336: Rocket Was Always the Protaganist

Rocket Was Always the Protaganist

[00:00:00] Brett:

[00:00:03] Brett: Welcome back, Overtired listeners, it has been a minute. Um,

[00:00:08] Jeff: I’m Sam Sanders. Sorry.

[00:00:11] Brett: we, we have been, we have been on a little bit of a break, but I am Brett Terpstra. I am here with Jeff Severins Gunsel and Christina Warren. How you guys doing? How you holding up?

[00:00:22] Jeff: I wish I was Sam Sanders and I wish he was still hosting. It’s been a minute because he’s phenomenal. It’s still a great show. Sorry. I’m good. Hi, Christina. Hi.

[00:00:30] Christina: Hi, I’ve missed you guys.

[00:00:32] Brett: Yeah, how long’s it been? We, we took a couple weeks off. I think two, maybe three. Um, we had a lot of, there was a lot of travel, a lot of end of summer stuff going on. And, uh, and we, and we have zero sponsors for the foreseeable future. So if we need a week off, we’re taking a week off. And, uh,

[00:00:53] Jeff: Does anybody have like a, like an AA sponsor they could bring on? I’m

[00:00:56] Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, or, or, hey, but, but genuinely, if you have, um, a, [00:01:00] uh, you know, a product service app that you would like to get out to an audience of, uh, you know, um, nerds and, uh, and whatnot, uh, hit us up and, um, sponsor, sponsor the pod.

[00:01:11] Brett: for sure. I, um, it’s, it’s kind of nice not being beholden to anybody.

[00:01:17] Christina: Oh, totally. I’m just saying.

[00:01:19] Brett: But yeah, I mean, and I know from experience that people will forgive this show for disappearing for like up to a year at a time, and they keep, and they stick around, they keep coming back. We had a couple years of very sporadic podcasts, and when we started back up, our downloads were about the same as they were when we left off.

[00:01:44] Brett: To be fair, In the past, when we were on 5×5, our show got 30, 000 downloads a week, which is very respectable. These days, I’m not going to throw out numbers, but it is far less than that. [00:02:00] Um, it is, it is a fraction of

[00:02:03] Jeff: select group of people that we allow to listen to this

[00:02:05] Brett: But we have very loyal listeners who, who know us and, and if they met us on the street, they would all be very kind.

[00:02:13] Jeff: I love you, Danny Glamour.

[00:02:15] Mental Health Corner

[00:02:15] Brett: We all love Danny Glamour. Um, uh, so anyway, we should kick off a mental health corner, find out where everybody’s at. Uh, Jeff, how you doing?

[00:02:26] Jeff: I am doing pretty good. Um, I, I am doing pretty good. I have, uh, yeah, I’m doing good. I, I said that six times now, which probably means I’m not doing good. No, I think I am. Um, I, uh, I’m, I’m in the midst of, uh, preparing for a, um, Pretty whack a doodle, uh, uh, yard sale of tools. Um, that is, uh, the tools I will be selling cover a bizarre range of things from the industrial to the eccentric and, uh, [00:03:00] and much of what’s there is the result of a, what I, what I, you know, now understand was a, a manic episode.

[00:03:07] Jeff: Two and a half years ago, a month long, I’ve never had anything like it. I’ve, I’m diagnosed with bipolar, um, but I, and,

[00:03:16] Brett: Type one. I

[00:03:17] Jeff: and type, yeah, whatever the one where people go, oh, bummer. Um, and, uh, And, and I’ve, and I now understand what manic episodes have looked like in my life and they never looked like this. And I was obsessed with this idea that I was burned out in my work.

[00:03:35] Jeff: And I loved working in my workshop. I have a kind of extensive workshop. I like doing metal work. I like just like doing random commissions. I like, uh, fixing old, old things. Um, and, and I decided that’s, I’m going to figure out how to make a life. Out of this, and it’s going to be funded by flipping, uh, by flipping old tools that I, that I restore using my great judgment, which of course, when you’re manic, your judgment is incredible.

[00:03:59] Jeff: [00:04:00] Um, and so I started going to, I started bidding in auctions for about a month. Closed, like steel factories that were closing down and like, uh, this old man in Spooner, Wisconsin had died, Charlie, and he was basically they were like auctioning off his entire shop and I bought a bunch of like, valuable vintage tools for nothing and, and bought way too much of them and, and almost, almost destroyed my van trying to drive it home.

[00:04:27] Jeff: Um, and so anyway, I, I thought it was the best month of my life until I realized it was probably the worst. And I brought home so much stuff in that month and, and spent so much money. Um, and it really kind of brought my whole life, uh, to a grinding. Halt, I guess. Um, as I sort of lost that energy and realized what had happened and it was difficult in my home, in my relationship, it was difficult for me because the workshop I loved, that I was already struggling to keep clean now, was basically, [00:05:00] you couldn’t navigate it.

[00:05:01] Jeff: And I, and because that led to my diagnosis and, and that led to a long period of trying to find the right medications, which led to gaining a bunch of weight, which led to getting diabetes, which led to getting diabetes meds that caused me to lose a bunch of weight, like, uh, not to mention, you know, different the way different drugs impact you and how long it takes you to realize it.

[00:05:21] Jeff: And then how painful it is when you stop, you know, like it was a two year process that ended not that long ago, maybe like six months ago. And I feel great now and I feel really even and I, and that’s just wonderful. But, um, I had to let all that stuff just stay in this terrible condition. I had to just, I essentially made it a time capsule.

[00:05:38] Jeff: And, um, and, and recently through just a lot of hard work and therapy, I was able to kind of face it cause like one of the things that I learned about having a really destructive manic episode is like. It’s really painful to feel like you can’t trust yourself, because I, I’ve always felt like I can trust myself, trust my gut, and I have, I think, been able to do that, and it’s served me well, [00:06:00] um, but my judgment in that period was so fucking off, and, um, and it was, it was exaggerated parts of real me, right?

[00:06:09] Jeff: Like, it wasn’t like, oh, I’m not me, it was like, no, I’m definitely me, and, and all of the, the, the dials, and I’m not going to see up to 11, it’s overused in our culture, but all the dials are just, all the faders are up,

[00:06:21] Brett: then some.

[00:06:21] Jeff: Yeah, I was fucking Jeff, right? Like, um, and, uh, and so anyway, it’s, it’s this beautiful thing.

[00:06:29] Jeff: Cause I, I finally realized, okay, I think I can go in. I think I can sort through this stuff. I think I can make sort of a really fun sale. And the concept of the sale. Is it’s, um, I’m, I’m liquidating my Uncle Ray’s, uh, uh, workshop and collection. My Uncle Ray was a little bit of a hoarder. Uh, he, he passed recently.

[00:06:49] Jeff: Um, he was an eccentric. He’s a wonderful guy. Uh, and I, I really love him. And he asked me in his last dying wish was just make sure my stuff goes to a good home. And if it can’t [00:07:00] take it to the dump, um, and, and I, I created that idea, which I may not even go with because I loved the possibility. Let me tell you, when I have this sale, it’s going to draw in some weirdos.

[00:07:10] Jeff: And, um, and, and so I didn’t want to have to argue with people about whether something works or the value of something I wanted to be like, look, man, I can’t tell you if that thing’s working. It was Uncle Ray’s and I can’t tell him. I wouldn’t lie. I wouldn’t say something works when it doesn’t. I literally sometimes don’t know if it works, right?

[00:07:27] Jeff: Like the cables cut or something, but it’s like a really valuable thing with a cable cut, whatever. Maybe. So the leftover manic part of me still thinks probably. Um, but I,

[00:07:38] Brett: how are you advertising this?

[00:07:40] Jeff: Well, I only decided today I’m finally going to do it next week. My, my wife was like, here’s the deal. Have the sale you can have.

[00:07:48] Jeff: Because I was like, there’s going to be a popcorn machine. There’s going to be, you know what I mean? Like,

[00:07:54] Christina: You’re like, this is gonna be a sale. This is gonna be like a good old batch of like, rummage

[00:07:58] Brett: This

[00:07:58] Jeff: We’re gonna have, we’re gonna have [00:08:00] balloons, uh, you know, and, and Laurel at one point was like, you know, I, I see you, I love this Uncle Ray thing, I think it’s great, I think it’s a great way to kind of have fun and probably part of healing from this thing and having a little distance from it so you don’t have to answer the question of why do you have all this stuff, dude, right?

[00:08:16] Jeff: But she’s like, I see you possibly spending too much time on the backstory of Uncle Ray. And I was like, fair enough, fair enough. And then the other thing she said that was so helpful was exactly that, like, just have this lady you can have, have it next weekend. So until the moment we started recording or met up here, I’ve been prepping for this yard sale, which is about so much more than selling tools.

[00:08:39] Brett: Wow.

[00:08:40] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:08:42] Brett: Yard sale as mental health coroner. I

[00:08:44] Jeff: Yeah. We’ll see. I don’t like, I do not like, uh, having garage sales. I don’t want, I look at people that come and look at my shit and I’m like, what the fuck are you doing looking at my shit? Even though I put it out there, you know, it’s

[00:08:54] Brett: don’t deserve

[00:08:55] Jeff: You don’t deserve this. Yeah, you don’t know what to do with this.

[00:08:57] Jeff: Uh, so, we’ll see if I can [00:09:00] pull it off. That’s why it’s good that it’s Uncle Ray. I’m thinking of having a picture of Uncle Ray with like a born and death date. And then, and the last bit is, anybody who, who says, who is, are you Uncle Ray? They get a 20 percent discount. If they figure it out, they get a discount.

[00:09:14] Jeff: So, I’m not trying to just straight up lie to

[00:09:16] Brett: uh,

[00:09:17] Jeff: Um, that’s my story. That’s my check in.

[00:09:21] Brett: I went to a garage sale once when I was maybe 16, and… There was an Oscar, like the computer, the, like, briefcase computer, the Oscar, um, and they were real cagey when you first started asking questions about it because clearly they wanted it to go to a good home. I believe the magic words were when I asked, is that a 300 Baud modem?

[00:09:51] Brett: And… And they were like, okay, this guy, this guy might want this. Um, maybe it wasn’t even the Oscar. Maybe like I bought [00:10:00] that summer, I bought an Oscar and I bought an AT& T Unix machine, one of their first

[00:10:05] Jeff: Damn.

[00:10:06] Brett: AT& T machines. And that was the one that had a 300 bud coupler modem that like came out the side and you.

[00:10:12] Brett: You put the phone receiver into it and, and like, and then it was like a 300 baud connection to your gopher servers or whatever.

[00:10:21] Christina: right, right.

[00:10:22] Brett: Um, I learned Unix on that AT& T machine. That is where I learned most of my Unix skills. Um, but anyway, I, I feel like the idea that people who have garage sales really do want their shit to go to people who will cherish it.

[00:10:42] Brett: Oh, nice.

[00:10:43] Jeff: TRS 80, the Trash

[00:10:46] Brett: Trash

[00:10:46] Jeff: I just pulled out my Mint Condition Trash 80, which I’ll talk about after this. I just want to say a little bit about vintage computing when we’re done with our check ins.

[00:10:54] Brett: 80. Jeff is currently holding up a Trash 80.

[00:10:57] Jeff: A portable Trash 80.

[00:10:59] Christina: I have to be [00:11:00] honest with you guys, um, I’d always like, heard like, what a trash AD is or whatever, but like, I didn’t know what it looked like until maybe, I don’t know, like a year or two ago, and then I was like, oh, damn. That’s

[00:11:10] Brett: had

[00:11:11] Christina: Cause, no, no, no, did, did all of them have, um, integrated screens or were, or was that only some of

[00:11:15] Brett: Like, one line screen.

[00:11:17] Christina: Yeah.

[00:11:18] Jeff: this one’s like a, I think a five line

[00:11:20] Christina: Yeah, yeah,

[00:11:21] Jeff: Yeah,

[00:11:21] Christina: did they all have

[00:11:22] Jeff: there was like a desktop

[00:11:23] Christina: Okay. Okay. See, this is why I was confused because in my mind I’d always anticipate, I’d always thought that it was like a, a desktop thing, right? And, and normal desktop computer, you know, home computer thing. But then I saw it with the screen and I was like, oh shit, if I’d known that it looked like that, like I would have been way more into it.

[00:11:38] Christina: So I think, I think that’s what it was.

[00:11:39] Jeff: since we’re in it, I’ll just give you the quick story of this thing. So I had posted a photo that my sons volunteer at a place here called Free Geek and, and part of Free Geek is just taking apart electronics so they can recycle them. The other part is a electronics thrift store. Um, and, and so last week actually, I saw a Commodore 64 executive, which is like, you [00:12:00] pick it up with a big handle and it’s got a little integrated screen and the keyboard comes out and they had one of the old Heath kit computers there.

[00:12:07] Jeff: Anyway. So we had picked up a, uh, an old like 90s PC pre Pentium and the boys run Doom on it and play Doom on it. And I put a picture of that on Facebook and, and Eric Ringham, who’s, I knew when I worked at Minnesota Public Radio, greatest voice in radio, um, had worked for the Star Tribune, which is our local Minneapolis paper.

[00:12:26] Jeff: And he messaged me and he’s like, Hey, I have a TRS 80 if you want it. And I was like, yes, I want it. And I went over to his house the next day. It’s in mint condition. It still works. And it had the Star Tribune’s, um, instructions for use, which called it instructions for using the Trash 80 is what it said.

[00:12:42] Jeff: And it actually was, he took it to China and he used it as a foreign correspondent, but because he could never figure out how to use the modem, um, he, he still had to call his editor and read the copy that he, that he typed on this. And sadly he had programmed Space Invaders into it, but it’s still, it doesn’t exist there [00:13:00] anymore.

[00:13:00] Jeff: So anyway, that’s how I ended up with the Trash 80. Um, it’s beautiful.

[00:13:03] Brett: Do you guys know who Charles Edge is?

[00:13:06] Jeff: Oh, name only.

[00:13:07] Brett: Um, I met him a while back and he is, he contributes to like Huffington Post and he writes books. Um, but he is basically, aside from being a computer scientist, he’s a historian of computing. And that guy, you give him like a model number and he can tell you like the history and the capabilities of just about any…

[00:13:33] Brett: Historical machine. He’s very interested. He’s also very good looking. Straight, straight, but very good

[00:13:39] Jeff: You know, I, just a thing about Huffington Post, cause it’s been the case for many, many years, maybe nigh on decades, that saying you write for Huffington Post is the same as saying you write for Myspace. It’s like, it’s not, it’s not a thing that was like, we’re picking you anymore, but that’s all right.

[00:13:53] Jeff: That’s all right.

[00:13:54] Brett: Yeah. Um, let’s see. He also writes for ink. [00:14:00] com. That counts for something, right?

[00:14:01] Jeff: Sure. Is that a tattoo rag or? Uh huh.

[00:14:05] Brett: All right. Christina, how’s your mental health?

[00:14:08] Christina: My mental health is good. Um, I think that the new antidepressant is working. So yay. Um, applause everyone. Um, so that’s really, really good. So I actually spent, like last week, this week has been fine. I’ve been just doing work stuff. Um, work is starting to get hectic, but last week I actually had like a, a week of like concerts that.

[00:14:27] Christina: The concerts were great, but it was also one of those things where, like, I’m reaching the age where I go to see concerts and, like, I look at the crowd and I see how old the crowd is and it, like, makes me uncomfortable with my own mortality. So I went and, so the first thing, so my friend Erin and I basically did, like, a week of concerts.

[00:14:42] Christina: So she lives in Raleigh. We work together. She’s my GitHub work wife. Um, I, I usually get married to at least one person, um, per job, but she’s my GitHub work wife. And, um… She was, she was in Seattle visiting some friends that she has. Yeah, I think that’s you. And, [00:15:00] uh, so we went to see, cause we, we have similar taste in music.

[00:15:03] Christina: And so we went to see at a winery and I’d never been to this winery before. I’d never been to this part of, um, Washington before, Woodinville. And I’ve been wanting to go there. We saw Dashboard Confessional, who I’ve seen many, many times and we’ve talked about on this pod. And I saw Counting Crows. And Counting Crows is one of my favorite bands ever.

[00:15:20] Christina: And they’re actually one of the best bands, amazing band. And live, they are phenomenal. Um, Erin had never seen them live. And I told her, I was like, no, like they’re one of the best bands you will ever see live. And she was like, it’s kind of skeptical. And then afterwards she was like. Holy shit, you’re right.

[00:15:36] Christina: I was like, yeah, I know. Um, they, uh, they were amazing. They did this right after the, uh, Prepare to Feel Really Awful, the 30th anniversary of August and Everything After.

[00:15:46] Jeff: Oh, dude, everything’s the 30th anniversary for me, and we’re getting up on 40th with some of these

[00:15:50] Christina: But, but, no, but, no, but that would like mindfucked me and, uh, but they, they, they were amazing. They did a lot of great songs. They opened with my favorite Counting Crows song, which I was not [00:16:00] expecting. And so that was kind of like a whole thing. And, um, they cover Taylor Swift actually, like on their, on their set list, which like was to me, like they covered the one from, um, Folklore, which I, I was not expecting at all.

[00:16:13] Christina: And I was like, okay, my two worlds are colliding here and, and, and I don’t know how I feel about this, but I love it. Um, but then so, so we did that on, on Saturday and then on Sunday we flew to Raleigh and I stayed with her. She was gracious enough to host me and we saw Ben Folds on Wednesday in Raleigh.

[00:16:30] Christina: Um, he’s doing, um, solo piano shows, um, across the U. S. because he just released a new album and I love Ben Folds. Love, love, love him. But he’s from South Carolina. And we, um, uh, basically that was like the, the hometown show. Like we, we paid to do the meet and greet. We did not pay for the photo op because I’m not going to pay 75 for a photo.

[00:16:50] Christina: I already have photos of me in binfolds. I’m not going to, to do that. But I did pay 75 for the meet and greet, which had an AMA part, which was great, which was lovely. And like his [00:17:00] One of his original music teachers was there from like elementary school, as well as like a guy that he went to high school with.

[00:17:05] Christina: Like it, so it was, it was pretty cool, like just in the, in the audience. So that was pretty cool. And, um, and he was great. And then we, so, so we, our whole thing is, so we were like, okay, we’re going to go see him in Raleigh. And then we got on a plane at 5 AM on Thursday morning and flew to DC to see him at the Kennedy Center.

[00:17:26] Christina: And, and so I spent the weekend in

[00:17:28] Jeff: Damn, that’s quite a week.

[00:17:30] Christina: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was, it was really, really fun. And, you know, this is the sort of shit that I usually do, like, when I’m feeling like me, like, I will totally just be the sort of person who’s like, yeah, one of my favorite bands is playing two shows, and they’re a city apart. get on an airplane and do it. Like, I do that shit, right? But I haven’t done that in a But I haven’t done that in a really long time, and I planned this when I wasn’t feeling [00:18:00] good, but I’m so glad I was feeling good when

[00:18:04] Jeff: That’s amazing.

[00:18:05] Christina: I did it. And then we went to a Nationals game, saw the Braves. The Braves beat the Nats, go Braves.

[00:18:12] Christina: Um, I just had a really nice weekend in Washington, D. C. with my friend, and I just, I was like, I don’t know, it like, hit me. I was like, I feel like myself. Like I’m gonna cry because I felt like myself for the first time in a long time.

[00:18:26] Brett: you planned this when you weren’t feeling like yourself, did, were you? Yeah, exactly, were you, did you plan it in the hopes that you were gonna feel like yourself in time?

[00:18:36] Christina: I think so. And, and, and if not, then it was one of those things where I was like, well, I’ll just, I’ll do it right. Like I can just, this couldn’t just be one of those things that I just kind of like, you know, suck up and do. Right, right. But, but it, but it wouldn’t have been the same thing because live music, um, invigorates me and, and sustains me in a way. Basically, like nothing else. That’s why I always go on like my concert adventures, like [00:19:00] people, you know, some people, people spend their money on different things. I don’t judge, um, and, and so I know people look at me sometimes and they think it’s weird, you know, um, that I’ll, I’ll fly to different cities, um, frequently, you know, to, to see concerts, but, um, live music really does, um, um, Invigorate me.

[00:19:17] Christina: And, but this, yeah, you know, I, I planned this before I was feeling good and, and I, I, I guess I, there was a hope in the back of my mind that I’d be feeling good, but I, I didn’t, I didn’t appreciate how much better it was to feel good and do that, you know, and, and, and also to just, you know, be with my friend and, um, you know, uh, like, and you never know, that’s the thing too.

[00:19:39] Christina: You never know when you first I guess like travel with someone and you’re with them for like a long period of time like is this going to work out like are we the types of friends who can travel together or not? And, and Aaron and I definitely are which is great. Um, I found that out earlier this, this year too with my friends Catherine and, and, um, Alex when we went to Disney World together.

[00:19:57] Christina: But like, you know, we, we, Yeah, [00:20:00] and like, we had like, you know, we were adults at Disney, not adult Disney fans, to be

[00:20:05] Jeff: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That’s an important distinction, I

[00:20:07] Christina: is an important distinction, but like, when we did that, like, you know, but that’s always a nice thing too, because you never know, um, especially like, when we are adults, like when you travel with people, it’s not like when you’re in college and you can just kind of like…

[00:20:18] Christina: Go along with it. You know, if somebody’s lame and you’re like, okay, it’s whatever, like it sucks if you’re spending like seven days with someone who you don’t really like that

[00:20:27] Jeff: god. No, that’s not something to do.

[00:20:30] Christina: No, no, no. So we, so Erin and I travel well together and, and which was fantastic for both of us to learn, which was great. So, um, yeah, so that was, that’s, that’s my update.

[00:20:39] Christina: Um, I’m feeling a lot better. I’m feeling like myself again for the first time in a really long time. So yay.

[00:20:45] Jeff: Congratulations.

[00:20:47] Christina: Thank you.

[00:20:47] Jeff: I love it so much. That’s amazing. Uh, yeah. Brett, I know you got some business to tend to.

[00:20:55] Christina: The raccoons. I’ve been promised raccoons.

[00:20:58] Brett: yeah, I think, honestly, I [00:21:00] think I wanna make the raccoons a section after Mental Health Corner. We’re gonna, we’re gonna get

[00:21:05] Jeff: might be my favorite sentence, uh, in, in the history of this podcast.

[00:21:10] Christina: of it all.

[00:21:11] Brett: As far as mental health goes, um, things are actually pretty good. I had a brief manic episode a couple weeks ago, uh, for the first time. It was right after I told you guys that I hadn’t had a manic episode for like six months. It

[00:21:24] Jeff: Someone’s listening to the podcast! Heh

[00:21:26] Brett: Literally the next day, literally the next day, I realized that I was manic again, but it only lasted about two and a half days and then it ended.

[00:21:36] Brett: The depression was mild and I have been stable ever since then. Um, in the interest of collecting data about this kind of thing, I can’t remember if I had this out last time we talked or not, but I, I wrote a, a command line tool called Journal.

[00:21:54] Christina: yeah, we didn’t talk about it, but I’ve been following your blog and I’ve been obsessed with it.

[00:21:57] Brett: And you can, [00:22:00] using a YAML config file, you can, you can add questions, um,

[00:22:05] Christina: I love you so

[00:22:06] Jeff: I’m not following you enough!

[00:22:07] Brett: to ask yourself, and you can give yourself, like, numeric ratings on a question, you can give yourself text input, um, you can ask yourself, or you can add, like, weather data, and I just today added moon phase, Data that you can collect.

[00:22:25] Brett: So go ahead.

[00:22:27] Jeff: Pause. So I normally keep up with what you’re doing. I used to look at your, your site every day because I wanted to see what new fucking bananas thing you were working on, but I only just logged on having, having learned just now about journal and I already know how deep in you are because your most current post is historical weather for journal CLI.

[00:22:44] Jeff: It’s like, Oh fuck, I missed a lot.

[00:22:46] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. Because like one of the features is if you miss a day. So like the idea was it stores your info in a JSON structured data file that you can then [00:23:00] use for analysis and querying. That was the important part to me, but it can also store markdown journal entries and it can. Add to day one. So however you want to journal, but to me, the important part was I needed, I was scoring my, our couple’s therapist asked us to rate our own kind of bandwidth and our partner’s bandwidth, uh, daily on a scale of one to five.

[00:23:27] Brett: And I started doing that in day one and then realized I had no way to query or output. These specific numbers, and I couldn’t correlate them to any other factors, so I wrote journal just to allow me to keep this JSON file of all of these numbers and all kinds of other peripheral data that might affect them so I could draw correlations later.

[00:23:53] Brett: So that’s the primary function of journal. Um, it is already led to some [00:24:00] enlightening. Uh, Discoveries. I am interested to see how Moonphase… affects some of these scores because I’m not into astrology. I don’t, uh, at all, at all, not even a little,

[00:24:13] Christina: completely fake.

[00:24:15] Brett: I have noticed that on full moons and the two days surrounding full moons, I don’t sleep as well.

[00:24:22] Brett: And I don’t know if that’s just extra light in the room or what, but

[00:24:26] Christina: the thing. I think that there’s Okay, I’m gonna like be a hypocrite here. I think that like, astrology, like the co You know, like, like horoscope, all that stuff is complete Bunking

[00:24:35] Brett: total bullshit.

[00:24:36] Christina: complete bullshit. There’s nothing. I mean, that, that, that is, that is fantasy on a level that like, I’m not like, like religion.

[00:24:42] Christina: I, I can sort of, I can understand the appeal behind it. I can’t even understand the appeal behind this because it’s literally made up nonsense. Right. But I think that when it comes to like the stuff that can happen with moons and the tides, I do think that can, that can affect how you

[00:24:57] Brett: because it’s, it’s legit [00:25:00] gravitational changes.

[00:25:01] Christina: Yeah.

[00:25:01] Christina: Like, like,

[00:25:01] Brett: could, that could affect, I don’t know, things like mood and sleep, and so, so I’m tracking this, and now I’m collecting this data as well, um, and I’ve been slowly writing, like, Journal itself, the CLI doesn’t offer any query tools, um, like basically you, you get a JSON file that you can um, parse and work in whatever language you like and do whatever you want with.

[00:25:28] Brett: Uh, so I, I write scripts in Ruby that output different correlations and I’d be really curious. It also, I found out there’s like this data view plugin for Obsidian that

[00:25:41] Jeff: that’s a great plug in.

[00:25:43] Brett: it could use YAML. Headers in your journal entries and output different, like, different ways to view your data. So, Journal now, when it outputs a markdown entry, which you can point to your, your [00:26:00] Obsidian vault, um, it includes all of your numeric and weather data as YAML headers that you can then use, uh, Obsidian data view to, to map and…

[00:26:15] Jeff: Because we’re still in Mental Health Corner, I need you to stop saying Obsidian because I’ve had to bar myself from using it because I, um, become so obsessive in using it that I, I lose all of

[00:26:24] Brett: Yeah, I feel like that’s a major pitfall to Obsidian. I, I honestly, like, I test it once in a while, and I see, I see all the potential. It is. It really

[00:26:36] Jeff: awesome! I still read the changelogs.

[00:26:38] Brett: I remember

[00:26:39] Christina: is, and I use it, but like I have the same problem where like I could literally lose 12 hours and, and I’m, I’m not actually even being like Christina hyperbolic. I’m being completely serious. I could lose 12 hours of my life to configuring and dealing with all the little things that I would want.

[00:26:54] Christina: And maybe that would be a good use of 12 hours. I who, who’s to say, but, but, but I could, I can [00:27:00] totally like get sucked down those rabbit holes. I completely understand.

[00:27:02] Brett: I talked to, I talked to a developer from Obsidian early on, I think maybe even before their first public release. And he, he said to me, I don’t see this as competition for NB Ultra. Um, however, it 100 percent is

[00:27:19] Christina: Oh, but absolutely.

[00:27:20] Brett: it is, and it does so much more than NB Ultra even aspires

[00:27:24] Christina: Which I think is a good thing. I think that’s the one area where it’s not competition, right? Like, it absolutely is. And for some people, I think it will replace exactly what they would use in VUltra for. But in another sense, I think this is, it’s almost a good thing for you, where you’re like, okay, if you need to go beyond, I don’t have to build that.

[00:27:41] Brett: And here’s the thing is both apps work with a folder full of markdown files. So you can access your Obsidian data in NVUltra and you can use NVUltra for quick entry into Obsidian. So there is, there’s some

[00:27:57] Christina: path for

[00:27:57] Brett: synergy. Can we say [00:28:00] synergy?

[00:28:00] Christina: no, definitely, right? And look, I think that they definitely, and I think they even admitted it, like, took, you know, things from Indie Alt, right? Was, was definitely inspiration for it. Um, but I think that in one case, cause we’ve talked about the, this before, but yeah, they were like, Oh, we don’t see it as competition.

[00:28:15] Christina: It’s absolutely competition. But, I think they serve different purposes, and for you specifically, Brett, like, I think that it’s actually good that there’s this app that in many ways could go down all the Brett rabbit holes, but you’re not the one building it, and you don’t have to be in charge of it, because you can just make your app your app.

[00:28:33] Jeff: You guys, stop. I opened Obsidian. It’s not good. It’s not

[00:28:36] Brett: is, there is so much that if I could convince, Fletcher, my partner on NVUltra is very, like, you have to absolutely convince him with data that a feature is worth adding before he will consider adding it to NVUltra.

[00:28:54] Jeff: in beta?

[00:28:56] Brett: It is, it is, it

[00:28:57] Jeff: I’m saying that knowing that this is not on [00:29:00] you. I would never say that if it was strictly your situation.

[00:29:03] Brett: So like, there are all these things that Obsidian does that I’m like, Oh my God, we should totally figure out like an even better way to do this thing. And it’ll just be a no go with Fletcher because I can’t. I’m not a logical person. Like I can’t, I can’t debate. I can’t debate. If, if a debate is all about like logic and data, I’m kind of lost.

[00:29:29] Brett: Like I get screwed over when the conversation becomes overly technical, uh, in any kind of debate. Uh, I have, I have

[00:29:38] Jeff: You’re a doer.

[00:29:40] Brett: but I have an ADHD brain that doesn’t retain a lot of facts and, and data points that I can use to prove my argument. So I get. I get, uh, bulldozed very easily when I’m dealing with someone who is very logical.

[00:29:56] Brett: But, anyway, um, so [00:30:00] journal aside, mild manic episode aside, I also DJ’d at

[00:30:06] Jeff: I was gonna ask you about that.

[00:30:08] Brett: At Ed’s No Name Bar. It’s no longer called Ed’s because Ed sold it. But back in the day, this guy named Ed Hoffman, uh, wanted to open, and originally it was supposed to be a wine bar. He was going to open a high class wine bar, but he gave up on that and opened A dive bar, but dive bar in like, in a hipster way, like a very, like a hipster bar with like the Christmas lights around the, the, the liquor selection and everything.

[00:30:38] Brett: And,

[00:30:39] Christina: bar parenthesis aesthetic.

[00:30:41] Brett: and, and he didn’t, he didn’t come up with a name. So it just became known as Ed’s No Name Bar. Um, he sold it. Now it’s literally. registered as no name bar. Um, and I had a friend bartending there and I tweeted, I tweeted, uh, Spotify had given me this [00:31:00] list of recommended songs and I’m like, holy shit, I want to, I want to DJ this for a crowd, um, for anybody who would listen.

[00:31:09] Brett: And so I tweeted that and, and Christian was like, Hey, uh, Ed’s on Thursday. Four to four to eight. So I showed up with my iPhone and my playlist ready to go. Nobody there. And nobody was there for the first three hours of my set. Um, but it was still a blast to sit. at the dive bar and talk to Christian and listen to fucking old school punk rock for three hours and then people finally started showing up but it was at the point I got to about two hours into the playlist and I decided to mix in something other than classic punk uh and it went to like Sage Francis, and Fugazi, and Mudhoney, and K [00:32:00] Flay, and it kind of like, it became a more diverse playlist at that point, and that’s when everyone started showing up.

[00:32:06] Brett: So people missed out, like, the first six songs on the playlist are Rise Above by Black Flag, California Uberalis by the Dead Kennedys, Fuck Shit Up by Blatz, Ever Fallen in Love by the Buzzcocks, I Love Living in the City by Fear.

[00:32:20] Jeff: love living in the city!

[00:32:22] Brett: Yeah, and Living in Exile by Blood for Blood, and then it just goes on with that kind of theme from there, but it was so much fun just to, just to be in a bar, even though there was nobody there.

[00:32:36] Brett: Uh, just to be in a bar, listening to it, yeah, exactly! It reminded me so much of the bars

[00:32:43] Jeff: want to play dice in the corner? I,

[00:32:45] Brett: We’d hang out in bars in New York City, like in, in Queens, and we’d be in this like just shitty bar, almost nobody there, and they would have a jukebox, and we would play whatever Runaways, whatever Joan Jett, whatever [00:33:00] N.

[00:33:00] Brett: W. A. they had, and we would just kind of run the sound system for an almost empty bar, and it did remind me of being on tour. Yeah,

[00:33:11] Jeff: like practice, but we’re in Pittsburgh.

[00:33:13] Rocket the Raccoon

[00:33:13] Brett: you guys want to talk about Raccoons?

[00:33:15] Christina: Yes, let’s talk about raccoons.

[00:33:17] Brett: Okay.

[00:33:17] Jeff: wait. Can I ask a journal question really quick? Um, first of all, this reminds me of, um, Simon. What’s his last name? I’ve talked about it before, but his, um, dataset, uh,

[00:33:29] Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Willison, Willison.

[00:33:31] Jeff: Yeah, and his, like, personal, uh, lifelogging, uh, sort of attachment, yeah,

[00:33:36] Christina: Simon Willison. Yeah, he’s the best. Yeah,

[00:33:38] Jeff: it has that spirit, but I wanted to ask, like,