George: Happy holidays from the normal men. We are in the shoulder season between the Saturnalia celebrations and the end of the calendar year, and we have brought in our good friend, go like hell machine, to do another mailbag episode. So go like hell machine, welcome. We're glad to have you, buddy. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Hey, guys. How are you? How are all of your holidays? George: No real complaints for me. It was just the three of us here in Charlotte this year, which was kind of a nice break from family stuff, so that was good. What about y'all? Propter Malone: Mine was great, man. I had I had the the in laws came down for Christmas, and they're they're fun. I get along well with them. So we had a a full house, the three dogs we've had for the last several months, which are Dien Hoa's dogs, and, various other collateral relatives from my wife's side of the family. And we watched the new Knives Out movie, and it was great. Ed: I drove eight hours, and I'm not doing that again. George: I love the new Knives Out movie. It wasn't as good as the first one, but it was fantastic. Like, really fun. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Low tax speed running, Jor. How was your how were your holidays? Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: It was fine. We went down to South Florida. My brother and sister came into town as well. They live in Orlando and Saint Petersburg respectively. Made prime rib, came out pretty well. Other than that, pretty low key. I got my my Christmas presents, my in quotes there, Christmas presents were a bunch of cooking shit. So like a carving knife and a bunch of cookbooks and stuff. And so I'm looking at my wife, and I'm like, so these are really for you George: because you're trying eat to presumably whatever she makes. So you can come on ahead. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: No. No. No. This is to get me to make it. So, yeah, since I've been cooking more, she's, she's clearly going to be encouraging that as much as possible. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: That'll be fun at least. So, Ed, how was how was Christmas in Silent Hill? Ed: Certainly happened. I drove up immediately, got hit with a snowstorm, and then drove back in Salt Hell. And I don't think I'm doing that one again, at least not in a car convoy. But, you know, it went well other than that and the friend we had staying with us spraining his ankle and the local the local, quote, unquote, grocery store having a sign that said, don't ask us why all of the shelves are empty. We don't know. George: Did you go on Christmas holiday to North Korea? Ed: Like Honestly, it might have been an improvement in some ways. No. We went up to we went up to the ass end of of Vermont, rented the place so my lovely wife could go skiing with her friend who, as mentioned, immediately sprained his ankle. I mean, like, first day, like, second hour, they're getting the they're getting the medics type of deal. George: That's a little weird. I mean, it's pretty hard to sprain your ankle downhill skiing. Ed: Yeah. Well, he's a talented person. Well, I hope he's he went up. Propter Malone: I I really like to see some environmental storytelling on my ski vacations. That's that's something that helps set the scene. Ed: One of those ones where you're you're going out to go buy crutches for someone and you get called that your dog ran out the front door. George: Did the grocery store sell crutches, or were they out of those two? Ed: No. I had to drive 10 miles to a Walgreens. It was not a it was not the the most relaxing of of of trips, but it Propter Malone: was alright. Ed: It was fun. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: They're turning Vermont into Caracas, folks. This is why we have to bomb Venezuela. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Well, our holidays were fun but nuts. We had, I think, 14 people in our one bedroom apartment for Christmas Eve. Ed: As one does. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. We were supposed to have three different lasagnas, and then two of the people who were going to make them both got sick. So I ended up making one gigantic thick lasagna for everyone. So you won? Yes. I Ed: did. Fair. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: By default. George: Did you go ricotta or bechamel? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Went ricotta mostly because I ran out of time and decided to go with the easier route. George: Definitely the easier route. Propter Malone: That's a good reason. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Yeah. Did you this is go like hell machine, so I know he played the song. In fact, I'm sure he had a whole set of records he was playing. Did you all, all 14 of you, agree on a word for that particular verse of fairy tale of New York? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: We did, and the word was Propter Malone: I'm a cheap lousy braggart man, for GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: all that sort. Yeah. Everyone just kinda hums through that one, I think, nowadays. George: This is Normal Men, a podcast from four men who are clinging desperately to normalcy in an era when that's asking a bit too much. I'm George in Charlotte. Propter Malone: In DC, I'm Propter Malone. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: In Outer Florida, I'm low tech speedrun enjoyer. And I'm Ed in Boston. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Alright. Well, holiday recap and talking about food and drink. We have a bunch of fun mail from listeners. So let's get into our New Year's Eve mailbag, and let's see if we can offer you some useful advice. First question here, what's an underrated cookbook to check out? And this comes from a listener who wants to learn how to cook more. George: I've got a few actually. One goes with audio video as well. So if you don't if you're trying to learn how to cook, binging with Babish on YouTube is great because he gets really into the weeds on, like, why he's doing what he's doing when he's trying to figure out how to cook this stuff. And that's a really useful way to learn how to cook because learning how to cook is not learning recipes. It's learning techniques and learning, like, a way of thinking about how stuff works. So I'm a big fan of him. His his cookbook is great as well. It's all rehashes of stuff he did on his YouTube, but it's it's really good. I really liked Jubilee by Tony Tipton Martin, which is a black or African American cookbook. I I can't remember which term she uses for it, but it's phenomenal. Just some really cool off the wall recipes and really rooted in history and tradition around food that has been in this country almost as long as there have been people from the Eastern Edge Of The Atlantic in this country. So those are both great. And then the last one ones I'll throw out there for cocktails, Death and Co or their second recipe book Cocktail Codex. If you want to learn how to mix a cocktail, you should have those two books because they will completely inform like, they'll they'll teach you soup to nuts how to think about mixing a drink, and they're great. Yeah. Propter Malone: I think George has the right of this that they're they're really kind of at least two categories of cookbooks, and I'm maybe reading too much into the question here, but it sounds like we're we're aiming for sort of an intro primer that will get you the basics up and running. I like salt, fat, acid, heat in that wine. I don't know if it's underrated because it's extremely highly rated. But if you're gonna buy one book to learn how to cook, that's probably a pretty good book to buy. Very good shout. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Also has the greatest roast chicken recipe and most foolproof roast chicken recipe ever, like, written down. Propter Malone: Yeah. It's excellent chicken. Roast chicken in general. We should make more roast chicken. Roast chicken is delicious. You will never regret roasting a chicken. Cook's Illustrated cookbook is another staple around here, and Julia Child, don't overthink it, it's classic for a reason. If you're looking for something that is more in kind of the recipe inspiration line, this is this is something that my sons gave my wife for Mother's Day that has had good results for me personally through through that through that mechanism of alchemy. The Diasporican, which is a Puerto Rican diaspora cookbook, has a lot of good stuff in it. George: That sounds awesome. I need to check that out. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Ed, what about you? Any any cookbooks that you would recommend? Ed: I don't use cookbooks and never have. I learned to cook by eating and then going, how was that done? And then doing that. But I realized that is not a a standard approach. I do like On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, but that's not a cookbook. That's a textbook that's talking about cooking. Honestly, I think most of most of what I would be curious about could be answered on YouTube. I am not a fan of Babish for reasons. Not that he's, a bad guy or anything. I just find that style of YouTube. But I did like Adam Regusius stuff before he transitioned into podcasting and starting to pick fights on Blue Sky. I thought he had some really good video type stuff. Oh, yeah. No. Do you not know this? Many such cases. I don't George: know who Adam Regusius is. Ed: So Oh. So he used to actually be an NPR guy. He worked for WBUR up here in Boston, and then he decided to stop being a professor of journalism and go into doing YouTube full time as, like, a food guy. And the first few years where he was very clearly melting his brain are some of the best stuff on that I've seen. Then he transitioned into more sort of general purpose videos on some of the stuff to lighten the load. He started getting into podcasts. And now I mostly see his stuff because YouTube has stopped recommending him, but I mostly see him arguing with my mutuals on Blue Sky. So, you know, real interesting arc, but a lot of that stuff is actually really, like, really useful. The biscuits recipe, still do. I think I stole from him way, way back in the day. But, yeah, like, cookbooks, I I don't know. I something about trying to look at a book while cooking doesn't quite jive with me as opposed to, like, looking at my phone, which I realize has I I realize this makes no sense whatsoever. But, yeah, I've just never been been the cookbook type. George: I fully agree with that. I when I when I cook, I very rarely am looking at a recipe. I'm almost always doing something from memory or doing something on the fly. Cookbooks are helpful to sit down and read. Like, you sit down and you read them cover to cover, and then you let stuff marinate and percolate, and then you come back to it later. And you don't use the exact recipe necessarily, but you're thinking about the ingredients or the techniques or whatever. So Propter Malone: cooking is great. Ed: I I don't have the attention span for that. George: Well But I will say too, the other thing that you said that I totally agree with is that you need to cook. You need to learn by doing with cooking, and you need to just do stuff. So like Yeah. It doesn't matter if you're cooking off a recipe, cooking off of a YouTube video, cooking out of your out of your head. It doesn't matter. The point is doing stuff a lot. The best way to learn how to cook is to be like a line cook at a restaurant or something like that. Ed: Yeah. I mean, that that makes a lot of sense. Because, like, I've always been weird about this. I had a sous vide in 2010 just because it's like, this looks fun, and I have disposable income. We're going to go get a big giant red box because they weren't the thing you clipped on a saucepan yet. You had to get the whole box. And, like, ever since it's just been cool. I have solved proteins. I don't care anymore. And, like, that's kind of how I've always ended up cooking is just, like, figure out how to do something in the most foolproof way and then just build on top of that. Propter Malone: I'm pretty sure I had that same model of sous vide. It's kind of Ed: a thing in my kitchen. Propter Malone: Yeah. We got we we upgraded to a Juul a couple years ago, which is a whole lot easier to work with. Ed: It's big and red. It stays here. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Low tax speedrun enjoyer. What about you? What, what cookbooks do you like? Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: So I own, like, 5,000 cookbooks because my wife buys four or five cookbooks anytime she goes to Books A Million or wherever. I'm with Ed, though. I don't really use cookbooks. Usually, I get my ideas from just, like, cooks I follow on Instagram or something. And then I'll say, oh, that looks really good. And, hopefully, they have the recipe posted. Or if they don't, I'll go and just find a recipe for that same dish somewhere. And so that's that's my take on it. They bought me, like, three cookbooks for Christmas this year, one of which was Snoop Doggs. I'm hoping that was a gag gift. George: I was once given t Pain's cocktail book as a Christmas gift, so solidarity, brother. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Yeah. I I assume Martha Stewart wrote all the recipes. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Probably a good assumption. Propter Malone: I'm willing to believe Snoop can cook. I I would be interested in following that one up. Ed: That wasn't the part I had a question about. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: But wait. What part did you have a question about, Ed? Ed: How can you write a book in a giant cloud of weed smoke? He didn't actually write it, Ed. Oh, sorry. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Maybe that's maybe that's why he can cook. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: The only one that I've got to add to this list is Harumi's Japanese Kitchen. This is a book that I bought a couple of years ago, and I have not used it nearly as often as I would like, but I'm gonna try to use it some a little bit more this year because Japanese cooking is something that I really just don't I don't have anything to, like, compare it to or draw on, so it's a good opportunity to actually use a cookbook and learn some different techniques that I wouldn't use for what I would normally make. George: It's easier to make sushi rice at home than you would think, and that's all I really will say confidently about Japanese cuisine. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Well, I will hopefully get to find out this year. I have a giant bag of it in my my basement right now. Propter Malone: Are you guys are you guys rice cooker people? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Oh, yeah. No. Depends. If I am making something that requires yellow rice, so, like, if I'm making, like, shawarma, for example, and I want yellow rice to go with it, then no. That's a Dutch oven task. If I am just making, like, rice to go with curry or to go with chickpeas or something like that as it's my lunch for work, that's rice cooker. George: I will say rice cookers are genuinely much better than a pot. The reason we don't have one is because we just don't have space for another gadget that large, and we don't eat that much rice. We only occasionally rice, so just do it on the stovetop. But my mother-in-law has one, and it's it's wonderful. Like, the rice it makes is just really great. Ed: Yeah. Like I I don't know. I I don't think I have ever made rice, like, in a pot because rice cookers are $20, and like a drum machine, they don't make mistakes. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: So I'm going to be, we do not own a rice cooker. We are, I assume, the weirdos because we just buy the microwavable stuff. George: Florida man strikes again. Propter Malone: We've actually moved to primarily that model too, but that's that's a child related thing because it turns out you need relatively small amounts of rice on short notice, cooked to exact specification. George: Anyway You could say that low taxes thing is a child related thing as well, but, yes, maybe Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Yeah. I mean, there's only two of us, so, you know, we're not eating a whole bunch of rice when we do it. That you get to the end of whatever you're cooking with it. If we're making, like, butter chicken or something, I'm just sort of like, I don't wanna make rice. Ed: Screw this. Consider, you could just have a thing that sits on top of the microwave, and the rice is done. It's $20. How much do you spend on microwavable rice packets? You are leaving money on the table, sir. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Probably, like, $10 a month. Ed: You are leaving money on the table. This would pay itself back in two and a half months. Propter Malone: That's how big rice gets you, Ed: man. Yeah. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Hopefully, you found that helpful. I'm not sure how helpful it actually was. Ed: If you found that helpful, I have problems with this approach. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: So this one's not so much advice, though I guess maybe it qualifies it in as advice if you find yourself in any of these places. But a listener says, anytime I'm going down through California back to New Mexico or vice versa, I try to stop at sultans in Bakersfield. Ed: I know who wrote this question because there's only one person who would admit to going to Bakersfield. Jason, don't don't do this to yourself, man. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: He ostensibly goes for shawarma, but mostly for garlic potatoes. So let's start with Proptor this time around. If you are in a place, what kind of food do you go is a go to for you? So, like, a a destination food if you're in a particular place in the country. Propter Malone: Well, the question has me in a New Mexico frame of mind. So I I go through Santa Fe pretty often. I've got family out there, and the ancestral Malone clan is a is a Tomacitas clan for those who know Santa Fe restaurants. That's that's one of the one of the old established places where you can get authentic New Mexican food, you can go get your you can go get your sopapia and you can go get your your Christmas chili there. But Tia Sofia is is the place that you should definitely definitely make time to go for the breakfast burrito if you're in Santa Fe, right off the plaza. Breakfast burrito is about the size of a badger. You will not finish it, but it is it is amazing. It's it's it's fantastic. George: Where did that unit come from? Ed: What? It's a standard SI unit. Kill a badger, mega badger. This Propter Malone: is That actually that actually came from a Jonathan Gold restaurant review where he described a badger sized burgers at a place outside of Los Angeles in, like, 2000. So it's a it's a phrase that stuck with me. Anyway, badger size. George: It's gonna stick with me too. So Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Well, we're not even doing imperial units anymore, George. None of those none of the metric pervert shit. George: Doing Anglo Saxon units. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: And we're rejecting the British too. Ed: No. No. No. George: We're going we're going prior to William the Conqueror. Like, we're going back to the dark ages on our number one unit. Ed: This man is reinventing the term corn. My Propter Malone: my badger sized units are American badgers, not European badgers for those Oh. For those who recognize the difference. Ed: Ed, what about you? That's actually a really hard one for me to answer because I don't go back to the same places very much. Like, I I have He's not George: allowed to. Ed: That's half truth, George. If you see this man. We reached a mutual agreement. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Restaurants up and down the Eastern Seaboard with Ed's picture next to the cash register. Ed: Those fuckers said all you can eat. They said nothing about tents. But but, yeah, like, I don't know. I always think about it more, like, internationally. Like, every like, I go to France probably every couple of years, and I am always sad if we don't go to Normandy and drink, like, €2 cider until I die. That's kind of the the sort of thing I think of in in The US. And, like like, I really just don't travel back to the same places very often. So I don't really have any regulars outside of, like, the places I normally am. Where would I go? Like, what restaurants are on the the windswept path between here and the Canadian border in Vermont? Right? Like, that's a really grim set of of options that way. And, like, GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: yeah, just pass. This reminds me about a of a, a buddy of mine is is originally from Maine. He grew up in New York, but he's originally from Maine. Yes. And he took his soon to be wife, his his fiancee out to Maine for a wedding over the summer, and got an Italian sandwich Oh god. In Maine. Ed: It was a An Amado sandwich. Yes. Goddamn it. She's not beating the allegations. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: And she has been offended for, like, a year and a half since this happened that this sandwich had green peppers on it. So. Ed: Alright. One, she's wrong, but two, Amato's is a pretty low rent sandwich. You go a little bit further south and you start getting into real places. You you can find the you can find the roast beef joints all over the North Shore, and some of them will will deign to put a cold cut on a sandwich for you too. But, no. Amato's, Pat's Pizza, all of the main institutions are made by people who have no taste buds. Propter Malone: Do do you guys have, like, sufficient Italian density in Maine that you get Ed: Massachusetts, which, yes, has a substantial diversity of Italian population, it just turns into convenience store Americans. Right? Like like, that's the one variety of Italian that you get anywhere north of of, you know, I wanted to say $4.95, but that might be pushing it a little bit. Real head snow and. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Low tech speedrunner, how about you? Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: I we have one regular restaurant that we go to. Our anniversary is on December 23, and we always go out to eat at this place called Waxons in Jupiter. It's a Swedish restaurant, and you would think that would be, you know, unhinged, you know, rancid fish out of tin cans. That's really Ed: just Minnesota, man. I gotta say Swedish George: in Jupiter, Florida is setting off an insane array of alarm bells inside my room. Ed: What he's not telling you is it's just an IKEA. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: No. We do not have an IKEA, and my wife is very mad about that. Propter Malone: Oh, she's mean. You have Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: to go to you have to go to Orlando or Jacksonville. No. But it's it's really good, and it's fairly inexpensive too. But other than that, I think the only other place I hit up regularly is when we go to my brother in law's house in Orlando. There's a chain called Rosati's that makes deep dish pizza, and my mother-in-law loves it. And so every time we go there, she yells at me to go and get a deep dish pizza. Ed: Like yells? Because that's that's rather aggressive. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Okay. Not yells, but, you know, nags, I guess we could say. Ed: Either way, you are going and getting that pizza. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Yes. Yes. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yep. George, how about you? George: I got a few. So in the fine dining range of the spectrum, if you're ever in Vancouver, go to the Mackenzie room. It's phenomenal. It's just I I don't even know how to describe it. They have this thing called I want it all where you get everything on the menu. Sort of like a prefix, but a little more unhinged. Alright. I'm in. Really really just like creative local food, really fun stuff. So pretty much every time we go to Vancouver, I'm scheming away to go to the Mackenzie room. On the much more humble end of the spectrum, if I'm in Texas, which I am rarely in Texas, I try to avoid it. But if I'm in Texas and I'm anywhere near an HEB, I'm getting some tortillas to bring back in my carry on. That's gonna be a a must. And I'm not saying HEB tortillas are necessarily the best flour tortillas out there. I'm sure they're not. I had some duck fat flour tortillas that you can have mailed to your house that whip them, but they're extremely cheap. They're very good, and it's just to me a quintessential thing. In New York, I always go to Essa Bagel when I'm up there and in Manhattan. So, like, Essa Bagel to me is the nay plus ultra bagel. You just can't do savory baked goods better than everything bagel from Essa, in my opinion. Ed: They are good bagels there. George: Yes. And I mean, there's a couple others. Like, if I'm ever in Chicago, I'm getting an Italian beef sandwich at some point, but I it's not like any one place necessarily. If I'm in Canada, I'm usually gonna get Tim Hortons at some point as well. I think it's important to emphasize that none of these the ase bagel one really is legitimately like, that that is the best bagel in the world, and I I'm not really up for entertaining discussions on that. But the rest of them, like, it's not necessarily that they're the best thing ever. It's just very of a time and of a place and resonates with me that way. So again, like, an HEB tortilla or an Italian beef are not they're not, like, the best food ever, but they're what those places represent to me, which I think was more the spirit of the question than what's really good. Propter Malone: Yeah. And in line with the spirit of the question, like, you know, as a as a person who spent some time in California, if I'm back in California, I will go get an In N Out burger. It's not because it's the best burger in the world, it's because it it, you know, it is tea in Madelaine's. It brings me back to a place in time. Will go eat a Casabianca pizza pie in in in Eagle Rock, California, right outside of Los Angeles. You actually should go do that. It's it's pretty good pizza. But, you know, it's it's not pizza that's worth traveling for necessarily if it's not a place where you drank a lot of cheap wine and ate a lot of sausage and salami pizza when you were 21 years old. So, you know, I I think that there's I think the spirit of the original question engaged with maybe implied, what is food that you eat when you are doing a certain task that you would not otherwise eat? You know, you're there anyway, so and I get corned beef hash from a diner that I cannot remember the name of every time I get my car serviced. It is the only time that I eat corned beef hash. George: I love that one. Propter Malone: It's it's delicious every time. It's delicious every time, but it's probably taking years off my life at this point. Ed: Yeah. But you're getting them back with the GLP ones. It's a give and a take. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Well, you know, I mean, Propter Malone: I've got I've got less bulk to absorb sodium. So it's Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: I think maybe I'll maybe when I get the car serviced from now on, I'll start doing that. There's an Applebee's right by it, and I'll just sort of watch it. George: Do they serve corned beef hash at Applebee's? Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: No. I I it's not about corned beef hash. Ed: Go in and ask for it. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: I just I just want I just wanna steadily watch this Applebee's descend into, like right now, it's like a caricature from the late Soviet Union. It's falling apart. Like, half the lights don't work. You can't see anything. And so maybe I'll start doing that. Ed: I feel like you're just describing an Applebee's. In fairness, I have intentionally gone into a Chili's in the last year, so I can only throw so much shade. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: No. I will defend Chili's. Do not do not diss Chili's. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Hard same. Alright. Well, speaking of taking years off your life, I've got a couple of recommendations. The first one, and this one is not one that I get to very often because I avoid going back to Oklahoma as much as I possibly can. Hard same. Yeah. Were I in Oklahoma? And were I driving, I would drive about an hour north to Murphy's Cafe. And so Murphy's Original Steakhouse has the thickest gravy I have ever seen, and this is a hot hamburger joint. So you go in, it's an open faced hamburger with steak gravy poured all over it, and this gravy is thick enough that you can stand up a steak fry on your plate in the gravy, and it will remain there for the entirety of your meal. Do you guys not know what a hot hamburger is? Propter Malone: Professor, could could you expand a little on the term hot hamburger? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Hot hamburger. Ed: That is Propter Malone: That may not be universally familiar. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: It is. This is this Thick slab of Texas toast upon which you pile a large hamburger patty, and then upon which you pour about two cups of brown gravy all over the top of. It's incredible. That restaurant is probably resulted in thousands or tens of thousands of deaths over the years, but it's amazing. Second recommendation that I've got, Pete's Diner in Denver, Colorado. Anybody who has spent any kind of time in Denver has probably been to Pete's Diner. Opened up in the sixties by a Greek immigrant. He's got a couple of different restaurants. He also has a satire lounge, which is a fantastic dive less than a block away. Yep. He's got a few different ones, but the yeah. But Pete's Pete's Kitchen, actually. Sorry. Was like, actual restaurant. Big old school neon George: signs. Propter Malone: Because I bet GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: on the front, gigantic menu full of, you know, regular diner food and then also Greek food. And it is a fantastic place to try to fight off a hangover before it happens. Third recommendation I have is actually one that's super fun in Portland. And this is more for a particular drink than any type of food, but Hubert's. Hubert's is one of, if not the oldest restaurant in Portland, was opened in the late eighteen hundreds, was for most of its existence has been run by Chinese American immigrants. They are sort of known for serving turkey all year round, so you can get Thanksgiving dinner any day of the week there. But what they are mostly known for is a Spanish coffee. So a Spanish coffee is coffee kalua one fifty one set on fire with melted sugar around the rim and then hand hand whipped heavy cream poured over the top of it. It is an absolutely fantastic drink. I make everyone who visits go there at least once, and it's a really beautiful restaurant as well. It's fantastic. You would be well advised to stick with only one of these drinks, however, because what everyone likes is someone who is both drunk and wired. It's fantastic. It does. And the, the the bartenders there, it's always you know? Propter Malone: I like I like that there's a little bit in there too. It helps helps cushion you as you go. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: They do all of the different kind of cocktail tricks whenever they're mixing everything. So everything goes, you know, from way up high to way down low. You have flaming drinks at your table. It's fantastic. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Oh, I will say too. So my wife and I went to Minneapolis two years ago, and there is a restaurant there called the butcher's tale. And they have a dish called the long rib, which is a huge beef rib that has this molasses Tabasco sauce they put on it. It is incredible. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: On Halloween, they should call it a long Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: pig instead. I will make time to go to the table again just so I can eat that damn thing. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: That is a fantastic segue into our next question, and this one actually is a call for advice here. So our listener says, as ground beef reaches around $10 a pound, what should I do to maintain our RDA of proteins? Is turkey a good return on investment, or will things get so bad that I should send out the boy to hunt for squirrels? George: I think we should probably stipulate here that squirrel is I have not had the chance to eat myself, but I have heard is excellent. That's fine. Actually, our ninth president, William Henry Harrison, his favorite meal was squirrel stew. And I've I've looked up the recipe, and it it looks pretty standard. You got equivalent of a mirepoix and potatoes, etcetera, little time. I think we should be a little bit cautious about shooting down the whole squirrel shooting thing too quickly. That said Ed: Yeah. But urban squirrels. George: Yeah. I mean Ed: What have they eaten? George: They're omnivores, man. I mean, once it gets into muscle, it's GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I think you're fine as long as you avoid the brain. It carries a high risk high risk of prion disease, if I remember correctly. George: Don't eat the brains of anything really. Yeah. I think that's good advice. Anyhow, I don't really understand why people think that ground beef is the only way to get protein because, like, it's really a bad way to do it. It's either relatively expensive and kind of not as good if you go really low fat content or it's really fatty. Chicken is the best protein in my opinion. I mean, turkey is also fine. Nothing against turkey, but you can do so much with, as Propter mentioned earlier, a roasted chicken. You can do so much with chicken thighs, chicken breasts. You can do all sorts of fun stuff with wings. I just like, chicken's great. Eat more chicken. I wish we could. Someone in my family has developed an allergy to it, so we can't eat as much of it, which makes the current beef price situation a bit of GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: a pickle for me. Anyhow. Propter Malone: I'll say I'll say that my mother grew up eating squirrel in East Texas, and she is a gourmand and and a adventurous cook. I grew up eating beef tongue among other things regularly, and she has never once said, man I wish I had some squirrel. So So reviews may vary on that, I don't know. I'm not saying I wouldn't eat squirrel. I'm saying that I'm saying that, you know, I spent a decent portion of my life being cooked for by someone who has eaten squirrel who did not see fit to include it on the menu. Ed: Wait. Is it just because she did have a gun? Propter Malone: No. She she would have obtained one. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Alright. She Ed: would she's George: she's Texas, man. I don't think that it would have Ed: a particular issue. Don't think that there wouldn't have been any around, but, like, you see the squirrel, you have to go all the way across the kitchen. George: I will say beef tongue, super underrated as Ed: Oh, yeah. George: You know, lingua tacos. One of my favorite dishes I've ever had was a beef tongue and potato with mustard seed dish at Babbo in New York, Marabhatalli restaurant. Like, beef tongue is so great. The texture is just it if you don't like that kind of texture, then you don't like beef tongue. But I do, and, oh, yeah, the best. Propter Malone: Unctuous and tender. Ed: Yeah. I don't. So all yours. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Ed, how do you get a protein other than ground beef in your diet? Ed: Pork tenderloins are $4 a pound at Costco. Why are you doing anything else? Right? Like Yeah. Very fair. I'm going to fake a a chicken allergy to to continue to do this because we we occasionally do it is funny because so my wife is from China, but she is from a part of China that doesn't really do a lot of pork. So, honestly, I am the one who cooks, like, reaches more for pork even though you kind of think of it as as a common thing, but she's from Hunan, so it's, you know, it's not as much of a thing in the way that she cooks. But, like, I will very regularly sous vide up a couple of the, you know, the big giant beef tenderloin packs from Costco. The stuff, you know, the they freeze forever. They take no time to cook. You can put anything on them. Honestly, we don't do as much pork as we used to, it seems like, in The US. I don't know if that's just my my experience up in the Northeast, but, like George: It very much is. Ed: You don't hear a lot of pork. You the the pork spending has disappeared in this country. But George: like hog barns for days as well as pig pits everywhere you can find them down here. So Ed: Sure. But that's, like, how far off on the other side of the scale are you? George: I'm just saying that the average is in the middle, buddy. Have we have Ed: to find the median hog purchaser, and they're probably at Costco. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Ed, remember in Georgia State, like, drowning in pig shit is, like, the third leading cause of death in North Carolina? George: That's an exaggeration, but it is regularly the largest single environmental hazard of any given county. So, like, yeah, it's South Carolina on the other hand. Ed: Real problem. But yeah. No. I I I take your point. But, like, you just don't see as much, like, I go to restaurants. I don't see as much pork as you used to. You see a lot of chicken. You see a lot of fish. You see a lot of beef. You don't really see as much pork as, like, when I was growing up. And I don't know. It's cheap. And and you can do anything with it module you know, within within parameters. So Propter Malone: I wish I wish there was more indica, I guess, of quality pork because there's there's a significant range in quality in pork and and, you know, like, the equivalent of, like, USDA prime pork or heritage breeds or or whatever. Ed: Kirkland Signature. Propter Malone: Well, I mean, mean, Kirkland Kirkland Kirkland pushes a lot of, you know, solid b plus pork, and and it's and it's great. But, like, there's a notch above that that, you know, like Sure. But but, like, we're Ed: talking about going for the base hit of pork here. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Sure. Propter Malone: Sure. George: Yeah. Your local farmer's market is going to be your friend there because I guarantee you if you live near a decent sized farmer's market, there is somebody who is really pampering their pigs, and you can have access to the meat that comes from said pampering. And, yeah, you're right. It's a huge difference. Even something like sausage from a really high quality pork producer is going to taste much better than something you get from a Walmart. Ed: One of the really annoying things around here is that, like, there are places around here that you can get a quarter cow or something like that. You just fill up the chest freezer. Can't find anything like that for for pork or or pork related around here. Propter Malone: See, we're far Ed: we're Propter Malone: far enough down that that that our our quarter cow purveyor also also swings pork. Oh, okay. And and and they raise chickens, which is nice. We used to do a meat draft, annually that, know, we would we would purchase a a cow and a bunch of stuff, and, you know, there'd be a bunch of people going in on it, and then we would throw everything on a table. And in turn, you would draft packages until everything was done. And we kinda gotten away from that. I'm not sure. I'm not well, actually, know exactly why we stopped. It was the pandemic. Ed: Well, yeah. George: A science answer to most things. Right? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. Lojax, what about you? What, what what kind of proteins do you use other than ground beef? Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Pork a lot. Lots of lots of pork tenderloin. Lots of pork loins we'll cook on the weekends. Do lots of pork butts, slow cook them. We roast chickens all the time. We'll buy, you know, little chicken from Publix and do that up real quick. I'm not giving up beef altogether, though. Can't do it. I don't care if it's $30 a pound. It's too good. Ed: I think for Christmas dinner, did up a bunch of steaks, so I'm I get it. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Though And that right there George: is why beef is so expensive right now because nobody's given it GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: up no matter how expensive it gets. Ed: Although the Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: problem is the problem is you guys keep allowing the Texans to push this brisket nonsense, and that's pushing beef prices up because they're pushing now they're pushing into beef cheek, and and they're getting they're doing crap to to roasts and all this stuff. Stop stop listening to the Texans. Stop eating that crap. Propter Malone: Hire steak used to be so cheap, man. Like Yeah. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. All the Propter Malone: all the tough flavorful cuts. Ed: I haven't done one in years. George: Even even oxtail, right, which should not be that is not a good cut of the cow. It is not. And it Nope. Wow. It's so expensive. It's crazy. The only GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: thing I'll add here is chickpeas. Since all of you are are mentioning meat, we we tend to eat a lot of chickpeas in this house. They're high in protein. I actually outside of chicken, I don't cook a lot of meat at home. It's typically chicken. But, also, we make a lot of chickpea curries in this house, and you can get a lot of protein out of that as well. Propter Malone: This is this is maybe an admission against the political branding of this show, but eggs are cheap again. So yeah, go buy some eggs. Ed: Are are you allowed to say that? I Propter Malone: mean, hopefully, it'll get more expensive. Guess everyone. Yeah. But, no, eggs eggs are eggs are cheap again. So, you know, you can buy eggs. I grew up in Pullman, Washington, which is among other things, the lentil capital of the world. So I've gotta gotta put the shout out for lentils. George: Did you hear the Odd Lots podcast episode where they interviewed the lentil king of Canada? I did not. No. Yeah. You I'll send it to you. You gotta That's a thing. Shout out for that particular episode because it's this guy whose whole deal was bringing lentils to the Canadian Prairies, and he's he's done well for himself. That's great. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: That's amazing. Propter Malone: Yeah. But, yeah, lentils and chickpeas are fantastic, and they take they take flavor very well. You can cook them a bunch of different ways. And Ed: We also get a ton of those, the frozen edamame, which do not end up in any nor you know, any any conventional deployment of edamame, but, like, easy, fast, takes about two minutes. Propter Malone: There's a lot be said for the humble bean in all of its farms. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Legumes. Yes. Absolutely. Propter Malone: Nitrogen too, so they're they're they're good from the sustainable agriculture standpoint. Ed: Yeah. For all of those farms I have. Propter Malone: See, like, any of four the people any of the other four people on the podcast, I'd assume they were joking, but with Ed, I can't be GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: sure. Give Ed: me a little while. I'll get back to you. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Kinda transition here and talk about socializing and parties because it is kind of party central over the next week, and everybody's probably been going to different Christmas parties, holiday parties, and, you know, you've got New Year's Eve coming up here. First question is, with all of these sort of celebratory drinking events, what do you all of you feel about the boom of nonalcoholic beverages on offer lately? And do you have any mocktail or otherwise zero alcohol suggestions for the season? George: I very much do. First off, I'm I love the fact that you don't have to drink in a bar anymore. You can get something that's pretty much as good or, you know, at least close and still socialize and be a part of that and not have to drink alcohol. I've myself have cut back drinking radically this year for other unrelated reasons, and it's great that that's an option. For me, the three I would recommend are the San Agresti's products. They're out of Brooklyn. They make their own Amaro and do alcoholic stuff, but they also have a phony Negroni product that's awesome. There's a zero ABV Amaro product as well that's sort of like an extremely intense so like cola, not super sweet, but got that bitterness and that depth of flavor. So that San Agresti stuff is great. Casamara Club soda is also great. Very different, much lighter, much more crushable, relatively low calorie, and really, really fun flavor profiles. They are all inspired by Amaro's, all zero alcohol. Those are great. And then for beer, I think Bud Zero is the best zero ABV product. That's what I drink. But I had a bunch of them, and they're all great. Sorry. They're not all great. A bunch of them are great. Ed: Ed. Monster sugar free? I I don't know. Like, I don't I so the thing is it's not it's not alcohol. George is having a moment over there. He'll be back. But, like, I don't really like things with sugar in them. Like, I don't like drinks that have sugar in them. So, basically, unless it is in the service of alcohol, I'm probably just going to have a soda water and and just, you know, whatever. No one cares. Unless it is at noon, and then, you know, maybe I could use some more caffeine. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: But yeah. Ed: No. Like like, the stuff that George described, like, I've had some of some similar stuff and, like, they taste fine, but the sugar just, like, makes my mouth feel weird. And I just can't I just can't deal with it. So I I pretty much just, you know, soda water and lemon. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: As opposed to monster, which is supposed to make your mouth feel weird. It doesn't. It Ed: genuinely, like, in a rare moment of seriousness on this podcast, aside from, like, the last four episodes of of Real Bangerz, like, I just don't like, the sugar in drinks just, like, I have to go brush my teeth. Whereas, like, non sugar things, it's fine. Fine. We're we so the this is just how we cope. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Alright. Low tax and then Propters. What are what are your recommendations for either low alcohol or no alcohol or alternative to alcohol? Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: I guess my recommendation would be to listen to George because if I'm if I'm drinking something that is beer or booze like, I'm just gonna drink beer or booze. And if I'm not in the mood to drink, I'm probably just gonna have a Coke or a Sprite or something like that. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Fair enough. Proper, what about you? Propter Malone: Well, first off, I think I would be remiss if I did not mention that there is a holiday cheer wine edition that is essentially premixed cheer wine plus ginger ale plus pineapple that makes a great base for holiday punches, either alcoholic or nonalcoholic. Ed: Why are you telling us this now? George: As as we mentioned before, if you're not into super sweet stuff, then cheer wine probably not for you. Ed: Was saying that. The sugar free cheer wine was shockingly good. Propter Malone: Know, I think it would actually take bitters fairly well if you wanted to if you wanted to add a little bit of a of a bitter flavor to your holiday punch. Maybe I'll try that. George: Well, now I have a project for this week. Propter Malone: Nonalcoholic beers are really good now. Athletic, I've liked pretty much everything I've had from them, and I've tried pretty much everything I've seen from them. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: That was gonna that was gonna be the one that that I was gonna recommend as well. My, my my guitarist is sober, and that's what they will order, if they're in the mood for a beer. They did once have a, a a zero proof Milwaukee's best. Oh, it was amazing. It was one of the worst things I've ever tasted in my entire life. Propter Malone: Who is the market for zero proof Milwaukee? Never mind. Apparently, it's your friend. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: But the three the three people in Wisconsin who aren't raging alcoholics Ed: probably. Yep. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Exactly. I was gonna say the audience is a driver who's on their third DUI and is trying not to go to prison. Yeah. Propter Malone: I mean, I guess that I guess that's I guess that's beer seven through 12 for your for your DD. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Have you guys had the have you guys had the zero alcohol Guinness before? George: I have. Yeah. Not good. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Not good? No. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: It's it's I have had worse zero ABV beers, but it's not good. George: Yeah. It's it's really disorienting because Guinness is such a like, if you're drinking a mass market lager, the differences are so small that, like, you kinda blend them all together to a degree. Right? Whereas Guinness is a very distinctive flavor and mouthfeel, and they do it. Yeah. They they they worked hard on it. It's it's it's not a bad effort. It's just off enough that it Propter Malone: Yeah. I feel like unless you're unless you're straight up sober for for reasons, and there's lots of good reasons with Guinness in particular. Like, number one, it's not like you're gonna crush a whole ton of Guinness, and it's not terribly wetted. So, like, that's one where I think you get less juice for the squeeze out of switching to nonalcoholic. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: I would have floored you in grad school. Propter Malone: I mean, like, I like Guinness. I drink Guinness, but it's like 4% ABV. And, you know, by the time I threw a pint of Guinness, I would be on my fourth Miller Lite. So like so, you know, it it's just it's it one of the major selling points of Guinness for me is that it is difficult to get drunk off of Guinness, just just as just as a straight up rates problem that you're not gonna take in enough alcohol to really get schnaukered. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: You're just you're not trying hard enough. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: It's like with smoking, Propter. You gotta keep pushing forward because it's about to get so good. Ed: Yeah. I'll be real. I I don't know how someone could get drunk off of Guinness because I can't drink one. Not not because of the alcohol because they taste terrible. I I don't understand this entire phenomenon. And, I mean, look at the hair. This is the voice of news in speaking. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: They're gonna throw you out of Boston. You know that? They're gonna throw you out of New England. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: And turn you away at the Dublin Airport. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Not so far. Send you to they're gonna send you to Ohio or Missouri or something. Go be German somewhere. Propter Malone: Try mixing that half and half with sugar free monsters. See see if that Ed: Don't do that. Don't. Propter Malone: I also really like the various hopwaters, which are essentially LaCroix, but, like, with hops as the as the as the whispered essence. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: That's the one that I don't get at all. Propter Malone: They sound terrible. But okay. I like them for the following reasons. Number one, like, if I'm if I'm sitting there at a party with a drink in my hand and it is a crushable drink, I will crush it. Hotwaters are not crushable drinks, so they are sufficiently bitter that I will sit there and I will nurse my hot water despite the fact that it is zero calorie and has no other noticeable, you know, impact on your body in any way, but it means that I'm not, you know, just taking down a bunch of liquid and going to go get more water or whatever all the time. George: They're a phenomenal tailgate drink. Also, I will say, like, a hot summer tailgate or a late fall tailgate or early fall tailgate where you're, like, in the sun and you're drinking and you want to be something in your hand, you can just crush them and get hydrated really quickly, and they're great. Like, a plus for that situation. Propter Malone: And they've got they've got that terpene bite. You know? They've got they they taste like hops. So if you're if you're one of those IPA sickos, then they they'll hit that target for you. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: No. You can keep your Mumford and Sons IPA water. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Only thing I'll add is is club soda with a healthy shake of bitters, I think, is always a good one as well. That's my go to if I'm at a bar, but I'm not gonna be drinking. Club soda with just a couple shakes of bitters. If I am at home, I'll have a club soda with mint bitters. Phee brothers make an interesting mint bitter, which turns your drink the color of Vulcan blood. So it's fun to walk her drinking something Day Glo Green that is nonalcoholic. Propter Malone: There are a couple decent alcohol free wines out there also that I mean, like, they're not good wine. Let's not let's not kid ourselves here. But the very specific use case for, like, alcohol free Prosecco is if you have a pregnant friend who drinks and wishes that she could again, she will she will appreciate the alcohol free Prosecco. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: So another another party related question here. What's the best way to construct a holiday holiday party playlist? Do you go constant bangers scripted for the whole night, or do you start with some crowd pleasers and then open it up for suggestions? Now I'm gonna start this one off. I'm never going to up open it up for suggestions ever. If you're in my house, you're going to listen to whatever it is I choose to play. It's like driving rules. George: Yes. That's so correct. I literally said in my notes for this, my philosophy at DJing is you gave me a job to do, so I'm going to do it. And that is exactly right. It, like, nailed it. Go ahead, hell machine. Ed: Yeah. I have people for that. I I delegate. Same. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Propter, what about you? Do you put together a a the playlist for for your parties, or do you turn it over to an algorithm or turn it over to somebody else? Propter Malone: I like I like either elaborately themed playlists that involve wordplay where possible, or or I like essentially Sonos Radio as as the go to. Either either I don't wanna think about it, and I want it to be surprising enough and and have sufficient novelty that I am surprised by it, or I wanna think about it very intricately, and it's something that we're gonna continue to add to over the course of the evening. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: George, what about you? It sounds like you have some experience making playlists for your holiday parties. George: I mean, I I don't. But just in general, like, the person assigned to DJ is they're they're in the driver's seat, like you said. I mean, we don't need people coming in from the peanut gallery. If if things are getting very late and sloppy and the DJ is tired, both physically and spiritually from having to listen to their creation all night. I then sure. But, you know, no. Put together a good playlist. Use your judgment. Show some craft. That's the way to handle being a DJ. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I typically don't make playlists at all. What I end up doing is digging about anywhere between twenty and thirty records out that I wanna play during the evening and stack those next to the record player, and I usually play them cover to cover. So we did this for Christmas Eve. Part of the reason for this is that our table that we serve everyone from goes up against where the records are, so I can't actually get records out very easily whenever we we have big parties. So I just kinda create a stack and and play through them and don't have any real rhyme or reason to it. So, hopefully, that was helpful. I I feel like that was probably the least helpful we have advised so far. Ed: I don't know. I think delegating is a wise option here. It is. Probably have at least one friend who, like, cares about this. Because if you're asking this question, you probably don't care that much yourself, and that's totally fine. I don't. But, like, I have a friend who, like, was a tech for Lady Gaga, like, tours and is just, like, the most knowledgeable person about music I've ever met, and he likes that. So go nuts. Yeah. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: But the catch 22 here is that the person who wants to do it the most is the person who will be the the the least good at it. But the Ed: most I didn't I I in no way did I suggest asking for volunteers. You know your people. You pick the right one. That's right. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Thirty minutes of napalm depth coming up. That's right. Couple social kinda socializing questions, and these go along with the party questions a little bit. Here is one that I hope we can give good advice on, but we'll see. What are some tips to being more self confident and outgoing? Our listener says, for many years, I was essentially asocial. I've been getting out more recently, but it doesn't really feel natural to me. And let's let's start with George here. George: I share some of this questioner's question submitter's pain. I was not particularly social, not for a lack of interest in it, but for lack of social skills when I was younger. By the time I got to high school, college, things sorted themselves out. So, you know, things do change. I will say self confidence isn't something someone can give you advice about. I mean, I I think there's no nothing I can say to be like, oh, just do this, and you'll come across as more self confident, you know, which is kinda hard to hear, I'm sure. But what I will say is you can put yourself in the situations where being more social comes naturally and is supported by what's going on around you. So one thing I would suggest people do is that they find groups of people to spend time with who have different personality types. My supporters group for Charlotte FC is a perfect example of this. We run the gamut from people who are, like, almost over the top extroverted and just extremely socially oriented to people who really, really have to work hard to get up for any social event and everyone in between. And when you're in a group of people like that, you'll both be encouraged to be more social, and also people will understand and when there's times that you don't you're not really feeling it. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: I was also gonna say, so this this listener says that they're they're getting out there and they're trying to be more social. It just doesn't feel all that natural yet, but they're probably on the right path here and need to just keep getting out there and getting reps, basically. George: So the other thing I would say is I I mentioned a specific group, like a a sports team supporters group. Join an organization of some kind, whether it's something you do to volunteer, whether it's something you do that's related to a sport or a leisure activity or whatever. Like, join something that will get you around other people in a structured way, not because, like, you wanna socialize with those people specifically. You may have to join a few different groups, but there are so many groups out there that are looking for people to participate in them and want people to join in and or need people to join in. I mean, literally unlimited demand for your time as a volunteer doing stuff. And that will create social opportunities in terms of just doing stuff with other people. Maybe not fun stuff in the case of volunteering all the time, but you will spend time with other people, and that is a way to get yourself more comfortable with being social with people. So finding any organization you can. Then the last thing I'll say in this, because I've taken up almost this whole question, less phone, I would say, is a very good way to get more social. Instead of staring at your phone, if the thing you want to do is be more social, go out into the world and literally touch grass in ways that are not forcing yourself on people in some sort of social situation, but just existing around other human beings. That will create social engagement no matter what you do. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Go sit at the bar. Grab a beer. Watch a game. Yeah. Strike tell a tell a joke to the guy sitting next to you or something. Yep. You know? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. Jokes and just, you know, every time the topic of small pop small talk comes up on the Internet, people complain and talk about how terrible and stupid and pointless small talk is. Ed: And they're always the most unlikable people on earth. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Absolutely. I I love small talk. Talk about the weather. Talk about the, you know, local news in your area. You typically want to avoid politics, particularly with a stranger. Avoid religion, normal bar rules. But talk about, what's going on in your neighborhood. Talk about your job. Talk about your friends. All of these different things are are skills that can kinda help you to feel a little bit more confident talking to people out in the real world and and particularly strangers in the real world. The reason that weather is always a great topic is because everyone experiences it. It's it's a totally universal thing. Everybody has thoughts about the weather. But just pick some topics that you could talk to a random stranger about, and you'll be able to kind of get better at those conversational skills and transition into maybe more interesting or more meaningful conversations. Ed: I I do wanna interrupt here, mister, like, Hill Machine. You do realize a large proportion of our audience is on Blue Sky. I would bet that a full 50% of your interlocutors have not touched grass in the last ten years. Weather is a dangerous topic sometimes. I'm just saying, you gotta you gotta read the room. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: That and you want you run the risk of being the guy who's going, how about this heat? Ed: It is 13 degrees out, and it doesn't matter if it's Celsius or Fahrenheit. Propter Malone: I will say that number one, with regard to Blue Sky, I I've really liked everybody I've met off Blue Sky who I met in real life. They've been Ed: But that's a selection bias. Right? Like, I met you in Versen off of the Internet, but, like, there's an effort to be made to do that. Propter Malone: There's there's a selection bias, but I'm not sure there's a normalcy bias if you follow me. Fair. But I think that in terms of, know, practicing practicing small talk, situations where you're hanging out, doing much around other people who you do not know well, are not impossible to construct. It used to be that the classic example was standing outside having a cigarette, for for those of us who have spent time smoking, and that's that's a great way to learn how to strike up a conversation with strangers. Similar events that that I encounter or have encountered, dog parks are great for this. You're sitting there, your dog's doing their thing. Talk to people, people are bored. They're usually going to be more interested in having a low stakes conversation with with with a stranger than they are in continuing to be bored. Playgrounds, if you have kids, that's that's another one. There's lots of this this kind of liminal frictional activity involved in anything that has you sitting there waiting, and these are these are good times to talk to people. With regard to confidence, I'm not going say that people aren't judgmental. People are judgmental, but they're less specifically judgmental than you think they are. They are not keen on any one particular thing you did or said wrong. These are not things where you should get neurotic about it and beat yourself up over it. That's not how people react. People people evaluate other people. Like I said, people are judgmental, and they will make a judgment on you, but they're going to color you in very, very broad strokes as, yes, I enjoyed talking to this person, or no, I didn't enjoy talking to this person. They are not going to they're not going to total up merits and demerits from a list of full pause you may or may not have made or what have you, know, unless unless you do something that's way, way, way, way, way outside the the normal range. George: I was I was gonna say, if you if you step in it so badly that, like, that's the thing, then, like, you're gonna know. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. George: Like, you're gonna it's not gonna be a mystery. Propter Malone: Yeah. So, you know, don't get bogged down in kind of microanalyzing your own behavior or your own presentation. That way that way lies madness. You are not you are not a character sheet, you know? This is not this is not something where you have a bunch of discrete characteristics that you're trying to optimize each of. This is something where you're trying to present yourself as a as a whole person, and hopefully, other people will like the whole person you are. So GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: So, hopefully, that was helpful. I feel like that was one where we did at least maybe offer some some actual actionable advice. This one, I think we will probably be a lot less helpful for just because these questions are always really hard to give advice on. So I have been off the dating scene for a while, but I'm looking to get back out there in the New Year. I love hearing normal men talk about their normal partners. Any advice from how you met them that could help a fellow normal man be so fortunate? Ed: Be on the Internet on all of the nonsense for an unbroken span of approximately fifteen years. Exactly. It broken But in some yeah. Like like, honestly, the that seems to be the thing. At least, like, it depends on where you are, obviously. But, like, I am in a very urban area. People and and, specifically, all of the jokes about the Northeast are true. If you go to a bar, it's a bunch of people talking to their friends. It's not it it's a a lot of the the same advice as as sort of George laid out on on just, like, meeting people in in a more general sense applies in most places. And shockingly, the difficulty curve is much higher in certain places, and New England is one of them. But, yeah, like, a lot of a lot of it is trial and error, I think, and and it's a moving target. A lot of it sucks. Sorry. But, like, it does. Like, in my case, least, like, it's it sucked a whole lot until I was about 29, and then, you know, things sort of sorted themselves out. But the fact that that coincided with me not being quite as much of a raging prick probably had nothing to do with that. But, like, yeah, it's it's rough out there. And, like, that is the one that's the one commonality of every conversation that I have had with any friend that is that is currently in that spot is, dude, god, it's a mess out there right now. No advice. Good luck. But pull it for you. Like, it's I say that in a joking way, but, like, it sucks. It's it's pretty tough. Unless you have some other advantages. I don't go to church. I am not religious, stuff like that, and social works don't really you know, not not as big a thing up here. But if you're in places where you can leverage that stuff, I think George's advice for the last question probably stands here too. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. I think some of that that same advice probably applies. I I have no useful advice here. I, I I I met my partner on Facebook, and this is because we grew up in the same place, in the same circle of friends going to all or at least some of all of the same shows, but there's a a couple year age difference between us. And when you're, you know, 15 years old, that's a much bigger thing than it is when you're in your forties. George: Oh, no. Here comes age gap discourse. We're about to come down. Blown open in front of us on blue sky. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Hell hell machine is about to confess to being problematic here. We all we should Ed: have known Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: it was coming, folks. Ed: Two years. Oh, no. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: But but but so we met and and struck up a friend friendship, and then and then we were both on our ways out of other relationships that were not as fulfilling for either of us. And so got together from there. So none of this is very useful or applicable at all, and I apologize for that. Ed: Yeah. We're o for two. Propter Malone: My my dating advice such as it is is hopelessly dated at this point. I haven't been single since 2006. But Ed: I graduated high school then. Propter Malone: Yeah. You know? I went on two OkCupid dates that went okay, I guess, and that's the entirety of my experience with with sort of online app focused dating. They weren't even apps at that point. This was the pre app era. And I think that that's how a lot of this happens at this point. Certainly, it's how it's happened for a lot of my friends. For me, you know, I walked into a bar to meet a friend of mine for a beer. He'd just gotten back from a camping trip where where he'd proposed to his now wife. My now wife was also in the bar having having a drink with her friends, and we struck up a conversation, we got to talking, we made out a little, and we've been together ever since. So insofar as that's that's replicable, I guess the actionable lesson from that is be willing to say yes to things. You know, there were there were a lot of potential off ramps that I didn't take and my wife didn't take from, you know, this this bar hookup that has now lasted for for twenty years. But we were both interested enough in working through whatever issues there were that weren't prescreened for because, again, this was a bar hookup that we didn't run away from what has turned out to be the love of my wife, obviously. So so be willing to say yes. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: By the way, for our younger listeners, bars are these established ones we used to have where they serve alcohol to you in exchange Ed: for money. No. Low tax. It's problematic. George: I I really like that advice from Propter. I think that that looking back at my relationship with my wife, it's totally true. We met in December. By March, April, we were making plans to move across state lines together, and we did it by the middle of the summer. And You make that Ed: sound like illegal. Well, George: how do I say moving from one end starting place to another? From New York to North Carolina, whatever. If if you're not willing to say yes and work through hard stuff with somebody, then you're just never gonna be in a long term relationship. Like, it it's just that's that's what comes with the territory. So now, obviously, up getting up to that point where there is something to say yes to is a really different story, and finding someone who's also gonna say yes is a really different story, and those are both very contingent. And I will say, like, I I dating is hard. It's a ton of work. It's expensive. It's frustrating. It's really frequently an attack on your ego. Any rejection sucks as a human being. We are very, very, very badly wired to accept rejection, and there are good things that come of that. It means that when you strike up a conversation with a stranger at the dog park that, you know, there's a natural fear of being rejected by the other person, and you tend to do prosocial things as a result. That's a good thing. But it sucks to get rejected, and that's what dating, especially the early stages of dating involves. So, you know, all that said, I do think go on a lot of dates with people. Like like, ask a lot of people out. Go on a lot of first dates. They aren't all gonna work out. Most of them won't for very long. I mean, it's just how it works. Right? But both the act of going on dates and the act of asking people out on dates is going to help you grow a lot as a a person. And this applies equally to men and women, by the way. I saw a TikTok last night. This young woman who lives in Atlanta and her friend in a computer center retailer or whatever looking for guys because that's the kind of guy they want is like the kind of guy who's interested in computers. And, like, because they think they identify that kind of guy as being, like, not the kind of guy that they keep getting into bad stuff with. Right? Like, bad patterns with. You know? And so I I was so I I I found this hilarious, so I clicked on her profile. And she had another TikTok where she saw a cute guy, and she walked up to him and handed him a note with her number on it to be like, hey. I think you're cute. Like, here's my number. I don't think either one of those strategies worked for her in that specific instance. But if you do stuff like that enough, you will go on a lot of dates. Like, trust me. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: The computer guy the computer guy one might have worked out. She just found all new bad reasons to get out of the relationship. George: The last thing I'll say is that when you are on a first date, think about it the way you think about a job interview, not in the sense of, like, trying to get a job or trying to get an outcome, but in the sense of the more you can get the interviewer in a job interview talking about themselves, the better that interview is going for you. Right? People love talking about themselves, and they really love talking about themselves when they think they have a receptive audience. So anything you can do to show interest in what the other person is into and get them talking about it is going to go a very long way in making a good impression. And maybe it's someone that you, in the long run, don't end up actually wanting to make a good impression on. I don't know. I mean, there's no way to know. That's why you're on the date. But if you're if you've got anxiety about getting back into dating or getting into dating at all for the first time, I don't know how old people listening to this are, so whatever. You know, treat it as an exercise in making the other person feel comfortable and validated and talking about themselves, and it's gonna be a good date. It's or at least a middling one. It's not gonna go off the rails. So that that would GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: be my advice for someone getting back into dating. Not that I've done that in ten years, but, hey, whatever. I'm still stuck on the, the the perils of finding love between the aisles at Micro Center. Ed: I'm like, I'm just trying so if you shop at Micro Center, it is a competition between you and the sales associate because they really wanna put that sticker on whatever you have already selected for a for a commission. And, like, this is a really dangerous place to be in this sort like, you're adding levels to this dynamic that you do not understand. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: This one, I think, is is primarily gonna be one for for Propter and and George. I don't think Ed or Lotex or myself are gonna be of any real help here. But our listener says, I've got kid three Tokyo Drift arriving in April. With the two kids I have already got and the dog, I've already moved to a zone defense with getting the dog slightly less attention than the other two. The question here being, any tips on making sure that all three kids feel included and attended to within the family? Our listener also adds that they're aware that kid three will be a potato for five months, but still. George: Nope. You're toast. Good luck. Ed: Good. Now no one could judge me for my answer to the last one. No. No. No. George: Just I only have one kid, but I have thought a lot about what it's gonna be like going from one kid to multiple kids because we wanna have more kids. And the the thing I keep coming back to is our our daughter is amazing. She's so social and happy and well adjusted and just great. I mean, she's just she's amazing. She's turning three in January, and she's just I couldn't be more thrilled with the little human that I am tasked with keeping alive for another fifteen years. I worry about her going from an environment where she has two parents who are hyper engaged with her and focus on her at all times to one where she has to share it. I'm I'm really worried about what that's gonna do to her psychologically. What I always tell myself, and maybe this isn't true, but I tell it to myself, is that that benefit that she got of having our sole attention on her for the first three years of her life or three plus years of her life won't be shared by her younger siblings, but they'll have her. Right? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Like, they George: will always have her to look up to, her to help them, her to care about them in a way that she never did. She only had me and my wife. And extended family, etcetera, etcetera, of course, but inside the home. Right? And so I think it's just it's it's puts and takes. Like like, you know, your your kids are gonna know you love them. I'm sure if someone's end asking a question this self aware, they're going to do a good job being a parent. And the question is then just gonna be, you know, in in what specific ways do you do you manage that? No. I I it's gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine, dude. You're good. Propter Malone: Yeah. I've got I've got two kids that I can't really speak to moving to a a situation where you're outnumbered on the fast break, Ed: but and Propter Malone: I think that that that would be a little bit different. But what I can speak to is the difference between having one kid and having two. First off, like the delta on the parental side in terms of in terms of difficulty is much much larger going from zero kid to one kid than it is going from one kid to two kids. Going from zero to one changes your life entirely. Going from one to two changes your life not very much. It's harder having two kids than it is having one kid because you now have two small humans who are reliant on you for everything and are probably very opinionated. They're your kids. They're gonna share many of your more charming traits. But but, you know, you've you've got a a smaller change going going to two kids. In terms of dealing with kids as individuals, you know, if you've already got two kids, you've already got a pretty good sense of how that works, at least to some degree, depending on how old those kids are. Some kids wanna be around other kids. Other kids want more focused attention from mom and dad. You kinda wanna meet the kid where they are, whether that's, you know, the specific things they like to do or whether if what they wanna do is basically just, you know, tackle big brother, then fine. You know, we're now tackling big brother, and, hey, let's let's let's all tackle daddy. I think that carving out some individual time is is probably worth doing to the extent that your kid is capable of engaging with that individual time, which as discussed, they're a potato for the first five months and, you know, a more complicated potato up to a golden retriever for about the next year and a half, two years. But, you know, that that engagement will pay off, and I I think it's worth carving out some individual time to do one on one things with your individual children to the extent that that's possible. That said, Georgia's point is well taken that, you know, the sibling dynamic is is is a really big part of family with families that have multiple children. Know that if you're a younger sibling, your older sibling is always going to be a presence in your in your familial life. And unless the age gap is large, pretty soon the younger sibling is always going to be, in terms of memory, a presence in your individual life. I don't think my older kid remembers a time when he didn't have a brother, you know, and there's obviously, like, there's a two and a half year age difference, so there's various mismatches in terms of capability. We got a little bit lucky because the younger one is large for his age and the older one's a little small, so, you know, it's a fairly even matchup physically. But like, that's something that for their entire experience of family life, they have been part of each other's family unit, and that's a tremendous benefit that is outside of what my wife and I provide to them directly. It is useful to have it be outside of what my wife and I provide to them directly because it's something that GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: you don't have to do. Propter Malone: Like like like, there are there are are significant capacity problems here, right? Particularly as you start adding kids. You know, like there's no question in my mind that we approach kid number two with a different, let's say, standard of care than we did with kid number one. Partially Yep. Partially because, you know, we were experienced parents at that point. We'd we'd done the thing. We we were pretty sure we weren't going to break the child and did not in fact break the child. But, you know, there were there were a bunch of practices that seemed really really really important with baby one that did not seem important with baby two. I don't know if there's a similar degradation that happens as you move from kid number two to kid number three for most people, or if it's just, you know, you've you've kind of got your routine down at this point and you're just executing. Anyway, that's a that's that's a long winded answer. But I think in terms of actionable advice, try to carve out individual time with with each of them. Get to know your kids. They're they're individuals, and that's that's worth exploring. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I wanna plug a totally unrelated book here just because it's very funny called Did You Hear Mammy Died? Which is by Seamus O'Reilly, who is best known for a long Twitter thread describing how he met the president of Ireland while on ketamine. But he Died died. I remember that thread. Yes. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Yes. That was a fantastic thread. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: His, his his book is is very fun where he talks about being one of 11 children whose mother died. So 11 children who were being raised by a single widow or father, and it's an extremely funny read. So maybe you can get some some useful advice out of that one as well. Alright. We got couple questions left here, and these are kinda normal men related questions. So the first one comes from a listener who says there are a lot of not normal people online. This presumes that we are normal rather than that just being aspirational as Propter likes to say. But how did we find each other, and how can other normal people find each other? I mean, I think the answer for how we found each other is Internet. Right? Ed: Yeah. Before we get to that, have any of you people listened to me talk? George: Look. Some of us lean on the aspirations harder than others. No. The the gen the genesis of the podcast was me and Lotax going back and forth being like like, we we need to do a podcast. Like, we we need to there are so many there's so much nonsense out there. Like, we we need to do a podcast. Who'd be who'd be good? And Go Like Hell Machine and Propter were right at the top of the draft board for guys that would fit into the sort of vibes we were thinking about. And, obviously, go like hell machine had to step back at one point, and he said, hey. Y'all need to replace me with this Ed fella. And that was a huge mistake, but, you know, we're Ed: we're We were we were Propter Malone: pretty stuck at that point. George: So yeah. So which is to say, like, the the the way you find other normal people is just by, you know, when you identify a normal person, start talking to them. I mean, normalcy ensues. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: I think we all found each other through Blue Sky. Ed: Mhmm. Oh, yeah. I knew I knew going like Hellmachine through Twitter. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Yeah. Ed and Hellmachine knew each other outside of Blue Sky. Ed: Well, sort of. I I knew him because I hired him sight unseen off of Twitter. Yes. I was like, I need somebody who does exactly what this guy does, and, honestly, he's probably better than anyone who will interview. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. So Ed Ed and I knew each other via Twitter, and then Propter and I knew each other via Twitter before Blue Sky. So And I Ed: knew Propter through Discord because of him. Before before being on this podcast, I had drunk beers and pet his dog. Yeah. But That that was an interview process. Yeah. I had a feeling so. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: So how did how how did other people find or other normal people find other normal people? I mean, I think all the the same advice, that we mentioned in previous questions. Right? Like, leave your house. Get around and and and go be around people. I I look at it in one of two ways. Either everybody that I know is normal or no one that I know is normal. But there's like It's that one. Yeah. There's there's no in between there. Yeah. I mean, like, Ed: no one else I know talks about football, and I would just probably assault them if they talked about college football. Right? Like, I know people who play fighting games. I know people who, like, are weird woodworkers who have not left their garages since 1975. Like, this is the closest thing to normal I ever experience. Right? Like GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: In real life, I talk about, like, Canadian hardcore bands. Propter Malone: You know, again, Ed: I Propter Malone: I I think the listener base of this this podcast is heavily on Boyz Sky and although maybe not exclusively on Boyz Sky. And if you're on Boyz Sky at this point, you you have hopefully learned how to humor other people's monomania at least a little bit. Ed: And if you're not, don't. Like, you Propter Malone: wind up talking to somebody about their special interest, and and it this isn't an insincere thing. You should take an interest in their special interest. But people like to talk about their particular special interests. And Yeah. If you're having good conversations about your special interest or about their special interest, that's a good conversation, and you can build on that. Ed: The key is to not be like me and have 17,000 special interests because then you get very exhausting. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: It's important that everybody listen to my special interest because that's the only way the Democrats are gonna retake all every every race that they could possibly win. Ed: Yes. But which kind of communist are you? I GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: have not heard someone say the word zoning in real life in probably twelve months. Propter Malone: And you live in Portland. I would have thought it would be thick on the ground. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: Yeah. I have not heard anyone say it. I have heard my county council guy post it on Facebook. Mhmm. But that's it. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: One more question for everybody here. Last question, and I think a fun one to close out this New Year's New Year's Eve edition. Our listener says, I started following the normal men on blue sky because all of your relative posit positivity compared to a lot of the doomers that I had been following. The question being, what's some advice you have about how to stay hopeful about our country or life in general in 2026? Propter Malone: This is gonna come back to the touching grass thing or, you know, some digital analog thereof. One of the things I do to try to stay positive is I I do a weekly podcast, and I find that very helpful. I don't know if how transferable that is, but talking to other people who are thinking about some of the same things I'm thinking about, even if they don't always see them the same, even especially if they don't always see them the same the same way I do, is a useful mood elevating thing for me to it it helps me get outside my head in places where I'm stuck in my head, and it helps me feel engaged and connected to a larger community. I don't think a podcast is the only way to do that. I'm not sure it's the best way to do that. George: God, let's hope it's not the only way to Propter Malone: do that or the best. But, you know, it works. I think any kind of any kind of hobby or community engagement like that is going to give you a little bit of anchoring in a way that may make it easier to ride out the swells of doomery. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Stay off the phone. I think just in general, trying trying to make sure that you don't find yourself glued to the fire hose of hell news every single day. You you don't need to refresh a news feed several times throughout the day. You you don't need to know everything that is happening as it's happening. And if and if you do try to keep up on that kind of thing, it it it will make you miserable. I do it myself, and I have to force myself not to do it because it makes me miserable. And it's just something that's that's not gonna be good for you. Go for a walk. Take a dog for a walk. Go for a bike ride. Go to church. Go to a bar. Do anything other than just drowning yourself in the deluge of terrible news on a day to day basis. And, also, a thing to remember is one day, it is going to happen. George: Hell, yeah. It's going to happen. I can't wait, and it's gonna be I already have an Ed: understanding at work that I will not be around for at least two days. George: You know, your wife's gonna walk into you, there's just gonna be 52 cans of monster sugar free Ed: on the GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: floor, and George: you're drooling in bliss. Ed: Well, how else am I going to stay up for seventy two hours still? Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: And before it happens, you can you can read polls online because we're gonna beat we're gonna beat the absolute shit out of it. It's it's gonna be awesome. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yep. Yeah. Ed: It's it it is funny though, because go like hell machine and I yell about this all the time. Or rather, I yell at him about it and he nods. But, like, the media diet of the average American is bad. And by bad, I mean, apocalyptically bad. This is this is going to be the one the one time where I am getting on this soapbox this year because the year ends in two days. Three days. Don't do TikTok. Don't do Instagram. Don't do vertical video of any kind. Restrict your YouTube to things that are fifteen minutes or longer. I personally don't do Netflix, Apple one, like, TV, any of that stuff. Like, it's just I'm sure it's all fine, but, like, there's too much of it, and you have to pick what you're going to pay attention to. And the stuff I pay attention to is sometimes video games, exactly enough news for this podcast, and woodworking, three d printing, and making stuff. Right? Like, that is that is kind of what I have have cabined my interests into because, like, you can't. You you will go insane. Right? Like, I used to follow the news all the time. Half the time, I look at our our outlines, and I'm like, that happened. I I genuinely get a lot of my news from Blue Sky because, like, it'll percolate through one of the thousand news radiators except the ones that I've muted. Right? Like, it's fine. You don't have to pay that much attention. Asterisk. Unless it is stuff that is directly impacting you, further asterisk, a lot of those people want people to be scared for no reason, so think about who you're who you're looking at. But, like, it's there is other stuff. And particularly for our American listeners, and this is going to me being very exceptional as an American for a minute, there's a lot of homeostasis around this stuff. There's going to be a lot of of snapback to basically everything that you have gotten really, really scared and upset about in the last year, it's going to take a while. But, like, they have they have screwed this one up so transcendentally that, like, there's really only so much they can do. It will be not good, but, like, it's fixable and they're assholes. No one likes them. It's fine. Like, head down, slog through. And, like, the other side of it is not as far away as people think, which is not something I would have said ten years ago, but ten years ago, I was 20 But Propter Malone: I guess I guess to touch on and amplify a point that Ed just made about people who are, for whatever reason, and then there I think there's lots of reasons that people do this, are trying to kind of disseminate feelings of doom. Number one, sometimes I find it easier to be optimistic on behalf of other people than I do to be optimistic for myself. I think there's a lot of things that I find personally easier to do for others than I find it easy to do for myself. And that is maybe why I come off as optimistic online, Because natural natural devil's advocate cussing this against the field of doom plays as optimism. George: Oh my god. Dude, that is me to the core too. Like, we've it's just when you see a million people saying the same thing, you have to say the opposite thing. It's like a compulsion. There's no way to avoid doing it. Ed: But it helps. And what I like about the two of you is you usually do the math first because the math is usually not as dire as anyone is saying. Yeah. Propter Malone: Yeah. Don't owe people your depression. Like, that's not something you need to do to sympathize with other people. Mhmm. And consider not doing that. Consider not catastrophizing. Consider not overreacting to whatever the news of the day is, it's probably not the really, really big one. And, you know, everybody everybody does this sometimes. Everybody everybody overreacts to things because if you're not overreacting to anything, then you're not reacting appropriately. Right? Like like, it's gonna be a distribution around whatever the appropriate reaction is. Sometimes you're gonna miss high, sometimes you're gonna miss low. But it can be useful to take a step back and try to evaluate things against a larger field and try to figure out whether or not a particular thing is actually as big a deal as as as as people think it is, or whether this is maybe not something that is is necessarily going to swallow the world. With regard to news sources that are regularly spreading doom, consider getting your news from somewhere else. I'm not really sure how else to say that. If part of somebody's business model is making you feel terrible about the world, you do you. But why why would you want that? George: That's a lot of people's business model these days. Ed: Yeah. Like, if you have if you are getting your news from somebody who has a substack, I wish you would stop. Like, there are good ones, but I'm sorry, Paul Krugman, you go in the bin too. George: Right? Like Propter Malone: I mean, I like Paul, but but but Ed: I do too. Propter Malone: I like Ed: him. But he is on Substack. He goes in the bin. Sure. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I think also just consider how much news you actually need. You know, I listen to a band named Drug Church, and, there's always a line that I really like, which is news flash, I need news less. I still haven't gotten I have to get over the name first. Most of the time, you don't need to know everything. When it happens, you're definitely going to know. Everyone is going to know. George: A big part of my job is being at least tangentially aware of a very wide array of current events, and I cannot turn off the news. I have to at least be tangentially aware of what's going on roughly twenty four seven. And it got to the point earlier this year at the beginning of the year where I had physical consequences from that. I had, like, physical ailments related to stress from being plugged into the news all the time. It was a part of my job. I've managed it. The news has changed a bit since. It's not an issue anymore. But what I am saying what I will say is if you are not paid to do that for a living, you really need to not be doing that to yourself because there's no point in doing it. Yeah. You do not need to be that informed. The other thing I'll say is just the more general question of optimism. I I I think without respect to 2026, but just in general, we live in an age where we have found a cure for obesity. We've we went from a global pandemic to everyone's got a perfectly viable vaccine in their arm if they want it within, what, eighteen months, twenty four months. I mean, unbelievable. Right? Like like, the the the progress that has been made in so many areas over the past couple decades, whether it's renewable energy, whether it's in medicine, whether it's in just increasing economic complexity and therefore increasing standards of living. It's we were talking about cars on the timeline the other day, and there are actually people out there that think that modern cars, which will usually get you 200,000 miles and fifteen plus years of service if you take care of them properly, are some sort of terrible, terrible equivalent of a nineteen nineties vehicle. And I just like y'all are out of your minds. The world is getting better on average in ups and downs over time, and it has for quite a while now. Roughly the last five hundred years, give or take. Ed: It is it is not evenly distributed, but like George: It's not, and it's not consistent either. It it it swings. Right? Ed: But but George: it The line goes Ed: It goes up up and to the right in a very consistent way. George: Yep. The line go up. And so as somebody you know, this this is very, very, very visible in financial markets. Right? Like, if you look at long term stock market returns, if you look at the long term returns for stuff that is sort of a more a bet on human pessimism, it doesn't perform as well over long periods of time. It never will. And at the same time, you still see these huge spikes and drops. And and that is not to say that the stock market perfectly represents society. But when it comes to psychology and when it comes to understanding that short term does not equal long term, that is the same. Right? Like, if if you were going to take a long term view, there is no way you can argue. No way you can argue the world is worse now than it was thirty, fifty, a hundred years ago. There is no argument for that. At least none rooted in anything involving data. Right? It's by vibes, you can argue whatever you want, but thankfully, we have more advanced methods of determining reality than vibes. So I say all that to say if you have that in your mind, then it can only get so bad on a given day. Right? Ed: Mhmm. George: This too shall pass, Not because it it will, by law of nature, but because human beings wanna make the world a better place and are working very hard every day all over the world to do that. And you should do that too. You should work to make the world a better place too. And on those bad days, you should hope that the next day is in part a little bit less bad because of something you did on that bad day, and it probably will be. And thirty years from now, the world's gonna be a better place than what is today. I am very confident of that. Which is to say woke two is back. Ed: We are back with the woke, George: and it is going to be so much more painful for the anti woke people than the first round was. It's a Ed: vengeance campaign, baby. Man, fuck woke too. We are iterating on stages of woke no one has perceived of yet. George: Multidimensional planar woke mathematics. Ed: I mean, shit. Like, I I think that's very wise. And, like, you can look anywhere you look, you will see some of this stuff. Is it universally good at any given point for any given topic? No. But, like, take climate change. Right? Like, last year, they made perovskite solar cells work. They have, like, an 18% efficiency rating, and you can make them for basically nothing. Right? Like, they're going to roll out. They're going to make solar even cheaper than they already are. I think, what, projections are, what, 650 gigawatts next year, something like that. George: Like American carbon emissions peaked twenty years ago. China has already peaked, and it's a one way freight train from here. Ed: Yeah. And it's just like, no not enough people are talking about it because it's not fun. Propter Malone: We solve it. Solve the technical problem. It was not clear that we were going to be able to solve the technical problem, and then whoops, we did it. Yeah. No. That's a George: 100% correct. It's at this point entirely a political problem, and and a nontrivial one, but one that will be solved because market forces are gonna overpower the politics in within the next five years, I would say. Ed: And like like George said, COVID, same way. Right? Like, the it turns out that solving that problem was just not as, like, titanic effort. Yeah. But, like, well within the capacity of human ingenuity and, oh, wait, an alarming amount of productivity across all sectors in many countries. It's like, if that's not kind of the bedrock of how you look at the world, respectfully, you might be looking at it wrong. Now we might all be wrong, but also, like, rolling that around isn't the worst thing in the world either. Okay. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: But have you guys have you guys considered what the French under Stellantis have done to Jeep? Next Ed: year, I'm sure you can spend even more. The check is in George: the mail for low tax working in yet another Jeep reference to GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: the normal men podcast, and George: this is going to be it for us this year. I wanna thank go like hell machine for joining us on this mailbag episode. It's been super fun having you back, buddy, and we will do more of these in the future, and we we hope you stop in to hang out with us once in a while in between. And I am just really thankful we got this thing off the ground this year, and we have been able to roll along with it and do what we've done. So, gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. And to anyone listening, thanks, and hope you enjoy more as we head into 2026. So for Normal Men in Charlotte, I'm George. In DC, I'm Propter. Lowtax Speedrun Enjoyer: In Outer Florida, I'm low tax speed run enjoyer. Ed: And in Boston, I'm Ed. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: And I am go like hell machine in Portland. And gentlemen, I have something for you as we make our way out of 2025. George: Hell yeah, brother. Stay normal, y'all. Propter Malone: Popping the Happy New Year, everybody.