Podcast 45 Transcript

A transcript for Episode 45: The one we recorded live at Jessamyn's house.

0:00-3:00

Cortex (over kazoo theme music): It's the Metafilter podcast. We've misplaced the podcast theme, so we've had to make this one up.

Mathowie: ...including, I guess that would be, self-promotional. Is this mine?

Jessamyn: Yeah, it is. I don't have any water. I have Fresca. Did you enjoy your Fresca?

C: I did. It was refresc-ing.

J: What are you laughing at?

M: What? I haven't heard "Fresca" since 1973, so...

C: I remember I went to Montana to visit my family up there and they would have Fresca.

J: Yeah, we have Moxie up here too. Maybe you would like some Moxie?

M: What's a Moxie?

J: Calvin Coolidge advertised it.

C: We need to get him some Moxie.

J: Get that man a Moxie?

C: Get it on tape. It'll be like the first goatse.cx.

J: First Moxie. Bleahhhh.

M: Is it like the Malört stuff, like some horrible root that's not supposed to taste good?

C: It's like a New England-specific cola formulation. And it's terrible. But some people fucking love it.

J: It's not even really cola. It's more like a Dr. Pepper-y kinda. It tastes like you took soda and put a stick in it. Like you dug a stick up out of the ground and soaked it in it.

M: It's a little hint of ass-y stick.

J: Exactly. Right, right. "I put this stick in my butt and...." So, yeah, we decided this is mini-podcast number what?

C: 45, I think. I think this is 45.

J: 45! And Josh is on the road. Cortex is on the road.

C: Yeah, we're here in beautiful Randolph, Vermont.

M: Is it going to be echoey in this giant room?

C: Probably, but that'll be ok. It'll be awesome.

J: Yes. This is my kitchen. Kitchen and dining room. My all-purpose room.

M: And dance floor.

J: And Matt's here.

(Matt waves.)

J: They can't see you waving.

M: I know. They eventually will.

C: We're also doing this on camera.

J: Oh, you are on doing it on camera?

M: Yes, see the camera?

C: But that won't be on the podcast.

M: Unless you synced audio with some video for some magic.

J: That would be great, you could go, "Oh, watch me make this cup disappear."

(laughter)

C: That was amazing! That was amazing.

M: Whoah.

J: So we just figured, because Josh is going to be gone -- Cortex is going to be gone for a month -- we figured since we were all in one place, we could talk a little bit about the site.

C: So how's the site been while I've been pretty much entirely ignoring it for a week now?

M: Yeah, it's hard.

J: I think I'm pretty much the only, yeah. You've been ignoring it, Matt's been doing bike races. So you've been around.

M: Yeah, but I've been gone since Friday/Saturday. It sucks. It sucks when you're on the road and you're doing stuff and you just go, "Oh Shit! Once every couple of hours I have to check a single admin page and see how many flags things have."

J: Although I was really surprised. You were talking about this too. The whole site was really totally mellow and calm from Friday most of the way through this whole last 3 or 4 days.

3:00-6:00

C: Yeah, it's been pretty chill. Like the biggest thing that has happened since I left was the Kanye West post debacle in the last 12 hours.

J: And it was not that big a deal. But yeah, so you went to the Boston Meetup?

C: Yep.

J: How was that?

C: That was excellent. We crammed into Christopher's in Cambridge, which turned out to be really, really crowded. Because what was that, Friday night I guess? There were a bunch of people in there who weren't from Metafilter as well. But we slowly assimilated into one corner of it and took it over. No, it was great. I met a bunch of people there and I did New York a couple nights before and I had a good time there too. Met some people.

J: Was there a meetup or were you just hanging out?

C: No, there was a meetup. We met up at The Magician, and then the last eight of us at midnight or so wandered over...

J: And ate food? I saw that.

C: Yeah, went to the Remedy diner and ate food and hung out for another hour.

J: And little e made "woo, woo" arm gestures that I saw photographs of.

M: Wasn't New York first?

C: Yeah, New York was first and then Boston.

M: Let's do a Week 1 recap. New York: Lots of drinking and fun. Then Boston: Lots of drinking and fun.

C: And a night off in between to play Beatles Rock Band with some of my college friends and my brother, who will be joining me.

M: Do you think the music industry is dead because Rock Band is the new platform for musicians?

C: I think it's a good thing. I think it will actually...

M: Have you seen the nerd toolkit, to put any song you want? Like any band?

C: I haven't actually seen it, but I've heard it exists.

J: What is it? Tell me about it.

M: They have like a studio, like a Rock Band studio, that's sort of like Pro Tools for Rock Band. And it's like: pull up your song, select your whatever, what's easy, what's hard, what's medium, on your song.

C: You lay out a tablature, essentially, like people have been doing for actual guitar stuff on the internet for years.

M: And then in-game downloads for a dollar, from your fans. So potentially every kid with an XBox can download your song for a dollar.

J: Do you have to be the band? Is there a whole bunch of licensing permits that you have to deal with?

M: Yeah, you have to be the band. But you also have to be a nerdy band. Like Sloan from Canada would definitely. Like the first bands you know that had websites and blogs and first on Twitter. Those are the people who will write their own Rock Band song.

C: I think that's totally the fucking future. This is all going to get more well worked out. And it's going to get to the point where we'll see ten years from now there will be a relatively industry standard API for song content generation like that, so anybody can do anything.

M: I think in ten years there might be "upload my song to a pool for movies that need an indie-rock background"-like app.

J: And then you can get all the people from Mechanical Turk to just do your tabs for you, right? For 50 cents.

C: All of a sudden there is this value above and beyond just the flat recording of music. All of a sudden the notion of a value-added album or single.

6:00-9:00

J: It used to be that liner notes were the only thing. "Well, why do I buy it in hard copy? Well, liner notes."

M: Now you can probably upload avatars of your own bandmates.

J: A wireframe of yourself.

C: Custom outfits, custom faces to go on top of the standard skeletons doing the rock moves.

M: I only have Guitar Hero for PS3 and you can just select whatever the twelve songs are and whatever's in your path, from easy to hard.

J: not_on_display says hello.

M: Oh, hello! It turns the XBox into iTunes music store, where you have to search for your band among thousands someday. "Oh, there they are! Awesome, they have a song."

J: And bands will probably promote it from their own sites too.

M: That's true. "Click this to buy on the XBox App Store."

J: Can you do that? I don't know anything about the web-XBox integration.

M: I don't think so.

C: I do almost nothing with it except for actual gaming.

J: But an XBox is online, so theoretically it could go both ways. Like the iTunes Music Store, where you can get an iTunes Music Store link on a web page.

M: So, awesome.

J: So cool, so you played Beatles Rock Band.

C: So I played some of that, it was pretty good. And ate some pizza and drank some PBR tall boys.

J: Was this in Boston? Were you with danb who actually works for...?

C: No, he wasn't able to make it up to the meetup.

J: Because he was too busy partying with the Beatles.

C: No, no, I would have loved to have met him. When I found out, when I made that connection between him and Metafilter, I was just like, "Oh my God!"

J: Did you meet him at the last? You haven't met him yet?

C: I don't think I've met him at all.

J: Oh, he's a peach. A peach. So nice.

M: So what'd you do after Boston?

C: After Boston, I drove up to Portland, Maine with -- I was going to take the commuter rail out to Salem where robocop is bleeding and banjo_and_the_pork live but I blew my transfer on the Orange line so I ended up taking a couple of buses out there and it took an hour and a half instead of thirty minutes. But that's ok, I don't mind riding the bus.

J: And I drove up there from here. I was going to go the Boston meetup and then had an earache and was tired and so...

M: That's right. Earache. What are you, 11?

J: I know! Like who gets earaches anymore? But I stopped by the doctor just to make sure I didn't have some horrible flu, because the last thing you want to do is go to a meetup and be like, "Bleah, ech, echhh" and then everyone goes home twenty miles in each direction and passes it off.

M: Like Agent Mary? Patient Mary?

C: Typhoid Mary. Or Patient Zero.

M: Patient Zero.

J: I have a really good book about Typhoid Mary that I should probably start reading.

M: So tonight is Montpelier.

C: Portland was super fun too.

M: So you haven't done Philly yet?

C: No no no no, that's next week. Yeah, Portland was really nice.

J: The amazing, sensational, almighty [Cheesus.

C: "Cheesus" Christ.

M: Did anyone eat that?

C: Two different people.

J: Two people ate them!

M: You'd think one could satisfy the entire table.

J: Well here's the interesting thing --

C: So the two people who got it are, Lipstick Thespian, who I've actually met before, years ago. I think I met him in Portland.

J: Yeah, because he used to live in the Pacific Northwest.

C: He was at the first meetup I ever went to, I think. But he ordered one, and he got through most of it, taking his time.

9:00-12:00

C: Bzbb, who I met for the first time...

J: "bzzzzb"

C: He ordered one too, and it went away -

J: He ordered the first one, and we were all, "Oh my god!" Oh. Did we explain what it is?

C: So it's --the Almighty Cheesus -- this was at the Great Lost Bear if anyone needs to find it.

J: Which had great beer also.

C: It's a burger, except for instead of a bun it's got a grilled cheese sandwich on top and a grilled cheese sandwich underneath, and that's the bun. So it's two grilled cheese sandwiches with a giant burger patty in between. And he just knocked it away. He really went through it.

J: We all wanted to watch him eat it and it was gone by the time we paid attention again.

C: Yeah. Like two glances, over a period of ten minutes, and half of it was gone and the other half was gone and it was really kind of stunning.

M: That's got to be like 2500 calories at least. That's psychotic.

C: It was pretty nuts. But he's a big guy. He cuts an imposing figure, so yeah.

J: He works in a bakery. They had really good beer, and then they do this other thing which is cake in a Mason jar? Like they bake cake in these Mason jars and then it comes with this fancy sundae stuff, and that was another thing where we got two of them for the table. Bzbb ate one of them and the table ate the other one. It was delicious.

M: That reminds me of the "office coffee mug cakes you can make in a microwave in five minutes" meme from a couple of years ago.

J: Yes. Those had a ton of calories in them too. We sell them at one of the libraries and I'm always like, "That looks delicious, but I don't have a microwave, #1, and #2, yeah, um, just too crazy." And mikepop and not_on_display missed out on that because they left a little early. And then we drove -- cortex and I drove -- across three states, or we crossed one state and we drove from one state to another state to come here.

M: The state of sobriety to the state of unsobriety.

J: Was that yesterday? Was that yesterday?

C: That was yesterday, yeah. We left a little bit before noon and drove up here.

J: Yeah. Had tacos.

M: So tonight is the evil ??? open mike. Everyone's like what?

J: Yeah, you've got the banjo mandolin.

M: Oh yeah, let's hear something. That's even worse than open karaoke.

J: You want to hear a funny joke about that banjo mandolin? You know who gave it to me? Peter met at kbd. (no idea?)

C: Ah. Well, good on him.

J: Exactly.

M: Isn't he from Costa Rica?

J: He lives in Nicaragua now, but he's actually from up-the-street from here. That's how I know him. He's from East Randolph.

M: Whaaat? Is that made out of a tamborine?

J: No!

C: No. Actually, it's a banjo.

M: And then someone had a hofmenectomy (??) grant and then a couple years later they cut it off.

C: It's like a mandolin head. It's a real short-scale mack (??) and it's got eight tuner pegs.

12:00-15:00

M: So it's somewhere in between.

C: It's a banjolin.

J: But I kind of hang onto it, even though I don't really play it, because it's fun to have people come around and plink.

C: It's a great conversation piece.

M: It looks like something you make popcorn in.

(laughter)

M: "Keep it moving on the stove."

J: That's what we do up in the country. So Cortex has done his laundry, and we walked around my small town and popped in on a couple other Mefites who were painting their wraparound porch, because it's some quaint fucking stuff here.

M: Paint will dry when it's sunny?

C: That was very small town Vermont, yeah.

J: We were going to drive across the floating bridge but it's closed because it's sinking. You saw turkeys.

C: I saw turkeys.

J: Wild turkeys.

M: We had syrup doled out to use today, because syrup is expensive.

J: We all had pancakes for breakfast. Oh, no, you had a waffle.

C: I did. I had a nice Belgian waffle.

J: I had pancakes. Matt had pancakes.

C: Yeah, we both had some of Matt's pancakes.

J: Matt didn't finish his pancakes!

M: Why wouldn't you have the traditional pancakes Metafilter breakfast?

J: Everytime we get together...

M: I should have relived that 2001 photo with the pancakes.

C: Yeah, that's pretty much it so far.

M: So what's next, tonight in Montpelier. Then what? Oh, New Orleans. We can see Cold Chef, woo hoo. Hope he gets to let us see a body, but...

J: He's not going to let you see a body!

M: Maybe ride in the hearse.

J: Hey, SirStan says high on the chat machine. That's what we should have done: opened up the chat line. Take live questions on the instant messenger.

M: People do that with webcams, like, "We're taping our podcast live," and you can see what it looks like raw with the breaks. Although we couldn't admin talk.

J: Right. We'd have to like, "This is where we were talking shit about..."

M: It would be like Sunday football and I'd be like, "I do not like that username, they've been a problem."

J: So then New Orleans, and then you're going to stop home briefly.

C: First comes, back to Boston for the night, then drive with my brother Alex (french_fry) down to Philly and then the next day to Baltimore and the next day to DC.

M: Something in Baltimore ever happen?

C: Yeah, finally, we're starting to pull something together. That's not a huge thing or anything, but it doesn't really need to be. And I don't know, there may be some spillover between Baltimore and DC from the sounds of things.

M: Aren't they within an hour of each other?

C: Yeah, so it may turn into sort of a metro area meetup.

J: You should really try and check out MrMoonPie at work. He's got a fascinating job.

M: What does he do?

C: I'm so bummed. I might be able to sneak in a 15-minute thing, but I've got to be in NYC at the JFK airport by 2:30-3 PM, and it's maybe six hours if traffic is bad.

J: He's at the Library of Congress. He's like a techy guy. He helps run THOMAS.

M: Oh, wow.

15:00-18:00

C: Yeah, so it sounds real exciting, but we might be able to glance in really briefly, if that.

J: Too bad. He's a prince among men, too, so he's always worth trying to see. So if there is a Baltimore meetup, you should buzz him just because he's terrific.

C: Yeah! Yeah, totally.

M: delfuego is down there too.

J: Oh, right! And he went bowling at the White House!

M: Yeah! And OG webserver hosting.

J: So your stance is, let us know if we're up in Montpelier early.

M: Well, I mean, earlier would be leaving now.

J: Yeah. I told him, we're recording the thing.

M: Is this supposed to start at 6?

J: Yeah!

M: Okay.

C: Well, we could get there a half-hour early.

M: Oh, it's only like a half-hour away.

J: Yeah, a half-hour, forty minutes.

M: No, I was thinking of the airport. Okay.

J: Nope. Not the airport. I'm going to have a beer, 'cause I'm not drinking, er -

C: laughs

J: - I'm not driving! 'Cause I started drinking early! laughs No, I'm very excited. I think it's going to be super-fun. I'm so psyched to have you guys in town. And there's going to be new mefites, like normally, all the meetups are at my house.

M: Yeah, where's the barbecue meetup?

J: Or at terrapin's house.

C: Yeah, so, we'll be able to get people more comfortable.

M: I've seen photos of a backyard. I don't see much of a backyard.

J: That was in Bethel, where I used to live.

M: Oh, okay.

J: Yeah, that was super-fun.

M: Eideteker with leathers and a motorcycle.

J: Yeah, he rides a motorcycle.

M: Yeah, but that was the old house?

J: That was the old house. Though I had a birthday mole (?)

M: You could throw fire in the hole.

J: Well, there is actually a backyard out that way which is super-pretty, but it's kind of a hike from here. At that place you could have food in the kitchen and go right outside. Here it's, "climb up the twenty-eight stairs."

M: You might as well cook it out there.

J: Right.

M: That is a complicated sign for getting people all the way out there.

J & C: laugh

J: "Bathroom is up the stairs, and..." Yeah, I dunno. What else do you want to tell people?

C: I dunno. I've lost my mind already, at this point.

M: Two more weeks of mind-losing.

C: Well, I've got three more weeks, but I'm going to take a break home, I'm going to go home, instead of going to Vegas.

M: See your wife for one day? Three days?

J: Tag in.

C: Like a day, a day and a half.

J: You can fit a lot of snuggling into a day and a half.

C: Yeah, we - this is the first time we've been - like, I've already gone as long as I've ever been gone, and probably then some, by a day or two, already at this point, so we're both going out of our minds.

J: "This is weird! It's weird!"

C: So going into it, we're like "uh, is this a good idea?" And I think we were both trying to be all -

J: "Let's try it!"

C: "Yeah, no! Let's do it!" and then, yeah. Once it actually started happening, it's kind of, yeah.

M: Can she imagine she married a trucker or a fisherman, a longshoreman -

J: Or somebody in another state.

C: Yeah.

M: This is supposed to be normal for some people.

C: Yeah. I'm sure some people work it well, I just don't think we're well equipped for it, so we uh, (uncomfortable laugh)

J: Homebodies.

M: Ever since you been gone, she's breathed for the first time.

J: laughs

C: Maybe, maybe.

J: Yeah, that song was playing when we were at the Smiths (?) club.

M: I know, as soon as he said "since I've been gone."

J: sings along to a Kelly Clarkson song

18:00-21:00

C: I'll let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best -

M & J: laugh

C: - music videos.

M: So, one week of fun down, three weeks of fun ahead.

C: Yeah! No, I'm having a really great time.

M: You should have taken a sack of t-shirts & sold them along the way, Johnny Appleseed-style - to pay for your hooch in the next town.

C: I could have. That is a thing I could have done. laughs

M: You could also had a ??? and hooch in the next town. You could've had a kid come up and say "I got a t-shirt and then I made millions, somehow -"

C: laughs

M: "- and it made my life better" and then people would be like "oh, I need one of them shirts!"

J: laughs As long as they're extra-extra-large.

C: A snake oil keg. Plant in the crowd.

M: And then you "whoa! gotta leave town!" with the banjo music that you could play.

C: That would be pretty sweet.

J: Runnin' out on a rail.

M: Drink chase (?)

J: singing: twangs

M: Next year, it'll be cheaper, it'll be a whistlestop tour. We'll just rent a train.

J: No dude, next year I'm going to buy that red van around the corner.

C: Oh man! That would be so -

M: Sweeeet!

J: And just put a magnet on the door that says Metafilter, low low low rent.

M: No, electrical tape USA. On the side. With little X's on each town. Or get Al Franken to draw it for you.

J: We all did that at the meetup in Portland!

M: Really?

J: We all drew pictures of the United States!

M: Anyone come close?

C: It turns out nobody's just going to be Al Franken.

J: We're all shitty. laughs

M: It's really that hard.

J: I thought I'd be okay at it, I was surprised at how bad - no!

C: You did okay, but there were eleven states missing from Jessamyn's.

M: Corners never line up. You memorize each state, but then, drawing them together -

J: I got lost in the Midwest!

M: - what? Oregon's double the width of Washington?

J: I don't know where West Virginia is. And Kentucky. I mean, I know where they are because I know people that live there, but I don't know how they fit together.

C: Yeah.

M: That's right, it can't even be completed for most people. I probably couldn't complete it, yeah. (a questioning grunt)

J: (repeats questioning grunt) Yeah, and Cortex touched a llama. Have you mentioned the llama?

C: Did I actually make contact with the llama? Because I don't think I did. I got within ten feet at one point.

M: Is your mama a llama?

J: We went and fed sheep and llamas over at terrapin and turtlegirl's place.

M: Are we going to cruise by there?

J: No!

M: Awww.

J: We could, but they're going to be on their way to Montpelier.

M: Yeah. I meant, to drop off the hard drive enclosure.

J: No, we're meeting them at the meetup.

M: Oh, okay. Perfect.

J: Yeah, they're coming to the meetup. Cortex had a lobster roll.

M: What's a lobster roll?

C: Twenty bucks, same as in town.

M & J: laugh

M: Booyah!

C: Oh shit!

J: Pow!

M: That was amazing.

C: No, it's like a -

M: Some sort of bread bowl-based tuna salad, except with -

C: It's a bun salad thing with lobster salad.

M: Why would you fuck up lobster with -

C: Well, because I didn't have just a straight up lobster roll.

J: Because real lobster is expensive.

M: So lobster roll makes it go farther?

C: Well, they shred up lobster when it's almost a sauce.

J: You can be like lobster-nose and lobster-ears.

21:00-25:00

M: Isn't lobster delicious? Why would just throw in a whole bunch of crap?

J: Because you don't want to pay $20 for it.

M: Like we don't eat truffle slaw. "Oh, I bought one truffle and it makes an entire meal."

C: I was going to try to get a lobster roll when I was in Maine but it wasn't a big priority and it didn't happen. So all they had was the lobster salad roll, and I figured that was close enough. But I liked it.

J: Alright. Well, let's get in the car.

M: Wooooooooo.

C: OK. Good podcast.

Closing song: Meanest Words by chococat

Credits

• Minutes 0 to 3 - Smackfu
• Minutes 3 to 6 - Smackfu
• Minutes 6 to 9 - Smackfu
• Minutes 9 to 12 - Smackfu
• Minutes 12 to 15 - Smackfu
• Minutes 15 to 18 - pronoiac
• Minutes 18 to 21 - pronoiac
• Minutes 21 to 25 - Smackfu