, and I was like, perfect. And then I think I slept maybe 20 more minutes. Um, and then, and then I woke up and um, and, and

Brett: So yeah, you’re tired.

Christina: Yeah, I mean,

Brett: be tired.

Christina: well, I should be, but I got like, you know, uh, six, six [00:01:00] hours or so, so that’s, that’s pretty good.

Brett: I got nine hours of sleep last night and I’m still dragging, but I think it’s because for like two weeks now I’ve gotten six hours of sleep every night and that kinda racks up over time. And then the night that you do sleep well, then all the sleep deprivation like hits you the next day. I could barely get out of bed this morning.

Christina: No, totally, totally. Um, yeah, I have, I, I don’t know if it’s because of like medication switch or what, like, and it’s a weird thing because I, I, the amount of dray I’m taking right now, I feel like is probably the right amount, but I don’t know if I need to like, but this is what the hard thing is.

Like I’m, I’m taking 15 milligrams. I probably need to maybe take it like. Twice a day, um, like in terms of like maybe half, one, half the day, but half the other, I, I, I don’t know. But, but the 15 milligram will last me the whole day. The problem is it’ll also like, basically last me the whole night too. And so I am, [00:02:00] I’m at like,

Brett: I thought, I thought that’s what you, I thought it had a shorter half life,

Christina: I don’t know, it may be something in my biochemistry has changed, so, which is possible because like technically I could be taking 15 twice a day, but if I did that, I would not be sleeping. I might be more productive, but I wouldn’t, I, and actually I’m not even sure if I would be, but, but I would not be sleeping.

So I’m, I’m kind of at like the weird place where I’m getting, you know, five or six hours a night, like pretty consistently. So, um, but yeah. And, and it’s, it, I, I need something to help me sleep, but it,

Mental Health Corner

Brett: I feel like this segues nicely into a mental health corner.

Christina: I was gonna say, we were, we immediately went into mental health corner without even doing any chitchat.

So.

Brett: that’s why, that’s how Mental Health Corner became the first, first thing on the show is we just always naturally, we’re like, so here’s what’s wrong with me

Christina: what’s wrong with me this week. This, this, this is the, it was like Doctor Corner, and then we, like colloquial called it like mental health corner and then it became a thing. [00:03:00] Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. We’ve been doing this show for so long now. I mean, like intermittently, but, but, but we’ve been doing it for so long that like, yeah, this is how this happened.

Um, do you wanna go first? Do you want me to just finish mine? ’cause I don’t have a lot.

Brett: Oh, go for it. Yeah.

Christina: O Okay. So yeah.

Cleaning and Organization Challenges

Christina: Um, I haven’t been sleeping super well, but I ha it hasn’t been bad either. I just need to kind of figure stuff out. I’ve been trying to clean my office that has actually, like, that’s a massive like, mental health stressor because I have a bunch of boxes and stuff that I need to go through and I need to whatnot and, and we have like a storage unit and, and I’m, we can put stuff in.

My problem with that is, is that I’m like, okay, if I put this in the storage unit, I’m never gonna see it again. And there is some stuff in here I would like to potentially use, but.

Brett: are you currently in the same room you usually podcast from?

Christina: Yes.

Brett: Because from where I’m sitting, you’re, you’re sitting in an empty white room like John Oliver during the pandemic, so I would say you’re making progress on

Christina: Oh [00:04:00] yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, without a doubt, I got rid of my shoe rack and, and put shoes that I will be using, like in kind of like a, an area and then put some that are in boxes that I haven’t worn that I might sell, that I might do, you know, potentially to go into storage. And then I, I threw a bunch out, but like, there’s a whole half of the room that you can’t see that is just like boxes and stuff that I need to go through.

And, and the easiest thing to do would be to just like pack it all up and put it in storage. But if I do that, I know I’m not gonna go through it. And so it’s just, I don’t know, it’s, it’s a really stressful thing of being like, okay, how do I get enough time to like, basically have to kind of sift through and go through every single thing I have, be like, you know, keep storage, whatnot.

Um.

Brett: Do you have, do you have enough room to temper? Oh, you must. ’cause it was there to begin with. So I’ll tell you what I do and you can take it or leave it, but I like to put everything that I’m not currently using, everything that I don’t have an immediate use for into a big pile of boxes.

Christina: Right?

Brett: And [00:05:00] then over the next month, if I do need something, I go dig it out of the box and it becomes like a stay thing.

If I, if there’s anything left in that box at the end of the month, I move it into a longer term storage. And basically anything I don’t use in a year, I give away or sell if possible. But like, just like putting it all in storage and then pulling out what you actually like because you can’t make that decision in the moment.

Christina: no, but the problem is, and and you’re right, that is the right thing to do. The problem is, I don’t know exactly what I have. And so if I just put it in storage, then it, it, then that doesn’t solve anything. And then like, the problem is, is that there are things, I know I have, I don’t know where they are.

I might rebuy them. Like that’s the problem. So, so you’re right, like the way that you’re talking about approaching things is correct, but like, I don’t know what all I have.

Brett: I do have that problem of like forgetting that I already own something and buying it again because I can’t keep track.

Christina: right. Well, I mean, I ran into that. I couldn’t [00:06:00] find a certain cable for something, and so I spent $70 on a freaking AC adapter for a thunderbolt dock. And then, and this is like the shittiest thing, I found the newer version of the Thunderbolt dock.

Brett: UN unboxed,

Christina: UN uh,

Brett: I mean no. Still boxed.

Christina: Still box. Yeah. Completely unopened. So like. So I’m like, okay, well then why the fuck did I just spend $70 on the safety? Alright, whatever. But like, uh, you know, but there’s shit like that, right? Like, I couldn’t find a certain, a c cable for my camera that I needed to plug in, so I bought another one, and then I literally found that when I was going through, so I was a motherfucker, right?

So there’s, there’s stuff like that that I just, it’s gonna take me, it’s just gonna take forever to go through and, and that’s just emotionally really taxing to even think about. And so, um, and then if I have to like, use my office for, for work related things, like, then that is another complication. Like, how the hell do I, like, find the time and the space, like do this and still have like a, a cleanish working [00:07:00] environment.

So it, it, it is what it is. But, um, but other, other than my hoarding and, and you know, like organizational and executive function, uh, deficits, um, I’m doing pretty well.

Brett: All right. Um, yeah, I would say, uh, that leads me to a whole conversation about Facebook marketplace. But, um, l is currently applying for additional part-time jobs and, um, does not have the emotional. Capacity right now to deal with that and like working around the house and working in the garden and organizing a room.

And yeah, I get that there are limits to like, everything takes emotional energy. Like whether you realize it or not, you’re investing emotion into everything. And things like cleaning are intense.

Christina: they are.

Brett: Like even [00:08:00] just, even just like straightening up the house is an emotional journey for both EL and me.

Selling on Facebook Marketplace

Brett: Um, but so are, do you sell stuff on Facebook Marketplace?

Christina: but I should, um, because, um. I mean, I think that would probably be better than than eBay or other places.

Brett: Yeah, I’m not sure, uh, ’cause I haven’t, Facebook marketplace has always just been so convenient to get into that. I haven’t, I haven’t sold anything on eBay in a decade. Um, but so Facebook marketplace, if, if you’re post gets no traction in the first week, it expires your listing. So I have stuff like, I have this pep link.

Router that you can plug in two different cable modem or at two, any two ethernet sources, um, from different ISPs into one router. And it does load balancing between the two ISPs, which is [00:09:00] if you’re running a business and you want a hundred percent uptime, you get two different ISPs and you plug it into this and it’s for people who need it.

It’s a perfect solution and I, it is not the kind of thing that Facebook marketplace excels at selling. Um, uh, since I lost my job, I have been doing a better job of, of putting my huge pile of leftover shit on to, uh, Facebook marketplace for sale and. So like I, I put up a pair of echo dots, like current generation, uh, unopened, uh, for $40 for the pair and they retail it, I think 30 bucks a piece.

Uh, so it wasn’t a huge deal, but

Christina: It’s a good one.

Brett: yeah. So it you 20 bucks and those did not sell as a pair. People picked them up individually. I sold them 20 bucks a piece [00:10:00] and those sold in like a day. But I have an echo show

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Brett: also unopened that I got during a prime day when I was feeling impulsive. And it has, it gets no interest.

I marked it to like half, half of retail value, completely on open brand new current version. And I cannot get even a single person interested in it.

Christina: Yeah.

Brett: have a. I have a bike. Uh, Al has a bike that we’re trying to sell and its tires need to be replaced. Like they won’t inflate anymore, but we don’t have a bike rack that can get it to the bike shop.

Um, and I’m, I’m gonna have to actually buy the tools to replace a tire on my own. ’cause I haven’t owned any of those since I used to raise mountain bikes. So nobody will buy it without being able to ride it, even though it’s, it’s a $750 bike [00:11:00] that we’re offering for $250 barely used. And still people are like, well, I really need to see what it feels like.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. There’s, there’s, there’s, I mean, the thing is, I mean, it’s convenient and, and I, I’ve never bought anything off a Facebook marketplace, I don’t think, but I know people who have and, and, um, and I, that’s probably what I’ll use to try to sell some of my stuff, assuming, you know, um, uh, it’ll be the sort of stuff people will want.

Um, just because eBay’s such a fucking pain and, and they take so much of, and I don’t even care about how much they take, like, at, at a certain point, but it’s just like, if it’s such a pain, then, then it’s gonna be like more effort than it’s worth, than at that point I’m kind of like, well, then I’m just gonna fucking, you know, donate it or, or throw it away or, or give it to Goodwill or whatever.

You know what I mean?

Brett: And that also is an emotional expense. Like putting it up for sale is an expense dealing with people who wanna buy it. It’s like when you have a garage sale and people try to haggle on something that does have some sentimental value to you, or like you value it in a way that they don’t. And you have to like, [00:12:00] um, uh, concede to their, their preferences in order to make the sale.

And again, it’s all emotional energy. Selling stuff is hard.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, and that’s why usually I don’t even fuck with it. I’m just like, fine, just get rid of it. Just take it,

Brett: I, I give so much away. I like, I always, before I put anything up for sale, I ask my friends because if a friend can use something I have and save me the emotional journey of dealing with buyers and actually transactions and all of that, and they’ll just take it, that actually gives me like an emotional surplus.

Like I feel like I’ve done a good thing. I’ve helped somebody out. Something I owned was helpful to somebody else. I feel good about that, that that’s, that’s, that’s good. Selling stuff is a negative though.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then, um, I, I, I, I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure that it was fake, but, but there’s, I saw this very funny, um, uh, [00:13:00] comedian bit, um, about Facebook marketplace. This reminded me of it. I’ll see if I can find a clip of it. It was, it’s like, I think she was Australian. She might have been British, uh, but she was like talking about like the most unhinged Facebook marketplace story where some, she was trying to sell like a bed and, uh, like a bed frame.

Brett: Yeah, I’ve seen

Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brett: who it was,

Christina: Yeah. It, and it’s, and, um, something

Brett: actually, I believe it. I think it, I think it could have been real.

Christina: maybe, I mean, I, I,

Brett: seemed believable.

Christina: of it seemed believable until the, the end story where going into like the, the, the, the, the wrong apartment. That, that was the part that, like, that, that didn’t seem, um, that, that I was like, okay, now, now I’m not actually sure about this.

Brett: all right. Well, we’re, we’re gonna find it and we’re gonna share it, but we do not, we do not take responsibility for its veracity.

Christina: But it is very funny. I don’t actually care if it’s true or not. It, it’s funny enough, and the song is, is funny enough that I’m like, this is good. Like, I don’t, I don’t actually care. Um, all right. How, [00:14:00] how, how are you doing? How’s, how’s your mental health?

Brett: All right. Well, I am.

Job Hunt and Unemployment Fears

Brett: My, my severance runs out this week. Um, I’m not broke by any means yet, but, uh, once my severance runs out, then I should be eligible for unemployment. But I have this major, like emotional blockade, to applying for unemployment. Like part of me is just dreading finding out I can’t get unemployment.

Um, like I already have contingency plans. I know what I’m doing, um, next, but it’s still like, uh, it’s a fear of rejection

Christina: Right.

Brett: keeping me from doing it.

Christina: And I understand that I, I would like point out like you as much as it would suck, like if it will be, you know, ’cause I don’t know how much Minnesota gives, but I, I think they, they offer a, a pretty decent

Brett: be like four to 600 a week.

Christina: Right. That I [00:15:00] think if you can like, frame it in your head that like, that, that is worth like, the risk of finding out if they’ve rejected it or not.

Did you talk, did you, did, did you talk to a lawyer before? Um, all this and, and, and they didn’t have an answer for you?

Brett: No,

Christina: No.

Brett: no. So Shopify said they were going with a more qualified candidate. I. And if I wanted any feedback, they were available next week, and this is last week. And I said, sure.

I would, I would be interested in feedback so I can, you know, better myself for future applications. Uh, they never replied to that email. And then two days later, the job I applied for showed back up on LinkedIn, um, which leads me to have all kinds of dark thoughts about, they must have contacted Oracle.

And Oracle did something to disqualify me. And like if it weren’t for that, I would’ve had the job because they had no other

Christina: [00:16:00] Right.

Brett: Um, so I emailed them about, I was just like, Hey, I saw this job come back up. Is it the one I’ve already been passed over for or is it something else I can apply for?

And I never got a reply to that either. So I, I have fears, I have, I’m worried about what that means for my. Um, higher ability in other places, which makes me completely, um, reticent to continue with the job hunt. I’m still sending out resumes ’cause that’s easy to do. Um, don’t know if I want to go through another like four hour interview process and not get a job.

And like my independent coding is going really well. And I really think, I really think, um, there’s a lot of potential for just being independent at this point. And I figured out how to have like 401k and [00:17:00] health insurance and all of this as an independent developer. And the only thing keeping me from wholeheartedly pursuing that is that it, it scares Elle and those conversations are.

Difficult, they’re very emotionally charged and I get very defensive very quickly.

Christina: Right, right. I mean, and, and, and I, and I can, I can see both sides of that. I can see your side obviously, and that, like you, you’re like, I think this is viable. This is going to, you know, help me. I’m, I’ll be happier, I’ll be more productive. I can potentially make more money or, or as much, you know, doing this.

Um, and, but I also see their perspective, which is, you know, we need reliable income and, and, you know, and they remember potentially like what things were like before. Uh, and, and, and, and in that case, you know, it, it wasn’t always. Reliable, um, in, in some ways. And so I, I, I can see both of those perspectives.

I, I feel [00:18:00] like I will, I will just give you, from what I’ve observed from my friends who’ve gone through job hunts and, and just even myself going through interview processes at places where I, I didn’t ultimately end up taking jobs. Um, unfortunately, the, the, if you’re going to go with like a, a, even smaller places at this point, like bigger places, the, the process is going to be the same process you went through, uh, at Shopify.

It, it’s not going to, I mean, period. Like even if you have an in, even if it’s, feels like it’s a guarantee thing, it’s a slog. And, and I have friends who are going, who are actively seeking jobs right now, and it does become almost a full-time job to apply for other jobs, right? Like, that’s like, it becomes a, a whole thing and it’s shitty and it’s, and it’s bad.

But like that’s, you know, like ideally, I think what a lot of people like try to like. You know, optimize their, their, um, either, you know, when they’re being paid for unemployment or if they have severance, you know, from another place or whatever. They try to optimize their time for that, you know, for, for interview prep and for, you know, leak coding [00:19:00] exercises depending on what they’re doing.

And for, you know, outreach and, and that thing. Um, so I, I think that like the, the loop thing and, and, and then multiple rounds is unfortunately going to be, at least at bigger places, is just gonna be a reality. Smaller places might be different in terms of whether or not Oracle has blacklisted you or something. would, I would, my, my gut says that Shopify would not be able to get that information unless, until they were going to extend you an offer and, and so. Um, I don’t think that that happened in this case. If, if after the formal round, like usually they would, they would extend you a, a, a verbal offer and that’s when the background check process would start, where they would contact your former employer to verify employment and maybe to verify other things.

They’re not supposed to be able to ask about anything else. Like that’s not supposed to be a thing that’s allowed. Um, and now if people know people places and they ask questions, that’s different obviously, but like. You know, that’s not supposed to be a, a thing that happens, especially if you [00:20:00] weren’t like hired for, if you weren’t like, um, you know, fired for, um, like committing a crime or something.

And you know, like, and even then, I’m not even sure if that is information that they’re allowed to share, to be honest with you. Um, and so, um, but like, like if you’ve emb embezzled or something, right? Like I, I feel like if that would come up maybe on a criminal, um, uh, background check, but usually I, I don’t even know if they would be able to, if employers would be able to, like past employers would be able to share that sort of information.

So I don’t know why they pulled the job and then re-listed it. It’s possible that they found out that from the, the, the candidates they got, they just didn’t find people that they wanted for whatever reason. And then they re-listed in hopes of getting different candidates set. I have no idea. Um, but I, I, I feel like the only way that, that you had, you would just, it makes you feel any better that would.

Have, have them be like, oh, we blacklisted Brett would be, if they just happened to know someone who knew the details. Um, and, and [00:21:00] that

Brett: the thing though.

Christina: and that that

Brett: only. If

Christina: right and that feels

Brett: people at Oracle who would say anything bad about me,

Christina: Right. And so that makes me think that that’s not what happened.

Brett: yeah, I wish they would just like tran be transparent and tell me what was up. Like, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna sue anybody. Um, unless they, unless they had some protected reason that they admitted to,

Christina: right?

Brett: um, we didn’t hire you because we found out you’re pansexual, then yeah, that’d be a problem.

But I, I imagine that’s not the reason. Um, so yeah. Anyway, anyway. Can I tell you about Rhubarb’s salsa also?

Christina: Yeah, absolutely. Should we, uh, should we do our sponsor read first?

Brett: Should we, what time is

Christina: It’s, it’s 24 minutes in.

Brett: Okay? Yeah. Perfect time. Would you like to do the read?

Christina: I absolutely

Brett: for it.

Sponsor: Insta360

Christina: Today’s episode is sponsored by Insta 360, a leader in 360 degree action [00:22:00] camera technology. Their latest 360 degree camera. Insta 360 x five, launched April 22nd, and it shoots full 360 degree videos in incredible eight K 30 frames per second resolution.

Since it films in all directions at once, you don’t even need to aim the camera. Just hit record. Live in the moment and choose any angle you want in the edit with Insta three Sixty’s mobile app, it’s easy, smooth, and packed with AI tools for faster workflow. From immersive POVs to unique third person shots, X five is every camera you’ll need in one x five also includes Insta three sixty’s toughest ever lenses with drop resistance capabilities.

The lenses are completely replaceable, so you can risk the shot with confidence. The X five is also waterproof with IP six, eight waterproofing to 49 feet, and the invisible dive case for seamless 360 degrees stitching to 197 feet. To bag a free a 114 centimeter invisible selfie stick worth 24 99 with your Insta 360 X five standard package [00:23:00] purchase.

Head over to store dot insta three sixty.com and use the promo code Overtired available for the first 30 standard package purchases only. For more information, be sure to check out the link in our show notes. Once again, that is store dot insta three sixty.com. Use the promo code Overtired. Thanks, Insta 360 for, uh, your support of the show.

Brett: Yeah. Thank you.

Rhubarb Salsa and Cooking Adventures

Brett: Um, okay, so rhubarb salsa, my, we, we, we got a bunch of rhubarb. We ultimately, we’re probably gonna grow our own rhubarb, but right now we get a CSA. And one of the things that we’re getting in that, do you know what A CSA is?

Christina: I don’t.

Brett: Um, I can’t remember what it stands for, but it’s basically you pay a farm.

Or a farmer, um, a set price, and they give you a. Bundle of whatever’s in season that week and every week you get a big bag full of greens and root [00:24:00] vegetables and eggs and just like everything that a farm produces. Um, and it’s, you don’t always know what you’re gonna get, the one we’re doing right now.

You can go in at the beginning of the week and, uh, there’s like a checkbox you can like, choose. Here’s what’s available. You choose what you want. One of the things we’ve been getting is rhubarb. And I love a good like rhubarb strawberry crumble. It’s one of my favorite desserts. But we needed something else to do with the rhubarb.

So l made rhubarb salsa, which involves rhubarb and jalapenos and green peppers, and I’m not even sure what else. But then you ferment it for like a week and you get this kind of fizzy, spicy, sweet salsa out of it. And it, like the first bite I had of it, I like my brain just lit up. I was like, oh my God.

[00:25:00] Um, the last time that happened to me was when we made, um, soy, uh, what was it? It was a, it was like a white fish, uh, sauteed in a soy sauce, like maple syrup mixture in orange juice. And then with a wasabi mayo and a mango salsa topper in corn tortillas. So it was like a taco. And the first bite I had, I was manic at the time.

I had that, so I was already, like, my brain was lighting up like crazy and then I had a bite of that and it was like fucking doing cocaine. It was just. Insane. So now I’m stable and I had a bite of this salsa and immediately my brain was like, yes, this is it. So last night we had, uh, Chipotle black bean tacos with mango, with like a lime cre, and then this [00:26:00] rhubarb salsa on top of it.

And oh my God, it was so good. I, I had, I would never have thought, you know what we should do with this rhubarb is make a spicy taco salsa. And it worked out so well. I was amazed.

Christina: That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Brett: Do you, do you do much cooking?

Christina: No, no, but I, I, I, I mean, I, I, I, I aspire to maybe one day be in the place where I, no, I, I actually, I don’t know. I, no, I don’t. Um,

Brett: That’s just not, that’s not you.

Christina: yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s not, um, but, uh, um, yeah, I, uh. It’s not me, but I, I like people who do, like, I like, it’s weird ’cause I like to like watch like cooking shows and hear about people who cook stuff, but like, I have zero interest in actually doing it myself.

Um, uh, the the like, the things that I am interested in and like the time that I have to do stuff is just like, there are too many other things that I’ve [00:27:00] prioritized more, but I, but I enjoy like, watching people who are really into it, I’m like, oh, that seems, that’s really cool. Like, it’s not my thing, but like, that’s really cool for others.

Brett: I love cooking shows. I have an, a subscription that I got as a birthday present to Cook’s Illustrated, which I read like it’s so fucking hustler and it’s, it’s food porn. It’s all food porn. I watch multiple, I have multiple YouTube subscriptions to chefs. And even when I am at a phase of my life where I’m a practicing vegan, I still like watching like cooking shows that deal with more of an omnivore diet.

And even if I’m not going to eat the stuff, I love watching the techniques and I love watching food be transformed into dishes. Um, our corn, uh, we’re growing corn, it’s like eight inches tall now. And [00:28:00] the, the. Farmers Almanac saying is always Kneehigh by the 4th of July, and I think we might make it, um, and our squash, I right.

So behind me in this room, I don’t think you could, right there, can you see that little sprout right there?

Christina: Uh, a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett: Yeah. It’s blurry, but, uh, we’re, we’re sprouting squash plants in my office. Um, that will be transplanted probably today out into the garden. Uh, I have, I, I think I’ve talked about the three sisters planting method on this show before, but, so basically you have, you have corn and then you plant beans and the beans grow up the corn, and then you plant squash.

And the squash protects the roots from the sun. The big leaves of the squash plant do, so like the three, they’re, the three different plants are kind of synergistic in their growth cycle. Um, so we’re doing that [00:29:00] in a, in a. Four by six raised bed. Um, I’m pretty excited about it, just like seeing it all come together.

Um, but yeah, so I’m gonna be doing a lot of cooking with, and we have so many tomato plants and I don’t really like tomatoes, but when I grow things myself, I like them better. So I’m, look, I’ve had a elsman sauteing up some cherry tomatoes that have been just good enough to like, just eat, just pop in your mouth and just eat, um, sweet and acidic at the same time.

Anyway. Okay. Sorry, I went off on a, I went off on a rant.

Magic Mike Trilogy Discussion

Brett: I did want to talk to you about Magic Mike. Uh, you, you mentioned to me last week when I was on my kick of like, stick it and, and uh, bring it on and, um, pitch perfect and all of that. You, you mentioned Magic Mike, uh, and Step Up, all the Step Up movies, uh, and, and I was like, I hadn’t.[00:30:00]

I had seen Magic Mike. I think I had seen XXL. I had never seen the last dance, so I, and we also talked about movie bundles last week. So when I went looking on iTunes, ‘cause I couldn’t find it on any of my friends’ plexes, um, I went on iTunes and there was sure enough a bundle for the Magic Bike trilogy.

So I just bought it and I watched them all and the first one has a ton of heart and like I was it, not only was it just a amazing dance moves, it was like dramatic and I had an emotional response to it. XXL and the last dance were good in so far as they had great dance moves, great choreography. I. Great acting, but they didn’t have the heart for me that the first one had.

Um, and [00:31:00] before the show, you were talking about how you saw, I think you were talking about XXL,

Christina: Yeah.

Brett: second one. You saw it in a theater with a bunch of people who were really into it.

Christina: Yes.

Brett: me about that.

Christina: Okay. So, gosh, I guess this was a decade ago and, um, whenever it came out and I, I saw it, it wasn’t even the first week that it was out. I think it had already been out. And this is what was impressive. ’cause it did really well at the box office, you know, especially for a sequel and, and a fairly, you know, not like a super high budget thing either.

Like the first movie was a big surprise hit because it was kind of like this dumb, you know, like. Like concept. And you’re like, what do you mean? Like, it’s about this guy who’s like a male stripper and, and you know, you know, doing the dancing thing. Like, what do you mean we’re doing this? And it’s like loosely based off of like Sha Tibs own experiences.

And then you’re like, and it’s Steven Soderberg, and you’re like, why in the hell is Steven Soderberg making a movie like this? Right? Like, like this, this is like, you know, the Ocean’s 11 guy and like the, you know, like the out of sight guy. Like this is like a, a big time, like, [00:32:00] you know, respected like artistic director.

Like what the, what the fuck is he doing? And then to your point, it’s great, it has heart. Like the, the dancing was awesome. Like, it was just like this complete surprise. Um, and then the sequel, I, I loved, I didn’t like it more than the original, but I really, really liked it. It’s, it’s essentially the same movie as Pitch Perfect Two, but I prefer it to, to pitch Perfect two.

A ton. Um, and I think part of it, when I look back on it was, I was telling you this before we started recording, I saw it in New York City, like at a theater in Chelsea and like a, a Wednesday or a Thursday afternoon, like I said, it wasn’t even release week. And I went with my, my coworker, um, Heidi, and the theater was, was pretty full and it was almost all women.

And everybody was like so into it, like, into it, into it. Like they were, you know, they were, we were all cheering and we were just having like the best time. And it was one of those movie experiences. Like I look back on, I’m like, man, that was really cool because you don’t expect, I dunno, I didn’t expect, especially like in New York City, like, it wasn’t even like a, a [00:33:00] suburban like kind of theater.

It was like. It was just like a, a local kind of neighborhood theater, and it was just like a, an afternoon like show. It was like six o’clock. It was like, you know, we went directly after work. It wasn’t one of those things that you would expect there to be a lot of people there. Um, even back then, like now, you definitely wouldn’t expect a lot of people, um, the movie theater, but, but even back then, I was like surprised, like so many people were, were in the theater.

And then the audience though, we just had like the time of our lives. Like we just with, with all the, the, you know, dance sequences and when they’re, they’re, you know, going to the, the various parties, you know, at the, um, you know, like fraternities and stuff. Like, it was just, it was freaking, it was just really, really fun.

And so. Don’t know for me, like that heightened that experience so much that I was like, man, I, and I don’t even know if I’ve watched it since then to be honest with you, but I, I bought the, I also bought the iTunes bundle, um, but I was just like, man, this was a great movie. I had a great time watching this.

And, and I, I had, I think, seen some of the dance sequences again. Um, but I was like, man, I just had like, [00:34:00] the time of my life. Um, the third one, it was good, it wasn’t the same, but I also didn’t see it in the theater. And at that point, you know, so much time had passed between like the second and the third one that I, I, I feel like,

Brett: The third one really tried to have heart.

Christina: it did and sort of where it came back for that

Brett: be dramatic, and it just, it didn’t hit me the way the first one

Christina: No. And that, that’s hard, right? Like you almost never do. Right. Like, I mean, in all honesty, the fact that we’re talking about, like genuinely saying that there are three Magic Mike movies and that the first one is really good and I really like the second one as well. But the third one, like none of them are bad.

Brett: Hmm

Christina: Is actually hysterically. Like that’s, uh, that’s, this should not be an actual conversation that we’re genuinely having where we’re like, no, you can actually watch all three of these movies. And they’re pretty good. Right? Because usually how these sorts of things would work historically would be you have one that’s really good and then you maybe have a sequel that’s okay.

And then the, [00:35:00] the by, by the time you get to the end, we’re at like direct to to, to video. It’s a cash grab and it’s terrible. Right? And like, it wouldn’t even be a thing where you’d be like, yeah, it’s, it’s worth your time. And this is one where I would be like, no. I mean, it’s not gonna be the greatest thing you’ll ever see, but it’s got some hard, and it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a solid ending.

You know, they also at that point, like they were doing like the Vegas, um, show and, and things like that, right? So it, it became this franchise, which is wild again, because I remember when that movie came out in like 2011, I think it was 20 11, 20 12, and, um, like. We were a shocked that Soderberg was making this movie, and then B, you know, that it was this hit.

And then C like when I look at it, I’m like, this, like launched this whole fucking franchise of other things. And you’re like, okay, you know, who would’ve thought like this movie that like, was kind of a punchline, you know, for, for like film snap types, like became like an actual franchise.

Brett: right.

Audience Participation and Movie Experiences

Brett: So let’s talk about the difference that [00:36:00] audience, we’ll say audience participation makes. Um, so like if you were, if Kid Today and someone said, you should see Rock Rocky Horror Picture Show, and you loaded it up on Netflix or wherever it is, and you watched it in a room on your own, you’d be like, all right, it’s kind of kitschy, it’s kind of funny.

Uh, I, okay, I don’t understand the, but if you see it at like a small theater with a crowd that knows all the songs and participates, holy shit, you walk out of there going, oh my God, this might be the greatest movie ever made. I saw. I saw the Blair Witch Project at a small theater in Minneapolis as a pre-release.

It hadn’t come out yet. Nobody knew. Nobody knew it was fake yet.

Christina: Oh man.

Brett: I’m in there with a crowd of people who are, they’re movie lovers, and they’re there to see a movie [00:37:00] and the like. There was a, a woman next to me, like the scary part. She was like grabbing my knee, like without thinking about it. Just like so scared, like just freaking out.

And the whole audience like audible gasps, like people, like, just like freaking out through the movie. And it changed it. Like it was like when I first saw it, I was like, oh my God, this might be like the best horror movie I’ve ever seen. And then I watched it years later alone in a room. And it was, it was okay.

Christina: Yeah. But but that

Brett: audience participation when you’re in a, when you’re in a theater, it’s same with going to a Star Trek movie or a Star Wars movie in the theater versus watching it at home on Netflix.

Christina: No, totally. I.

Brett: Or on Disney Plus, whatever. A huge difference.

Christina: no. Totally, totally. And it’s, it’s interesting you say that about Blair Witch, because I remember when that came out. They ran, they ran this, I don’t know if it was on Sci-fi [00:38:00] network, it was on something they ran on cable this, and it turned out that it was like a, a, you know, a whole like campaign thing.

And, and I guess they made it clear that it was promo for the movie, but we didn’t really know that then. And I remember watching it and we all thought it was like, oh, the Legend of the Blair, which I think that’s what it was called. And it was before the movie came out and we all thought it was real. And so it got people hyped for the movie.

It was like, holy shit, they found this documentary footage and we all have to go see this movie. By the time I saw the movie, um, which was like a day or two later, you know, it was already out that, that the whole thing was fake. And, and I still had fun when I saw it in the theater, but it, but it was, it was lessened, right?

Like, like it wasn’t, it wasn’t the same thing. Like, I remember ’cause I was, I was like 15 or 16. When that movie came out. And so I, I was like really hyped to see it. And that was like, that summer, there were just amazing movies. That’s probably one of the best movie years ever was the Blair Witch Year and, um, 1999 and like genuinely, like, [00:39:00] I think there was even a book about it, but like, that is like one of the, the best movie years ever, ever, ever.

Um, and um, like you had the sixth Sense that year and you had Fight Club and you had American Beauty and you had like, there were like so

Brett: like, I think it was 94, 95 for Hard Rock when like all the use your illusions and the black Metallica, black album and ac like everyone. Yeah. All within like a year. Yeah.

Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like, like the 1999 movie year was like, like a goaded goad year, but, but bla witch was like this phenomenon, right? And, and I, I, that would’ve been so cool to see that, like, pre-release before any of that where like, you think that it’s real, like with people who are really into it.

Because when I saw it in the theater, like people were into it, but, you know, at this point I’d already been spoiled. The internet, you know, was, was only, you know, the web was only a few years old at this point, but I’d already been spoiled, like by the internet, that it was fake from like the movie forums.

Um, and like, I think that maybe regular people who were seeing it, it hadn’t quite like, passed onto them yet. Like, I don’t think it was quite like on the [00:40:00] radio yet that like, oh yeah, this

Brett: Not, not terminally online people. Yeah.

Christina: right. And I already was terminally online even though I was like on freaking 56 K dial up, um, because we, um, didn’t live in an area that could get cable yet.

But, um, like it was, but yeah, so it wasn’t, it wasn’t the same thing, but that would’ve been so cool. And you know, you’re right, like. A a, a mediocre movie can be made infinitely better with a good theatrical experience. And a good movie can also be made like significantly better. Right? And the inverse is true too.

Like a good movie can be weakened if you have a bad crowd. Like I remember seeing Castaway and which is a good movie. But that movie, there’s like a big portions of it that are silence. And for some reason there was like some like parents who had like some 2-year-old child with them in the movie who kept talking throughout the whole thing.

And like, here’s the thing, I’m sort of sympathetic to parents at movies, sort of meaning this is a r rated like film that like, in my opinion, like, [00:41:00] fuck you. Like I don’t give a shit if you can’t find a babysitter. Like there are 200 other people who paid money to be there. Like I don’t actually give a shit.

Like, especially opening weekend, like fuck off. Um, and they were rude about it. Like, ’cause the thing is, is like, ’cause I’ve, I’ve, you know, had to take kids to movies before and like if they’re gonna cause a disturbance, then the correct move is you walk out, like that’s what you do. Like you walk outta the theater and you calm them down.

And then if you come back in, you do. And if not, that’s, that’s just the breaks. Like it’s, it’s, it’s shitty. Like parents don’t at me, but like, it’s not my responsibility that, that you like made the decisions that you made. Right? Like there, there’s a social contract in my opinion that if it’s not a, if it’s a kid movie, it’s different.

But if it’s not a kid movie, like. Whatever. Anyway, this kid, like, talked and was crying and was being, you know, a kid like throughout the entire, like, large checks of the movie. And actually, I will never forget this, ’cause one of the funniest things happened at the end when like the credits come up, you know, the, the, this family’s kind of like leaving or whatever, and they, they, they waited.

Like if it were me, I would’ve gotten outta that movie theater as fast as [00:42:00] humanly possible just to like, avoid anything. And they almost seemed proud, but somebody, somebody called out next time use a condom. And, uh, and it, which is still to this day, like one of the greatest, like, and everybody applauded like when that happened, like everybody literally in the theater, like applauded.

And, and that still is like one of the funniest like moments I’ve ever witnessed. Next time use a condom.

Brett: I don’t remember what movie it was, but I was in the theater and I was in the second section and someone in the second row from the top of the first section was texting on their phone, and it had a really bright screen and everyone, everyone was grumbling about it. And eventually I yelled something like, Jesus Christ, shut your fucking phone off.

And the whole theater applauded. At least everyone behind this person was like, yes.

Christina: Well, [00:43:00] I guess because that’s the thing, right? Like it’s one of those things, it’s like, you know, um, people don’t realize yeah, how bright screens are and that that will completely distract, like the experience. And it’s funny because, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m talking about how like, movies are better when you see them with people, which is true.

But the inverse is also true. And this is part, this is kind of why like movie theaters are struggling, is that so many people have had bad experiences where people are texting or people are talking, or people are drunk, or people are, you know, they have their kids or

Brett: and you can completely avoid that at

Christina: You can at home, but, but you also miss out on those magical experiences of like, you know, 80, 90 people, you know, watching Magic Mike on a Thursday, you know, like, like, like literally like women, like, like very happy.

And, and we were like in our, in our, you know, twenties, thirties, older, right? Like, there wasn’t like teenage girls, like this was like, and it wasn’t like college, college. These were like, like, you know, people who like. Left work, you know, and like come and gone to the movies, you know, at like, like five or six o’clock at bed in the afternoon, right?

Like this wasn’t, you know, this sort of crowd that you would kind of expect that [00:44:00] sort of thing one, which was awesome. And, and that can make it, or, or, you know, going to like a, a midnight, you know, uh, premier of, of a big, you know, now I think it’s, it’s, it’s less of a thing just because there’ve been so many of them, but I mean, um.

I will say this, I saw, um, end game, the, the final, you know, Avengers movie until they do like the re routes or whatever. I saw that in, were we in Sweden? We were in, yeah.

Marvel Movie Experience in Stockholm

Christina: We, we were in Stockholm and, um, my, uh, one of my colleagues, he, he, they, they got us all tickets. There were like, like 10 of us who, who were there, you know, for a work thing.

And, and there were Swedish subtitles, but it was in English and like made like t-shirts for us. So we all had like, you know, kind of like Avengers or Marvel themed like shirts and like the, you know, the, it wasn’t like, um, uh, Swedish movie theaters, at least the one we went to, like are not as nice as like the big US multiplexes.

But it was still a nice experience. But like everybody, like it was opening day, like had the time of their life. And I will never forget, I will never forget, like watching like the final big like Marvel movie like in another [00:45:00] country, you know, with like a whole

Brett: No, that’s

Christina: thing. Like, that was so cool.

Brett: That’s interesting.

Disappointment with Endgame

Brett: So I watched Endgame at home with my partner and it was like a remote group watch with, with Elle’s sister and. I fell asleep. Like that movie to me was, it was, it was overdrawn full of too many inside references. Um, just kind of a travesty.

Star Wars Prequels Hype and Letdown

Brett: But to that end, do you remember the hype around the Star Wars prequels before the first one

Christina: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, I, I do. ’cause I was a hater. I was a big hater.

Brett: I don’t know if you are familiar with the fact that punk rockers are generally nerds and, um, when, when, so I was in Minneapolis when the first Greek will came out, and the lead singer of my [00:46:00] band, who he was. A dangerous, dangerous person who everyone was scared of. But he had a big Rebel Alliance logo on the back of his punk rock spike jacket, and he led the charge to get about 200 punk rockers to pitch in money, to rent out a whole small theater

Christina: Oh my

Brett: for the release of the first

Christina: Of, of, of episode one. Wow.

Brett: yeah, and we both know it was not good, like it was full, but when you’re in a room full of nerds who have that kind of hype built up and they’re

Christina: Oh, no. You’re gonna

Brett: because they want to love it

Christina: right. You, no, you’re, you’re, you’re, it’s, it’s gonna be the, the crash comes the next day. The

Brett: Yep. Exactly. Exactly.

Christina: you go, what the fuck was this? Why was this jar, jar beings puppet there? This child actor is terrible. Like this whole thing is, and, and you know, like, for, for, for me.

Brett: lot of talk in the community after

Christina: Yeah. For [00:47:00] me, my, my, my big takeaway was ’cause I didn’t expect the movie to be good because I didn’t really think the prequels were that good. And I was like, deep into my, my, I’m, I’m, I’m, you know, a, a, a film snob phase. Um, and look, I was correct, the, the, the prequels were, were trash and I saw all of them.

But like, it was one of those things where all my friends wanted to go. So I had to go. And then I remember like watching and I was like, why in the fuck would Natalie Portman do this to her career? Which is honestly still a question I have. Right? I’m like, you know, it didn’t, it didn’t drill anything.

’cause she’s so talented. But like, she’s literally the most talented actress, like of her generation, like, in terms of a sheer talent perspective, in my opinion. I think Natalie Portman is, is the most talented. And, and I’m like, what the fuck are you doing? You know? But like, but at the moment, I mean, I, I think I was a hater, so I don’t think that I was like that enamored with episode one, but I saw it at midnight with, you know, people and like.

It’s infectious, right?

Batman vs Superman Premiere

Christina: Like I even saw, God, what was it I saw, I went to the, the world premiere of, um, of Batman versus Superman at, um, radio City [00:48:00] Music Hall. And like, you know, the cast is there and the whole thing. And like, and it was, you know, this and Radio City is a, a huge, huge venue, especially like if you use it as a movie theater.

And even then, because of, you know, you’re with like however many, you know, hundreds of people might have been a, you know, a few thousand, I’m not sure. Um, you’re pro probably a few thousand. Um, you’re like, you’re hyped on it. You’re like, okay, all right. Zach Snyder, I’m, I’m, I’m in. And it wasn’t until like the car ride, like back that I was like starting to thinking about.

I was like, well, okay, I like Jesse Eisenberg, but like. So much of this didn’t make sense. And then like, then the next day I’m like, oh yeah, no, this was, this was hot garbage. But like, at the time, you know, like they, they kind of get you, like if you’re not, if you’re not, you know, uh, thinking critically, it, it, and, and, and I look back at that experience, I’m not mad.

I saw the movie in the theater, um, especially the way that I did. Um,

Brett: Yeah,

Christina: but

Brett: to the theater is fun. It doesn’t, even if the movie’s shitty, [00:49:00] like, and often, often, if it’s really shitty and the group experience is everyone’s pissed off, it’s still fun

Christina: Oh,

Brett: part of a group and you’re having like, it’s like going to a soccer game where your team loses. It’s still fun.

Christina: totally.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis

Christina: Well, I saw, I saw for instance, Ford Coppola’s, uh, movie Megalopolis in the theater with my friend Colin, um, back in like October. And there were only a few of us in the theater, and, and we got in trouble because we talked during like, the previews and I was like, okay.

Like,

Brett: What,

Christina: and I’m like, fuck off. Like, I, I’m gonna talk during the preview, it’s not a big deal. But we didn’t like talk, but like the movie itself. Um, and, and we didn’t get like a special guest, like during our, our, you know, screening or whatever, which, which some cities did, which is, which is fine, but like, it’s this long ass movie and it’s fucking weird as hell when the whole time I’m watching it, I’m like, I cannot wait to watch this high out of my mind because if this is this like, bizarre, like stone sober, like I can’t wait to see this in another setting.

But it is one of those things where I’m gonna be honest with you, um, I don’t think, I mean, [00:50:00] look, I actually really respect the fact that Francis Ford Coppola was like, yeah, this is what I’m gonna do with my money and my legacy. I’m gonna spend a hundred million dollars plus my own money on, um, this. And it’s, it’s. It’s interesting, like I’m glad the film was made. It is not a good movie, but I’m, I’m glad that films like that exist. Right? Like, I’m glad that he did what he did. Um, and, and I think it takes balls to just be like, and I also really respect the fact that like, his kids were in no way not supportive. Like they were like, it’s your money dad.

Do it. Right? Because, you know, there are a lot of kids who be like, dad, that’s our future. You know, don’t, don’t, don’t spend $150 million of your money. Because the studio looked at it and they were like, this is insane. We’re not gonna pay for this. um, and, and yeah. Um, but like the, some of the acting performances were actually really good.

The disappointing thing is that like. John Voight, who I’ve never seen give a good performance ever was actually good. So was Shy [00:51:00] LaBuff. So like the two most canceled people, like in the movie actually gave like the two best performances, which is, it is what it is. But like it was, it was a weird and kind of bizarre movie.

And in its long as I’ll get out, but I was just like, I’m so glad I’m seeing this in a theater with like my friend and like three, like octogenarians, because those were the only like five of us who were like watching this movie. Like when it, when it came out and, and it was funny because we had a choice.

We were like, we could see that. Or Joker Two and Man, did we choose correctly because Joker two I tried to watch in a hotel, like after it, you know, it was out for like two or three weeks and then it came to HBO and I fell asleep like 25 minutes into it. I was like, I can’t, I can’t with this. Like as soon as they started singing, I was like, oh, okay, so this is real, real, real fucking bad.

Um. Wound up having like, literally like one of like the, the longest running number one hit songs ever. Which is funny. The, the, the Lady Gaga, uh, Bruno Morris song, which I don’t even like, but like, [00:52:00] man, man, that movie is a, was a colos. Flub. I feel like even in the theater, that would be one of those scenarios where it’d be like, no, you know what?

I, I have better things to do with my, with my time. But megalopolis, no, I didn’t. And I’m like, I’m incredibly grateful that I gotta see that in the theater

Brett: I never

Christina: five people. Yeah. I mean, and I, I can’t necessarily recommend it. Um, certainly not sober.

Brett: the way I wanna spend an evening. Although I could get, I have mushrooms.

Christina: Yeah, if you have mush. Okay. Honestly, honestly, like, like under like the, like UN UN like high or, or on mushrooms or something, I could definitely see it being.

Certainly interesting. ’cause the thing is, is like, it has some interesting ideas. It’s about like this idea, it kind of takes place like in this esque kind of world, and this, this kind of builder, this, this, this great guy who’s wanting to kind of like, he’s trying to like chase, I think like a former love.

I don’t remember all the story, but like, there’s, it, it’s, it’s like a, it’s like a more modern, like esque like Roman empire type of situation, but yet it takes place. But like, Roman’s [00:53:00] now New York and, and, and there’s magical kinds of stuff. I don’t know. It’s, it’s a, it’s a weird fucking movie. But, um, so, but the acting, like the acting is actually good and the, and this story is, is bizarre and, and this special effect stuff is weird, but, um, but like Aubrey Plaza is in it.

She’s really good. Chloe Fineman from SNL is in it. She’s really good. Um, you know, Adam Driver, who is always good, but like he’s. You know, other thing, like, it, it’s a really good cast and, and obviously everybody shows up ’cause they’re like, well it’s France, Ford Coppola, you know, even if this is a shit show, I will work with him.

And, and like that’s, I would love to see like a true, like behind the scenes like documentary, like oral history of how that movie was made. ’cause it took like 30 years he’d been trying to get it made for forever and everybody was like, no. And then finally he was like, well, fuck you. I’ll just, I’ll sell my, you know, um, vineyard and I’ll just do it myself. Okay. You know what, man? Like, you gave us the Godfather and, and the conversation and like, you know, uh, like you, you, you, [00:54:00] you gave us so much cinema that like, you know, apocalypse Now, like you, you can do, you can be a fucking weirdo. Like, I’m, I’m good with that, so.

Movie Recommendation Apps

Brett: So speaking of recommending movies, are there any good? So when some, I’ve been watching a ton of movies lately and some nights I’m like, I wish I could find a movie like that. Had the same hit as X and not x this, but like as blank, and I have not found a decent app. For even related movie recommendations, let alone like here’s, I would love an app where I just, it gave me a list and I was like, yes, I like this.

No, I don’t like this. And it came out and would give me decent recommendations. I have not found an app that gives me anything I actually wanna watch yet.

Christina: I, I, I feel like there probably, I’m sure there are probably a [00:55:00] million things like that, but it’s funny you say that because that’s actually a thing that I’ve been vibe coding for me and some of my friends is like a movie and TV show recommender. And so what, what we’ve been doing is basically like, ’cause a lot of times, like we have a, a group chat that there’s like, you know, 14 or 15 of us in it.

That are, you know, people are, are intermittently like active, but like people will recommend like TV shows or movies or whatever. And a lot of us have similar tastes. And so I was like, okay, well we need to have a way where we can like basically, you know, each add a recommendations and, and like say who recommended it.

And, and then I, you know, I was planning around May I stuff and I was like, well put in like similar to shows and, and I will say at least so far, I mean, I don’t think it’s like a perfect thing to do what you’re doing, but like when I, you know, kind of the thing that I’ve been vibe coding has actually.

Shown me like pretty decent similarity stuff right now. I think the cool thing would be like, so it’s like if I enter in like the Pit, then you might also like, you know, TV shows like, like er or you [00:56:00] know, like, um, you know, Grey’s Anatomy or, or, or whatever. Um, or, or if you like, you know, the, the, the studio you might like, um, you know, hacks or Broad City or, you know, in some other types of, of shows, you know, kind of comedy things in that, in that vein, I don’t know how deep it goes.

Um, I feel like that would be the thing that would be really, really good. But, um, that’s something I’ll look into, um, if I ever get this app in a state that I, I can share it more broadly,

Brett: I think what I would be interested in, and it’s entirely possible that nobody has tagged movies in this respect, but I would be interested in movies that had the same vibe,

Christina: yes and

Brett: subject material, but the same like vibe. Like it’s gonna make me feel

Christina: Right.

Brett: similar. So like I ended up watching neighbors and, and Neighbors to the.

Christina: I, I love those

Brett: movie. Yeah, they’re good. And [00:57:00] ultimately, like I, they’re just funny. They’re not, they, they have no like dramatic emotional impact,

Christina: no, no, no. They’re, they’re just, they’re good to have on the background.

Brett: and I was looking for another movie like that where it’s just stupid. Where it’s just stupid frat boy humor and, and what’s his name? What’s the main character?

Uh, the actor

Christina: That Seth Rogan.

Brett: Seth Rogan. Yeah. Like that kind of like Seth Rogan kind of feel, maybe without Seth Brogan. Um, and that is really hard to like qu qualify. Um, and I don’t know if there’s like even a database you could access that was like,

Christina: There probably are. Oh, I’m sure there are. I’m sure that like Rotten Tomatoes and, and like IMDB, which their API is, is, um, like they, they price it specifically that they don’t want people to use it. I don’t know how well people have used like the, the, the, the movie [00:58:00] database for things like that. I’m sure people have have done

Brett: TMD, the movie database, actually their API is solid.

Christina: is, and that’s what I’m using for my

Brett: info out of it.

Christina: Right. That’s, that, that’s what I’m using for, um, for my like, you know, like, uh, share a show, um,

Brett: Yeah. I built TMDB into Search Link and it is so much better and more accessible than

Christina: Yeah, IMDB has better data, but the, the pricing, like it is, it’s one of those things where like you have to call to basically get a price and, and have like a, a, like a Amazon like level like service agreement. Like it is not a thing. Like you could scrape it, I guess, but like, it is not like in terms of doing it from an API level, like they, they don’t want you to use it, is is, is really what it comes down to.

But like, I’m sure that, that like Rotten Tomatoes and other things, like, I’m sure that they have that stuff. I just doubt that they, they wanna make it accessible. But I’m sure there are people who’ve built sentiment analysis things based on movies. Oh, you know, what would actually be the perfect thing to use for this?

And I don’t know if they have an API, I’m, I’m gonna check this right now. Letterbox, [00:59:00] letterbox is the thing that would, that would be the, the best way, uh,

Brett: They would have

Christina: do this. Um, because. Yep. There is an API. Um, and so, uh, I don’t know exactly, um, like what, what it all, what it all, uh, has, but they, they do have, um, an API ’cause that would be the thing.

Brett: a, I built a really simple movie search using letterbox API, but I’d never dug into anything close to sentiment analysis or reviews or anything like that.

Christina: Yeah, because I bet that, I mean, because, because if anybody was gonna do, like, if you, if there was any place that you could trust for that, like that would be the thing, right? Where if there are users you follow or things that you like, like, ’cause that’s, that to me would be way better than like, whatever aggregate data like Rotten Tomatoes has, um, would be, you know, polling people who put something like on their list and if people liked it or didn’t like, you know what I mean?

Like, I feel like that would be the thing that if you were able to plug into that, I’d be like, okay, if enough people who watch this movie also watch this one and [01:00:00] like it, then you can see that there’s correlation because usually there is, right. Like that, that was kind of how like the, the musical genome thing, um, project worked with, with things like last FM and stuff like that was that they were able to, you know, show yeah, there is a certain correlation for these things and, um, uh, not always, and, and, and you can kind of get stuck into a.

A rut of just like, you know, this is kind of Spotify’s problem. A little bit of like, just like listening to everything sounds the same. But, um, at the same time, I will say my Spotify recommendations, for instance, are, uh, it, it’s, it’s embarrassing how much better they are than, than Apple musics, for example, like Apple Musics and, and I, I listen to more music on Apple Music actually.

And so Apple Music should have a better way to recommend things to me. And they don’t. All they do is just recommend things that I’ve already listened to where, and they always have, but been able to, especially on recommendations like Spotify will actually introduce me to new artists, whereas Apple will not, the only way I ever introduced to anything new on Apple [01:01:00] is on their human curated playlist, where if I happen to see that they’ve added something, you know, for a new thing and I go, oh, I don’t know who this is.

And I go, oh shit, this is really good. But then that didn’t come to me like I had to seek that out. And that’s human creation, right? Whereas Spotify, like Discover Weekly will give me sh like bangers and,

Brett: week I find new stuff.

Christina: Definitely. Right. And, and even the autoplay stuff will introduce me to like, I’ll be listening like, oh, who is this?

And I’ll be like, oh, okay. I didn’t, I, I’ve heard of this artist, but I didn’t ever listen to them before, you know, and I, I like this. Right?

Privacy Concerns with Media Consumption

Christina: So, um, yeah, I feel like Plex, I think is like having like their, they’re always having business model problems because, you know, it’s hard to make money when essentially you are, you know,

Brett: Your business is Piring.

Christina: Correct.

And, and you’re trying to pretend like it’s not. But it is. And like we all know that it is. And, and I, I, I’m like, in my case, a lot of times I’m like, I legally own many of these movies and TV shows, but it is more convenient to have them in the format that I have them in. Right. [01:02:00] Um, and, and then you obviously want your friends to have it, but like, I feel like this is an area where Plex, especially if they did ratings and whatnot, like could really offer up great recommendations and stuff if they were able to kind of, you know, use that kind of thing.

Like they would have really good insights into that. But.

Brett: would be so cool.

Christina: But, but I also understand that they probably don’t wanna get too into that A, because their users would freak out and have freaked out anytime they were even like, oh, you’re watching this, you know, sharing what you’re watching with your friends.

Which to be clear, I don’t really love that feature. I turned that off immediately. I was like, I don’t need people to see what I’m watching. Like, if I wanted to share, great, but I don’t want that auto on. That’s, it’s like the, it’s also like the Spotify listening thing. I’m like, Uhuh, no, no, no, no. You don’t need to know how many times I listened to this song in a row.

Like, that’s, that, that’s family business, right? That’s family business. Like this is, you don’t need like my, my like, you know, weirdness does not need to be your whole thing. Um, and, and I think content that I’m watching is even more personal, right? Like, because

Brett: just as a side note, [01:03:00] that’s, that’s all public for me. If you go to Brett turp.com/soundtrack, you can see what I’m listening to. But my script will, if I listen to a track repeatedly, it only shows it once, but if you hover over

Christina: Oh, you can see how many

Brett: uh, like 144 plays.

Christina: wild. Which is, which is awesome. And again, like if you wanna share that, I, I’m like, not opposed to it, and I might even be interested in doing something like that myself. What I am opposed to is being like, okay, if I wanna like, let people service that on my own listening page, great.

But I don’t want them to just be able to click on my profile any random person and be like, oh, this is what Christina’s listening to right now. Like, fuck that Uhuh. Um, but like, and, and I feel kinda the same way about like Plex. Like I might actually enjoy a, like a, a a slash now feature. Like, this is what I’m watching, this is what I’m listening to, whatever.

Um, but I also turn that stuff off on steam. I’m like, no, you don’t need to see how many hours have been playing Star Valley.

Brett: You know where it kills me is on, um, on [01:04:00] my fuck, what’s it called? What’s Facebook’s, uh, or meta’s? Um, goggles.

Christina: Oh, the, oh, the Oculus.

Brett: Oculus on my Oculus, like for a while it was sharing how much time I was spending in different apps, and I have one that I literally only use for porn.

Christina: Right, right,

Brett: so I was getting questions from friends who are like, Hey, what are you, what are you doing with, uh, because they were like, he’s spending a lot of time there.

It must be a good app.

Christina: right, right.

Brett: I, I, I’m, I’m an honest guy. I

Christina: you are No,

Brett: what I was doing with it, but then I shut off that fucking sharing feature.

Christina: Well, no, that’s the thing, right? I’m like, I’m like, I don’t need people to know like what I’m watching or what I’m listening to. You know what I mean? Because Yeah. Because sometimes yes, we are adults and like people, and I’m like, A, I don’t wanna share that.

And b, like, I don’t want you to know that. Right? And, and, and I will go this far farther. I don’t wanna know what you’re doing. Right? Like, I like all power to you, but I don’t actually, when I see this, like, I don’t actually wanna know that [01:05:00] my friend was watching porn on their plex or on their oculus or, or whatever.

Like, do it. I love that for you. I don’t actually want to, I don’t need to know this. Um, and, and, you know, uh, I, I’ve seen that on Steam too, where people like, I’ll see like their sex games and I’m like, cool. Awesome. Really did not need to know that.

Brett: Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. Didn’t need to know about it.

Christina: I didn’t need to know about your sex simulator, which is like, awesome.

That’s, that’s like the happy for you. But like, no, the same way. Like, you don’t need to know that I’ve spent like 600 hours playing the sims. Like, these are just things that we don’t need to, like, unless we choose to share, we need to do.

Bill Atkinson’s Legacy

Christina: Um, I know, I know we’re, we’re coming up on gratitude, but I did wanna mention real briefly, this is kind of a, a sad and weird segue, but, um, bill Atkinson, uh, a computing pioneer, um, uh, died and, uh, he was the creator of Mac Paint and, um, uh, HyperCard and the whole, he was able to figure out how to make windows overlap onto one another.

[01:06:00] Uh, and, and the quick draw framework, uh, you know, for the Mac, which was like a, a massive, massive thing. He created kind of like the, the modern, like, kind of like a dithering um, uh, algorithm.

Brett: owe a lot to him.

Christina: We owe a, a ton to him. And I, I don’t think I ever met him, but I obviously was like aware of him and like, I don’t know, like hypercar alone, like is a direct reason why like I got into computers and, and building stuff because like I went hypercar to the web and um, when I was in elementary school.

And so, uh, like, you know, thoughts to his family, but what a great legacy.

Brett: I should ask Sal Sago for a quote about Bill Atkinson passing. I bet, I bet. I bet that would make a good blog post,

Christina: I bet it would.

Brett: with Al Sago about Bill Atkinson.

Christina: Totally, totally. Um, Andy Hertzfeld, um, folklore.org, which is basically just in a, kind of a hibernated state now, but, but it’s, it’s still like [01:07:00] archived. Um, which has like all the stories about the development of the original Macintosh. Um, there are, are a ton of, of, of, um, you know, bill Atkinson stories, um, in there.

Um, and I was watching this video, um, I’ll, I’ll put it in the show notes, um, uh, yesterday, uh, that somebody edited together, like some of the first demos, um, from the first Mac and, and like seeing like, uh, bill show off Mac paint, um, to people and like hearing the applause. Um, I mean, it, it was such a fucking good demo and, and it’s just so

Brett: a link to that, add that to the show

Christina: Yeah, I’m going to, yeah, I’m going to. Um, because it, it was so cool to see and, and it was also wild, just like looking back and like seeing how young all those guys were and, and, and, and the one female member of the, of the deaf team, um, uh, were when they, you know, when, when the Mac, um, came out and, um, just freaking like unbelievable talents level.

But, but, but, but he, uh, [01:08:00] um, his, his demo of his of Mac pain is so good and everybody’s applauding and, and then, um, he passes it off to the guy who did McElroy, right? And, and that guy like takes a second to say, um, you know, uh, you know, Mac pain is great, but like without quick draw or whatever Bill’s, quick draw, like, none of us would actually be up here.

None of this would be possible. And, and it was just such a really nice like, um, like pure kind of moment of like this guy’s friend being like, no, like I’m, I’m excited to show up, but I’m showing off, but. You know, like props to my friend Bill. It was really, really nice. Um,

MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis and Butthead

Brett: of super cuts, and we don’t have to talk about this at all, but I will put it in the show notes. There was someone put together a. Complete playlist of every video ever shown on MTV’s head, banger’s ball.

Christina: my gosh.

Brett: Yeah, it is quite the trip down memory lane. Um, [01:09:00] it was kind of fascinating, but I, uh, I, I know that’s not for everybody, but for, for me, I grew up on

Christina: Yeah,

Brett: Headbanger’s ball, on my pirated, my pirated cable running into the secret TV I had in the closet in my bedroom.

Christina: That’s wild. I, I mean, I remember head bangers ball. I was much more of like a, I guess 120 minutes person. Um, if I had to pick. And even then I was late 120 minutes. ’cause I was, I was too, I was a little bit too young for all of that. But like, I, I remember like the mythos of that and That’s awesome.

That’s so cool that they did that. ’cause like that’s ’cause that was like an institution and, um, I, I spent

Brett: like the crossover between Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis and Butthead was

Christina: Well, and that’s what I watched. I loved, I loved, loved, loved Beavis and Butthead and I was much older when I realized kind of like what they were kind of like making fun of and whatnot, the music videos. But like, I just, I liked the little sketches, like the music video commentary was funny, but like, a lot of it was for stuff that I had no idea what it was or anything.

And I [01:10:00] just, I just, I loved bes and butthead. I thought it was just the funniest sh uh, stuff. And I was like in third, third and fourth grade and I just really loved it. But I spent like, my childhood and, and like adolescence frankly as well. Like, and, and then into college. Like I just. It, it was MTV and, and VH one.

Like, it was like those two networks. Well, and then the e network too. And the E network started up and started getting bigger. It was like, you know, those three things, but like, but, but especially like MTV and VH one, like, I would just like watch, like basically on like a running thing. Like I was, I was thinking about this the other day because.

Um, uh, Chapon did a, a cover of Hearts Barracuda, and it’s good. Like, it was really good. Um, she, she killed it, but it made me like, wanna go back and like, watch original heart stuff. And then I was like, okay, how did I get into heart? Because they were not a band really, by the time I was aware of music, like they would already kind of reached their peak and were gone.

And I was like, oh yeah, the, the VH one behind the music. And fortunately, like three months ago, ’cause a lot of these things get taken down very quickly. Somebody did [01:11:00] upload the, the entire like 45 minute, like, behind the Music of Heart and like, and I was like, man, yeah. ’cause they, they were like, you know, they were like Fleetwood Mac, like they, their dramas like Fleet Fleetwood Mac, but like with sisters, which honestly makes it even messier, right?

Like the whole thing, right. And, and, uh, so, um, yeah.

Typo Negative and Music Reactions

Brett: Have you, have you ever heard Typo Negative? Are you familiar with typo?

Christina: I am.

Brett: Um, there’s, I can’t remember her name, but there’s an opera singer who does like reaction videos, um, to. Like any kind of, any kind of musician she’ll, she’ll do like a reaction and analysis of the voice and the intonation and then even get into like the lyrical impact and things like that.

And she did. I. She’s just like, she’s this peppy person who had never heard of Typo negative, but one of her viewers asked her to do a typo negative reaction. Um, [01:12:00] and it was very charming watching her first reaction to, and this was like during typo, negatives, like vampire phase when they were really into like the, just the kind of the vampire mythos.

And she was like, oh, I get this. It’s like deep voice. He is got this deep, deep voice and he’s like seven feet tall. And he is, he’s playing a double bass, like it’s an electric base, like holding it up. And, and she like listening to her analyze it. She was really into it. So as a result, I was like, oh, I gotta go back and listen to Typo negative more.

And I learned in the process that there was this album called Origin of the Feces that. Was supposed to be a live album. And I learned in my kind of deep dive into Typo Negative that it was not at all a live album. It was a studio recording [01:13:00] in into which they interjected crowd noises and glasses clinking, and people booing and like, made it sound like a really poor live performance that that made you feel bad for the fucking band.

But it was all very intentional. Um, anyway, like that there, there’s a, like that guy had some lyrics, especially I think his previous band was a lot less PC and they really pushed the limits of like fascist Nazi kind of lyrics. He was like a New York Jew. Who, I don’t, I don’t even know where it all came from, but I think he was just trying to push people’s

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Brett: there’s some questionable stuff that Typo negative and Peter Steele did. Um, so I’m not gonna be like, oh my God, I’m so into these guys. But that [01:14:00] some of the sounds on, especially on their later albums when they went a little more like pop metal, when it was like super melodic and heavy at the same time, they kinda led, they, they invented goth metal.

Like that didn’t exist before. Typo negatives. So I mean, you gotta give ’em some props.

Christina: Um, yeah, for sure. No, you definitely need to give them props and, and I that, um, I, I’d like to see that reaction video. That sounds good. Um,

Brett: I’ll see if I can find that.

Christina: I put it in the show notes.

Letterboxd API and Movie Recommendations

Christina: One thing just to circle back when you’re talking about movie recommendations thing, I happen to search GitHub to see, ’cause letterbox does have an API, but apparently it’s sort of private.

But I came upon this project that, that Sam Lerner, um, created, um, a, a few years ago, but, but it looks like he’s still, um, updating that is called Letterbox Recommendations. And he basically scrapes publicly accessible letterbox data and creates a movie recommendations model with it that can generate recommendations when provided with a letterbox username.

So the whole concept is, is if you’ve rated a lot of movies on letterboxed, you can give it your [01:15:00] username and it can then give you recommendations based on your ratings compared to others.

Brett: cool.

Christina: So that’s, that seems like that that’s exactly what we were kind of talking about. Um,

Brett: I, I would have to actually go in and rate some movies, but yeah.

Christina: for sure.

Brett: what I’m talking

Christina: Yeah, exactly. And you might even be able to do something otherwise. And then he and I, I, I put in our show notes, I put like the link to the front facing, um, thing that you can do, but it also has like, um, a GitHub project because he has it, you can run it on your own. Um, and then he also, um, has a, a, a kagel dataset that’s up to date with, with his latest, um, crawl.

So you can crawl your yourself if you wanna do things and whatnot. So you might even be able to, like, you could probably modify it based on some of those parameters where you could even be, there’d be a way to modify this where you could be like, enter in a movie and get recommended movies based on other things.

Right. Like, there’d be a way to probably accomplish the

Brett: I’ll play with

Christina: doing. So,

Brett: like a fun thing to do while I’m unemployed.

Christina: yeah. I mean, look, that, that could, that, that could be [01:16:00] whatnot. And, and it’s interesting ’cause I’m now like looking through just like, um. Uh, oh, and this is cool too. Somebody has created a way to connect, um, your letterbox list to a radar, which is like the, the front end for Usenet to, to download content, um, for your plex.

Um, I’m, I’m running, I’m seeing all kinds of, um, uh, information and here just, you know, searching letterbox on, um, on, on GitHub. So that’s, uh, that’s pretty

Brett: All right, cool. Should we do our gratitude?

Christina: We should, we should, uh, do you, do you have, um, do you have one? ’cause I’ve, I’ve got a, okay. Go

Brett: do. So I’m I, and I can’t. I’ve lost track of what we’ve already talked about, but my pick this week is Flo Todo. Um, there are multiple single site browser apps out there that will turn something like, you know, Facebook into its own isolated web browser that doesn’t give data to anything else and makes it so [01:17:00] that I can separate my Facebook time from any anything else?

I have one for Facebook, one for LinkedIn. Um, I’m not on the machine that I actually run these. I have one for Blue Sky. It actually runs Deck Blue. Um, and so all my social media sites get their own Flo Todo web app. And I like Flo Todo because it’s super bare bones and super lightweight and the apps it makes are just wrappers.

That, that are basically little sandbox wrappers that take up about a megabyte and they load instantly. And they don’t, they don’t have a lot of frills. They don’t do a good job of like, with, uh, like notifications and, and badges and things like that. Uh, if, if that’s what you want, you, you wanna go with something more like Unity or Coherence X, um,

Christina: Or, or, or, or, or you wanna [01:18:00] use, um, an in Chrome and Safari’s gotten better with this, but I don’t, I don’t use Safari. Um, uh, but, but no, but, but, but Chrome, like, uh, you know, if, if apps can, can be installed as a progressive web app, then, then that does a lot of similar things. Not, not to the way that it will do, like what this does where it’ll isolate your data.

But, but it’ll, but if you, you want notifications in like a separate

Brett: if you, if you just want to separate out that kind of browsing. Yeah. Um. So single site browsers are awesome. Flo todo is lightweight, fast, and, uh, for what I need it to do, it is the easiest. Like it creates web, like if you punch in a URL and hit save instantly, you’ve got your, you’ve got your SSB.

Um, so I’m, I’m, I’m a fan. I can’t remember if I paid for it. I think I paid for it. It was like a one time,

Christina: Yeah, it looks like it. Yeah, it looks like they have like a, a basic, um, uh, version, and then there’s like a pro version that that’s, that’s 20 bucks. [01:19:00] Um, I will note, actually, and this is kind of a sad, I guess, uh, uh, update, but, um, I, uh, I might have mentioned this, um, I, one of the episodes that you weren’t on, but I’ll, I’ll mention it again just because I’m reminded of it.

Gratitude for MacUpdater

Christina: So, Mac Update, which is an app that we’ve talked about a lot of times, um, that developer has announced that he is going to basically be discontinuing the app, um, as of January. Yeah. I gu I guess he’s not making enough money off of it or whatever. He’s, he’s offering it for sale potentially, or licensing if people want to do it.

I, I don’t, I don’t have the means to be able to actually maintain it. Um, but like, but I would be

Brett: pick that up

Christina: but I,

Brett: I literally have that app open on my desktop right now.

Christina: totally. And, and so, yeah. And so I, I want, I, I think that it’s, it’s a, such a good app. Um, I mean, look, I, I’ll put this out there on, on the show. This is a weird gratitude, but I am very, you know, I have a lot of gratitude for this app.

If there are some people who would potentially wanna, like, go in with me on, like, looking at like, how much it [01:20:00] would be to buy this app, I, I mean, I would be interested in, like, I could, I could do things on, on a business side. ’cause I do feel like the price he was selling it for was probably, you know, uh, too low.

And I don’t know how big the market would be for people who’d be willing to pay, you know, $30 a year or whatever for app updates. But I, but I don’t feel like it’s zero. Um, so if, if there are people who are listening to our show who might be interested in pursuing with me and like what it would cost to do this or, or if I don’t have to be involved at all, this is just something that you feel like you, you want to do, um, you should reach out to him.

But, um, but I, I, I don’t know, I feel like. I feel like this is, this is the sort of app that we, we need to, you know, keep around.

Brett: Yeah, I agree. It’s so useful.

Christina: so useful. The only thing I can imagine is,

Brett: nothing for it.

Christina: yeah, but he basically does, it’s like the pricing right now is, uh, you know, it’s free to scan Only the standard edition is, is three 90 a person. The pro edition is, is, is $10, [01:21:00] $9 rather.

Brett: no. I thought it was more than that. Yeah. It should definitely be more than that.

Christina: And I feel like it should be a,

Brett: a, that’s a $30 app and possibly a subscription

Christina: no, I think it’s a subscription. I think it’s a $30 a year subscription is what I think it is. I mean, maybe 50, but I think 30 is probably the right thing. And, and that way, and the reason is because it’s not free to be able to, you know, there’s real bandwidth costs in having to ping in the like store, like the,

Brett: I use that app every day. I, yeah, I, I would be interested, I would back Christina on this. I don’t necessarily wanna maintain the app, but I would pitch in on keeping it alive in whatever capacity I could.

Christina: Yeah. Um, yeah, so he basically, um, you know, um, but he expects it. He just says, um, e says Mac updater three does require server support and our daily maintenance to keep working, expect support until, you know, [01:22:00] January 1st, 2026. So, ’cause he, he’s, he’s made, you know, kind of a, um, a is it, you know, take it over if your company wants to either continue Mac update or, um, or enter the app updating market, get in touch about the possibility of acquiring, you know, um, you know, whether it’s infrastructure and, you know, maintenance infrastructure or if you wanna license their tech.

Um, like, I don’t know, I, I remember what happened with

Brett: We could wait it out. We could wait it out and if no, like larger company steps up, I bet he would eventually give it away for free.

Christina: Maybe, maybe. I mean, I wouldn’t wanna pay nothing for it. Like I, I I don’t feel like that that’s, that’s fair.

Brett: No, but then it would be up to us, be like, no, we think it’s worth this. And we give him that.

Christina: yeah, I just, I, I’m just saying if there are people out there who, ’cause my whole thing is like, I don’t have those, the skills to, to maintain and, and keep it like running and updated. I would have skills to potentially like come up with like a business model and um, figure that sort of stuff out. But, um, you know, [01:23:00] ’cause I, ’cause I feel like there are a lot of things there.

Honestly. Maybe we should talk to the setup folks. ’cause this feels like this would be granted, you know, they want everybody to go through their store, but this could be like a complimentary. Thing, you know, for apps that aren’t in setup, right? Like, I don’t know, um, just, just spit balling out there. But yeah.

Um, immense gratitude and thanks for, for MAC data, uh, for, for being a real one over the years. And, and if anybody out there is in a position to help, or if you want to potentially, you know, um, if you have the technical skills and you would potentially wanna go in on something like this, like with me, and I’m, I’m not like, and I don’t even know if I have, I don’t know what he’s charging, so I don’t even know, like if I’m in the financial position to be able to like, make a real, like run of it.

Right. But, but this is one of those apps where I like look at enough, I’m like, fuck, this is actually really good

Brett: we, we would look into it with you. Give us a, give us a sh give us a shout.

Christina: Yep.

Brett: All right. So do you have a pick

Christina: Um, I think that’s actually gonna be my pick. Actually. I was gonna come up with [01:24:00] something else then I was thinking about, I was like, no, I actually think that, um, that it’s that. And then, uh, the other thing that I will, uh, call out is, is again, like the sand learner, uh, letterbox movie recommendations thing.

Um, which, uh, you know, like that’s, that, uh, that GitHub project looks pretty fun, so.

Brett: All right. Well, what do we, we did about an hour and a half almost. That’s fun. Just the two of us. This is, this was an OG episode.

Christina: was, this was like a very classic A DHD like og Overtired pop culture heavy. Yeah. It was good stuff.

Brett: we’ll, uh, we’re, we’re working on some more guests. Hopefully Jeff will be back, but. But you get what you get when you listen to Overtired.

Christina: You do. So, um, we, uh, we, we miss Jeff of course, but I’m glad to still talk with you Brett, and uh, get some sleep.

Brett: Get some sleep.

  continue reading

231 episodes

All episodes

×
 
Loading …

Welcome to Player FM!

Player FM is scanning the web for high-quality podcasts for you to enjoy right now. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. Signup to sync subscriptions across devices.

 

Copyright 2025 | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | | Copyright
Listen to this show while you explore
Play