Fun facts, fun stick, pools, parties (but not pools and parties), and our thoughts on vlogging—your non-conventional podcasters are back for another episode.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
Fun facts, fun stick, pools, parties (but not pools and parties), and our thoughts on vlogging—your non-conventional podcasters are back for another episode.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:00
And welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I am your co host, Geoff. And as usual, I’m here with Georgie.
Georgie 0:19
Hello. I need some probably WD 40 For my chair. If you hear a squeak, it’s probably my chair. If you hear like *squeak*. Oh, well.
Geoff 0:30
You know, it’s hilarious actually. Yeah, it’s a common thread or common question in one of my, like, community Slacks, I guess you call them. And for those who don’t know what Slack is... (laughs)
Georgie 0:44
We’ve done this before but yes. It’s communication.
Geoff 0:49
Yeah.
Georgie 0:49
Tool.
Geoff 0:50
If you ever use IRC or MS—not really MSN. It’s like a big group chat, I guess. Yeah. Anyways, a common thread is what is the best chair to buy, like what is the most ergonomic chair to buy? And everyone’s just, you know, Steelcase, Herman Miller. And maybe like some outliers, like some IKEA stuff.
Georgie 1:17
Yes. Just to be clear. My chair is from IKEA.
Geoff 1:20
Yeah, yeah, I do. Oops. I do. Like I was using the IKEA one before I got this Herman Miller one. But in any case, I got the embody Herman Miller. And someone was like, Oh, is it noisy? And I’m like, “No”. And then I pause for a second and I shifted my chair and it creaks like, five times. I’m like, “Yeah. Okay, I guess it is kind of noisy”. So, you have to sit very still, I kinda don’t know what else to tell you.
Georgie 1:58
Yeah, speaking of that, like noise, though, I kind of hijacked a team’s stand up the other day, by the way, stand up is kind of like this daily meeting.
Geoff 2:08
Oh it’s the worst.
Georgie 2:12
Oh don’t—(laughs). You give updates in your team, it’s like, it’s only supposed to be a pretty short meeting, you know, to make sure nothing is blocking you. And if someone if you need help, that’s when you bring it up. Although it shouldn’t be your only way of asking for help or support from the team, you should still have communication outside of this meeting. I have been in some team stand ups that have been very long, just because it tends to go on tangents sometimes if it’s, no one’s there to sort of like, not really facilitate, but sort of make sure everyone’s on topic. Anyway, hijacked the stand up. Because I thought it’d be fun. They were doing this thing called fun stick, which by the way, I don’t know if you have fun stick Geoff.
Geoff 2:52
No?
Georgie 2:52
Okay just—
Geoff 2:54
I don’t know what kind of fun stick you’re talking about.
Georgie 2:56
It’s a funny name. And I don’t even know where it comes from. But I think one team started doing this work. And so other teams started to follow suit. And I think it became a bit more important during working from home during the pandemic, where we couldn’t see each other in person, sort of keep a social aspect. So it’s just an activity, could be a little game, it could be like sharing some photos. And sometimes it’s like, before the standup once a week, fun stick. Just play games. And maybe it’s usually separate from like, an actual dedicated game session.
Geoff 3:32
Yeah.
Georgie 3:32
So yeah, I don’t know why it’s called fun stick, anyway, I just.
Geoff 3:38
What is it? (laughs) Explain what the hell fun stick, apart from the snack.
Georgie 3:41
It’s just an activity. It could be anything. Basically, it’s a dedicated like icebreaker activity, someone picks a game or someone picks something to share, sort of to facilitate social chat and that kind of thing.
Geoff 3:55
We used to have a ball and we would just throw it to the next person who has to give standup.
Georgie 3:59
That’s not, that’s not fun stick.
Geoff 4:02
It’s a fun ball.
Georgie 4:02
That’s boring balls. So I want—
Geoff 4:06
So you got your fun stick with your boring balls.
Georgie 4:10
So I joined I actually used to work with this team and so did other people in my team. But I thought I’d just come along and hijack the stand up because I wanted to join the fun stick and I’m still in their, their channel in Slack in their—so the channels in Slack are like sort of like a, one—
Geoff 4:30
Like a grouping.
Georgie 4:30
Yeah, a grouping dedicated to a certain topic. So that team has their own channel and I’m still in that channel and I like to stir shit up? They were asking, they were asking and sort of going like, “what are you doing here Georgie?” And then like, this is what I say. “I bring the hype”. That’s why. I bring the hype.
Geoff 4:51
The hypeman. Woman. Hype woman.
Georgie 4:52
Anyway, completely off topic. I was talking about hijacking the fun stick, having a little chat with them. Somehow topic of this podcast came up. Or, the fact that I have a podcast. I think—
Geoff 5:04
Ooh, someone threw you under the bus.
Georgie 5:07
I think because we were talking about microphones and whatnot. And—
Geoff 5:12
Yeah.
Georgie 5:12
And just audio in general and Zoom being pretty good at cancelling out background noise, which used to not be like that. And then they improved I think over the past couple of years. And someone said, “I just thought you’d know about this stuff, Georgie, because you know, you have a podcast and everything”. And I was like, uh hiding now. Do not have a microphone, actually.
Geoff 5:38
Yeah. In which case, they all looked at you. And were like, “you’re a fake”.
Georgie 5:48
Well, that’s just, this is what I posted on our Twitter. I said, “we are nonconventional. podcasters”. And I’m like, I use this term, I think to describe to someone... maybe it was in an Instagram comment. They were just asking their followers like what like, please introduce yourself because they were like re-introducing themselves.
Geoff 6:08
Yeah.
Georgie 6:08
On their account. And I wrote yeah, nonconventional podcast. And then since I read that it stuck in my mind. And I’m like, you know.
Geoff 6:14
It’s your new Twitter bio.
Georgie 6:16
Yeah, but not shitting on anyone. But I mean, okay. There are, I guess, not rules, but maybe some standards that like, unspoken standards about podcasting that are out there that we just do not...
Geoff 6:31
There’s no barriers.
Georgie 6:32
Do not follow. So.
Geoff 6:34
So yeah. Funny you say that actually, like... So I joined a new company. And I’m sure anyone who follows me would, would know. But essentially, whenever you join a new place, a new team, new group, you always get into that situation where they’ll ask you tell us a fun fact, right? And I recently read a tweet, saying, like, I really, they really hate the concept of a fun fact. Because usually, it just gives people an opportunity to brag about something. In the past, I’ve like the people that like fun fact, and I can’t really grip, grip, like, I can’t really think of a fun fact about myself. Like, I like board games, that’s not really fun. That’s boring. Bored... games. And so at some point in the last maybe year or so I just landed on saying I have a Tesla. And when I read that tweet, I was like, yeah, that is a like a blatant brag. Okay, there’s just no way of going about it right. Fun fact, I have something that see that I would think that other people would perceive as fun: a Tesla. Then, then they were like they suggested instead, a boring fact. Peep, they want to know how boring people are like, what’s boring. What would be your boring fact?
Georgie 8:11
See, when you said boring, I started thinking about it. I started to think of weird.
Geoff 8:16
Yeah, weird is good. Yeah, weird, boring.
Georgie 8:19
But like onto your fun fact thing, right? Like, because I run this thing at work called Bread Talks with this with someone, one of my colleagues. And it’s sort of like a speak like, we made a safe space for people to just kind of, like, lunch and learn. But not specifically about tech. So just for people to share ideas, but also practice public speaking. And so people share some—
Geoff 8:39
Sing to their plants.
Georgie 8:40
What was that?
Geoff 8:41
They sing to their plants and stuff like that.
Georgie 8:44
Where did this come from?
Geoff 8:46
I think I think it’s an animation somewhere where you kind of like you sing lullabies to your plants, it’s actually—
Georgie 8:51
That’s so weird...
Geoff 8:51
Singing... (laughs) see? That’s a fun fact.
Georgie 8:57
But no, I don’t do that. But we’re in this Bread Talks thing, we asked people for... We just started doing it in 2015. When we when this was a thing and just to keep things quote unquote, fun. We just asked speakers for like two fun facts before we introduce them. And now like I’ve used this platform to also like deliver talks myself and share like stories about myself. And so at some point, I had to start thinking of, quote unquote, fun facts. And some of these were not fun. So I tried to, not really make them more interesting, but just trying to think of stuff that people don’t really know about me. So that’s when someone says, think of, or share a fun fact, I sort of share something that doesn’t really get spoken about on the daily, something that people might not know about me, even after they’ve known me for a couple of years. So the one that I usually say as a fun fact is that I can sing the alphabet backwards.
Geoff 9:51
That is kind of fun. It’s a party trick.
Georgie 9:55
Yeah.
Geoff 9:56
The question that got posed to me, as an icebreaker was like, what is something that not all, as our grouping name goes, campers, know about you? And I was thinking, Well, I’ve been here for two weeks, so they haven’t known a lot. I haven’t know, they don’t know a whole lot about me.
Georgie 10:13
Yeah.
Geoff 10:13
I could say my hair is black. And that would be like fact that nobody knows about me.
Georgie 10:19
But dig deeper, Geoff.
Geoff 10:21
Dig deeper. All right, my eyeballs are white.
Georgie 10:25
My god, no.
Geoff 10:27
So I was on a Zoom call, actually, in a meeting, and I was reading this and I was just talking through like, random things in my head. And I was like, I guess a fun. I guess the fact that no, that nobody really knows about me. Besides that my hair is black and my eyes are, I think they’re brown, is that I almost died when I was fifteen.
Georgie 10:48
Yeah.
Geoff 10:48
I’m like—
Georgie 10:48
See, I know this one.
Geoff 10:49
That’s probably not a fun fact. Yeah.
Georgie 10:51
But it’s interesting. I think the whole idea is like it’s supposed to label but the facilitating conversation and like getting to know someone.
Geoff 10:59
Yeah. So then I went back to that tweet, and I was like, a boring fact. And then I remembered that I said to my partner one time, like, I should just tell people that I eat most snacks with chopsticks. And then and then I put that one down as my icebreaker. So that’s now my new fun fact standard.
Georgie 11:18
Ah.
Geoff 11:18
Yeah, because apparently no one else eats their snacks with chopsticks. I do it on camera all the time, and people were always winged out.
Georgie 11:26
I do it occasionally. But I only started doing it recently, to be honest.
Geoff 11:32
The next following like in the thread, they were like, What about peanuts? And then like, depends on what kind of peanut but yes.
Georgie 11:40
Crushed peanuts may be difficult because they’re like tiny.
Geoff 11:43
Yeah. And they’ll like next time in the office. I’ll get, I’ll give you these peanuts, and you could try eat them with chopsticks.
Georgie 11:51
Wow now it’s turned into a challenge.
Geoff 11:52
Yeah, exactly.
Georgie 11:53
Like if Geoff eats most snacks with chopsticks, let’s—
Geoff 11:56
What does—yeah. Someone said Mars bars. But they come in—
Georgie 12:02
I reckon—
Geoff 12:02
Wrappers. See, like, you know, I think they missed the point of like, why use chopsticks, which is not to use my fingers?
Georgie 12:11
Do you eat Lucky Charms with chopsticks?
Geoff 12:13
I would, but if I didn’t put them in milk first and then eat them with the spoon.
Georgie 12:17
Wait what do you mean, you don’t just like drink milk with chopsticks? (laughs)
Geoff 12:24
Milk would be an interesting snack. I would admit.
Georgie 12:28
I used to eat ice cream with a fork.
Geoff 12:30
Really? Why would you do that?
Georgie 12:32
Because I was that person who put the ice—this is by the way before I was lactose intolerant—I put the ice cream in a cup and then I’d use the fork to kind of whip the ice cream so that it was like a thicker consistency. I don’t know. Like.
Geoff 12:46
You know what’s weird, is that we bought ice cream recently. And when we brought it home, we’re like, all right, let’s just have a scoop, like fresh ice cream. We we put the scooper through it. And it was like soft. It was like, it was kinda like as if you took a fork and you kind of like whipped. It’s just ice cream that hadn’t been frozen for very long. So it’s just like super soft, bit foamy. And then like I I distinctly remember, like them carting away, like the same ice cream. So it seemed like they went through the entirety of the store, just and then and then put the ice cream in there. So it hadn’t actually sat in there long enough. But so it’s not like the ice creams that you get like the Connoisseur ice creams, which are naturally just a bit softer, than, than—
Georgie 13:36
Oh, like the gourmet, you know the gourmet ones, they’re, yeah, they seem to be really soft.
Geoff 13:41
Yeah. I don’t even want to know what the science is behind that.
Georgie 13:45
I’m sure it’s something to do with like, because if you think about sorbets, right, they don’t have milk in them, they’re more frozen, I guess. So. I suppose it’s less likely that they would be soft unless they started melting.
Geoff 14:00
Yeah, yeah. Actually, fun thing I found out about Zoom. I think we were talking about this. On a super tangent. Is that you can now record or you can now share a portion of your screen. You don’t have to share a window or the whole screen.
Georgie 14:18
Hold up, wait. So I know about the window. You can share, like just Firefox or whatever.
Geoff 14:24
Yeah.
Georgie 14:24
But now you can share just a square?
Geoff 14:27
A square, a square on the screen.
Georgie 14:29
Like how small? (laughs)
Geoff 14:31
(laughs) You’re gonna have to do it.
Georgie 14:32
This is an engineering thing already. Just like how small, can I share a one pixel—
Geoff 14:36
One pixel, I’m sharing you this one single green on this one single page. No. But I thought that was fun. Because we were playing a game, we’re playing Uno—
Georgie 14:51
Oh so you could share part of the screen in a game.
Geoff 14:54
Yeah, without showing my hand essentially. So I was trying to be really inclusive you know, because some of the people weren’t playing because they didn’t, weren’t interested in playing. But the rest of us were playing and making like commentary and stuff. So it’s really, it is hard to convey the game. So I was trying all sorts of things. I went to Slack, Slack Huddle. And then I was like, oh, no, the screen sharing and—the Huddle thing was weird. Like I joined the Huddle. They couldn’t join the Huddle. They joined a Huddle, but it was just them. And but we’re on the same—
Georgie 15:27
In the same channel?
Geoff 15:28
In the same—
Georgie 15:29
Oh that’s so weird.
Geoff 15:29
Yeah, we’re in a private chat. And I was like, Huddle. It’s like there’s only two people. Yeah, you can’t really mess this up. Anyway, so and at the end of the day, yeah, someone was like, you can definitely do portions. So I went to the advanced, you do share screen, advanced, and then you can pick a portion. So that was really interesting.
Georgie 15:50
Keep that in mind.
Geoff 15:52
Yeah, actually, you were saying that you started using Huddles recently?
Georgie 15:55
Yeah. Like they were trying something new at work.
Geoff 15:57
Define Huddle.
Georgie 15:59
Oh, shit. Yeah. So a Huddle is a feature in Slack that I think has only been there for maybe two years at most, if that. It sort of came after Zoom became more popular during the pandemic, I guess, because people were already using Slack. And they wanted to further facilitate working from home or working remotely by having a video feature, because I think before you could do audio, and then they added a feature for video.
Geoff 16:24
Screen sharing.
Georgie 16:25
Yeah. And then now it’s like a Huddle is designed to be—you can’t record them is what I realised the other day.
Geoff 16:32
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 16:33
You can’t record the conversation and the screenshare and all of that. But it’s supposed to emulate just gathering in a group in the office. Just really—
Geoff 16:43
Like ad hoc.
Georgie 16:43
Quick meeting. Yeah. It’s like a, hey, I’ve got this thing. Can you just jump on and have a look or whatever?
Geoff 16:49
Yeah.
Georgie 16:49
Check out what I’m working on.
Geoff 16:51
Rather than going to Google Meet, or Zoom, grabbing a link, sharing it to them, and then jumping on and then the being on mute. And...
Georgie 16:58
Yeah, you could have the integrations with like, I think Google and Zoom. But you know, if you’re already using Slack, then they obviously made this to make your life a little bit easier. So I don’t know, I found it interesting. Now the funny thing I found was, I was in a meeting yesterday, and you could name the Huddle. So you start a Huddle. And then there’s an individual thread, which thread is like, I guess—(laughs)
Geoff 17:28
(laughs) Endless, endless definitions.
Georgie 17:30
It’s not part of the main conversation. But it’s sort of like related to one message.
Geoff 17:36
Facebook has threads, like I’m pretty sure like you if you reply to a comment and someone replies to the same comment and, the next person, it’s a thread. That’s...
Georgie 17:44
Yeah, it’s a thread in the conversation. Yeah. So each Huddle has its own thread so you can start making meeting notes in there.
Geoff 17:50
Oh.
Georgie 17:50
And then you can name the Huddle. So if you didn’t—or you could give it a topic, I think, and then it shows that in the main thread saying that—
Geoff 17:58
Oh wow.
Georgie 17:59
“Georgie and Geoff happened” or whatever “conversation Georgie and Geoff happened”. And it shows you who was in who was involved in that Huddle as well. But we were getting excited about like a company uh, like, dev camp that we were organizing for next year. And so I put the topic as “it’s happening” in exclamation marks with—in exclamation marks? (laughs)
Geoff 18:24
(laughs) Just like eight letters of exclamation marks?
Georgie 18:27
In uppercase, in uppercase with exclamation marks. And then once that finished, what came up in the chat history says the name of the, or the topic of the Huddle, and then “happened” so it kind of might say “standup happened”, but it said “it’s happening! happened”. Which just gave me a bit of a chuckle.
Geoff 18:48
The the other funny thing was, after that whole, like Huddle debacle where like, we’ve never got into the same conversation, we exited it, and I got a message saying the length of your huddle was zero minutes.
Georgie 19:06
Yeah.
Geoff 19:07
I assume that was productive? I was like wow, sass coming from my chat application.
Georgie 19:16
The funny thing about the minutes thing is I don’t know about yours, but mine says like 30 M. It doesn’t say min.
Geoff 19:23
Oh, yes, it says M.
Georgie 19:24
Yeah, so—
Geoff 19:25
Like metres.
Georgie 19:25
Yeah, exactly. I was I was joking with my boss about this like, hey, it says we were doing this for 30 metres. Like, swimming like treading, we were talking about swimming and treading water in the pool and like 30 metres, just like, I’m fucking done now. Let’s go.
Geoff 19:43
Oh man. Did you Did you ever want a pool? In your—
Georgie 19:49
Growing up?
Geoff 19:49
Your house? Did you have you have a pool at your house?
Georgie 19:52
No, we didn’t. We had just like a pretty boring one storey house out in the burbs. We had a backyard and my parents bought us—like, actually, it was me I think, mostly, was supposed to be a swing set for me. But then my brother was born or something like that.
Geoff 20:08
Oh, no, the bro. The bro ruined everything. (laughs)
Georgie 20:12
Nah, nah, he did—nah we did have it, but I guess like he wasn’t... He was a baby. So he wasn’t old enough to use it. But I think yeah, like I was old enough to go on the swing and whatnot. But even though we had room for a pool, it’s just like, nah, my parents didn’t want to spend the money on it.
Geoff 20:28
But did you want one?
Georgie 20:30
Ah, I feel like, yeah, like I’ve, doesn’t every kid kinda?
Geoff 20:35
Kinda strange.
Georgie 20:36
It’s like, I don’t know why. But yeah, you know, we had to stick with having like an inflatable pool for days, you want to hang out and it’s hot. You want to spend time in the water or whatever.
Geoff 20:47
Do you reckon we could blame like media, like every TV show. The cool kids had the pool and they invited all their friends over to swim. But—
Georgie 20:57
Maybe? But it was, it’s also, is it American maybe? Or am I just like, assuming?
Geoff 21:03
Yeah. Most of my TV’s, most of my TV show knowledge is American.
Georgie 21:07
Yeah.
Geoff 21:08
It’s where I get my accent. (laughs)
Georgie 21:12
Yeah.
Geoff 21:13
But yeah, I think it’s kind of strange that like, it is the, it is expensive, is expensive to maintain. It’s expensive to have, like, if you wanted to, I don’t know have one and not have to maintain it as high, like as much, you get a cover for it. And then you’re like, ooh, no one wants to open and close a cover. So why not automate it? One of the things going through my head.
Georgie 21:38
Yeah, Nick’s parents have a pool. And I don’t know, I guess I just hear quite a bit about them. Like maintaining needing to maintain the pool or buy like, stuff to keep it like clean and whatnot. And I’m like, oh, actually, there’s a lot required here.
Geoff 21:52
It’s like not practical, but it seems like on the list of all kids.
Georgie 21:57
Oh, nice to have. Actually, what was really cool was that like, where I grew up, our local council had toy libraries. So you could hire—now that sounds really disgusting, especially given the pandemic and whatnot. I don’t know how often they how well they clean—
Geoff 22:14
Libraries sound disgusting. Like, why would you want to share a book?
Georgie 22:18
Yeah, I do want to how often they clean that now that I think about it.
Geoff 22:24
They probably don’t! Because it’s all paper, right?
Georgie 22:24
You can borrow ebooks so I can borrow ebooks and audio books. So it’s my phone. It’s that, yeah. Anyway, they had a toy library, some of the toys would just be standard like, like toy trucks and whatnot. But they had some of those big playsets that were like a castle or a slide. And you know, if you’re a family with a car that you could fit this in, you could totally borrow this for like, I think it was only two weeks. But I had a party when I was seven years old, probably this is probably the only party I’ve had, by the way, as well. Because my parents just didn’t like maybe want to spend money or invite people over.
Geoff 23:03
That’s fine, parties are overrated.
Georgie 23:04
I don’t know, seven is a weird age to have a party. It’s not nothing special. But then age is just a number. So we went to the library and borrowed some of these large toys, and one of them was this, like a rocket. You could sit like maybe two people in it. But you could climb up into this these small stairs and then sit in the rocket which is sitting on the ground. So it’s kind of like you’re encased in this thing and it was pretty cool. And then there was one that was kind of a little bit more rudimentary was like sort of four castle walls but really big walls and you could, it was still like you could go in the castle and then maybe put like a mat down in the middle of them, so we had this out in the yard. And yeah, kids loved it. I was the cool kid for like, two hours.
Geoff 23:52
Didn’t need a pool.
Georgie 23:52
Yeah, exactly. I guess that’s what reminded me of like, well the talking about the pool remind me of what access I had to toys as a kid and you know, alternative methods of entertainment that weren’t like a pool.
Geoff 24:06
I think in Malaysia we stayed in a serviced apartment I think, if I can vaguely remember. So is was at the top, it was like not the probably not the top, but serviced apartments, in a hotel. And this hotel they had a like a playroom where it’s actually monitored, as in there’s someone that sits there in play in the playroom. So we would get dropped off there. Or we’d spend extra time, extra time there before like, after the, before or after school. I really couldn’t remember can’t remember the entire experience. But essentially that room was great. It had kind of like you’re describing, really tall walls and like a little a little bit of a castle esque type thing and I can remember that we would we would always, I guess fight over being who gets to like, stay in the castle arbitrarily?
Georgie 25:05
Who’s the king of the castle?
Geoff 25:07
Yeah, who the king of the castle is. But yeah, that was kind of like our access to toys. Apart from having our own inside our place, but yeah, it was kinda, wasn’t like after school before school daycare, but it kind of was, kind of just abused the fact that they had a monitored toy room, I guess.
Georgie 25:28
But like, is the person monitoring? Are they actually, they’re not actually babysitting. They’re just—
Geoff 25:33
No, no, they’re there to monitor, like to mind the room essentially. So no one walks in and walks out with some toys.
Georgie 25:41
Just imagining like some kids start fighting. And they’re just like, I’m just here to make sure the room is fine. I’m not gonna get involved in this.
Geoff 25:48
Yeah, I’m not gonna call your parents and I’m not gonna tell you off for it. But we did have a house with a pool at some stage. And but we were only there for like six to eight months. It was in Indonesia just before the riots if anybody actually knows.
Georgie 26:09
Wait this is shocking I’m Indonesian and I don’t know which ones you’re referring to.
Geoff 26:13
Oh my god. Indo, 1998.
Georgie 26:15
Oh, right.
Geoff 26:19
Riots of Indonesia. I remember—
Georgie 26:20
You’re not supposed to remember anything before you’re like, seven.
Geoff 26:23
Yeah, I think I remember this because it’s like distinctly the reason why we left the, I don’t know, the five bedroom three bathroom behemoth house that was like ridiculously, like, had a curved staircase and everything and it dwarfed all of our furniture.
Georgie 26:40
Which city was it in? Like Jakarta?
Geoff 26:42
Jakarta. I don’t remember what, or where in Jakarta. But in any case, it’s the, for, for I guess people who aren’t quite aware. When you go to when you go to these countries back in the day, they treated expats really well. And that’s what we were. We were expats. And I think there was a general like, what would you call it, a labour law at the time, where you would have to actually hire a maid per person. So we had six people in our family, so we had like five maids. Just—
Georgie 27:21
Really? That’s a lot.
Geoff 27:21
It’s a lot.
Georgie 27:24
Like some of my family there, they have like maybe one or two?
Geoff 27:28
Yeah, yeah. We had like two cooks. Two cleaners and one, one nanny for my youngest brother. So it was like, yeah, it was full on, you know, rich, rich esque type lifestyle. We had two drivers and everything. But—
Georgie 27:47
Oh, yeah, the driver.
Geoff 27:49
Yeah. We had a guard, but he just fell asleep all the time. And he ended up marrying the nanny.
Georgie 27:56
Oh, really?
Geoff 27:56
Yeah, it was really funny. But yeah, that we only were only there for a short time. And that’s that’s kind of like the life you know, as an expat out in Jakarta. In Indonesia back in those days, I don’t know what it’s like nowadays.
Georgie 28:13
I wouldn’t have a clue. I just know how my family lives and what that’s kinda like.
Geoff 28:18
Yeah, but but when we go back to like, where we, where we originate from, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. We’re very much yeah. A little bit more humbling, humble abode. It’s, you know, one floor. We didn’t have a full, like, concrete garden backyard type thing, but it was really good. I think. At least we could fire, we could use fireworks without bothering neighbors slash ruining, like, the nice front yard or something like that. But yeah, we were kids. But yeah, life out there, man. I didn’t know. It was before we came to Australia before I was 10. So I I shouldn’t remember very much.
Georgie 29:01
Yeah.
Geoff 29:01
Which I don’t.
Georgie 29:01
It would be funny if you, we had an episode about this, would be funny if you were remembering this wrong.
Geoff 29:06
Yeah, it’s unlikely because we actually have videos, we have home videos.
Georgie 29:13
So you have actually, yeah you got visual evidence.
Geoff 29:15
Like recently, yeah, got video evidence. It’s hard to tell sometimes. You know, is it the video memory? Or is it your own memory? You actually remembering, or did you watch it and remember it? But yeah, they were all actually ripped from videotapes, VHS, we got the machine and we actually actually ripped all the video on to the computer at one point. God that was a bit of a chore.
Georgie 29:44
Yeah.
Geoff 29:45
Back when we recorded stuff. But nowadays we actually don’t, it’s kind of strange.
Georgie 29:50
(snort) I went to a concert yesterday and recorded some videos.
Geoff 29:53
Yeah, but like home videos, you know?
Georgie 29:58
Yeah.
Geoff 29:58
We we have a bunch where we’re just in the house and we’re following the kids—the kids?—my, my siblings around with a camera or we go on holiday and we record it. But nowadays, we don’t do shit. We all have cameras, but we all go on a family holiday and won’t record anything.
Georgie 30:16
You know what it is? People have just turned it into like vlogging. So it’s like glorified now. There’s none of that sort of home quality like casual sort of. And then people who—
Geoff 30:29
Too serious about it now.
Georgie 30:31
Yeah, exactly. Right. Like I mean, I’m fine with like taking random videos, but I guess we just don’t really think about it. But also, maybe back then in the 90s. It was quite new and like—
Geoff 30:41
Yeah, novelty, true.
Georgie 30:43
Oh my god, let’s record everything. And now it’s like, let’s let’s not. Like we all turn into, like, yogis or some shit. Let’s be in the moment stuff and be mindful and whatnot.
Geoff 30:56
All that bullshit. Nah, I mean, I kind of like said this. I don’t know if I said it on the podcast, but I’ve said it before where it’s kind of like I don’t think I’d enjoy like being in a relationship with a—
Georgie 31:12
Vlogger?
Geoff 31:13
Vlogger, a YouTuber? And it’s probably late in the podcast to bring this up. But, like not even having a friend that is a YouTuber, because I feel like at this point, do you even know if you’re, if you’re there to hang out? Are you just there for content?
Georgie 31:31
Oh, shit.
Geoff 31:32
Right?
Georgie 31:33
Oh, I don’t know. I don’t actually have any, I don’t have any friends who have logos but I have some who are sort of more into taking photos and capturing like memories and posting them on social media. But I don’t know like I think, I don’t, maybe because we have a genuine friendship. I don’t really question like, are you just using me for like content?
Geoff 31:56
Yeah, this is all just using me for content. (laughs)
Georgie 31:59
Actually, you know what, Geoff, I’m secretly using you for content. I just want to promote my podcast.
Geoff 32:03
My podcast? Oh, oh now. Now the “too famous for Geoff” comes out.
Georgie 32:12
Truth’s come out, man.
Geoff 32:14
That’s why you say my name second when you introduce the podcast.
Georgie 32:18
But you say my name second.
Geoff 32:23
Oh shit!
Georgie 32:23
We’re both secretly just using each other for like, promotion, back to your—
Geoff 32:27
For a year.
Georgie 32:28
Your fun fact, bragging thing.
Geoff 32:31
I have a podcast, not “we”, I.
Georgie 32:36
Fast forward to next year. We both have like our own individual podcasters talking to ourselves.
Geoff 32:42
Yeah. Yeah.
Georgie 32:43
That Geoff guy, man.
Geoff 32:44
Yeah. It’s just a whole podcast about like, shitting on the other person. Yeah. “Fuck Georgie”. No, what were we talking, yeah. Yeah. So like, watch these YouTubers, right? Like offline TV and stuff like that. And I really feel like they have a mutual understanding, I guess because they’re all content creators. So it’s kind of like the joke of their friendship to be using each other for content. But I’m like, in real life.
Georgie 33:13
This doesn’t feel genuine though. If you’re both... where’s the gen—
Geoff 33:18
Yeah.
Georgie 33:18
Genuity? I suppose?
Geoff 33:19
Genuinity. Yeah, I do often—
Georgie 33:24
Authenticity. Where is the authenticity.
Geoff 33:26
Yeah, yeah. So like you get you get called out to hang out and do something cool. Oh, yes, sweet. We are gonna go hang out, do something cool. And then the entire thing is just a vlog and you’re just a prop. Like, maybe I’m just pessimistic about the life.
Georgie 33:40
Maybe like, I would assume—so because I’ve been blogging for a really long time, and like, I sometimes put photos on my blog as well—oftentimes it’s not really a joke, but I’ll say to Nick, “Hey, can you take a photo of me for my blog?” Photos. Or I want it, or like hey, just before you start eating this food can I just take a photo—I think maybe there’s some communication hopefully communication that happens between these friends where they’re like, “Hey, do you mind if I vlog this?” Or whatever. I did, we did start watching this couple from New Zealand and they were, and you can tell they planned to vlog almost the entire trip. But then when they went to maybe what I think it was Wellington—Wellington Auckland, one of the cities in New Zealand, they said “we’re meeting up with some friends here. So we”, and the way they worded it, they said, “we won’t take you with us”. And you know, we’ll catch up with you after, so they broke it up into like episodes so then I was, I assumed that yeah, like they wanted to spend that time with their friends and be present and not just fucking record the whole thing.
Geoff 34:43
Yeah.
Georgie 34:44
Which like, fully respect and I understand that so I’m sure there are some scenarios where people want to and their friends okay with that and others where they just don’t post about it.
Geoff 34:55
Yeah, I mean, I get that I get this feeling every now that when it’s like, okay, we’re gonna go for a big holiday. I’m gonna, I’ll record some of it, right? And—
Georgie 35:05
Yeah, you wanna you want to get into the vlogging?
Geoff 35:07
But then I think about all of the stuff you like, like, kind of like the podcast, right? (laughs)
Georgie 35:14
(laughs) Yeah.
Geoff 35:14
Kinda like the podcast! You think of all the barriers when you watch a YouTube video and then you like what you produce is not like accurate or not like aligned and you’re just like, okay, I can’t be bothered.
Georgie 35:24
Yeah, the one I remember you telling me is like, you know, you put the camera inside the door, you walk out the door, show you’re walking, leaving the house, and you’ve got to walk, walk back in and pick up the camera.
Geoff 35:33
Yeah. Casey Neistat does it in the taxis, right? He’ll open a taxi, he must open the taxi door, put his camera on the chair. And then close the door and then like walk back up to the taxi with the door open or whatever, right?
Georgie 35:48
Wait. How do you know he doesn’t reverse it?
Geoff 35:51
Oh.
Georgie 35:52
Yeah. Well, what if he like, opens the door as he gets into the taxi, puts the camera there, and then sits in the taxi and then reverses the video. So it looks like—
Geoff 36:03
Trippy?
Georgie 36:04
Maybe, maybe.
Geoff 36:05
Trippy. Yeah maybe.
Georgie 36:06
But I I do think about the same things as well, because I’ve definitely thought like, oh, well, I want to like, video record or blog, vlog this this trip. And then I also think about those barriers. And I’m like, I try to think of how don’t make it easy, right?
Geoff 36:21
Yeah, me too, yeah, yeah.
Georgie 36:21
I’m like, can I just strap a GoPro on me? At least, or just hold my phone? Can I, can I not do the audio separately? Can I do it with the video? And just deal with it?
Geoff 36:30
I’ve seen some travellers who just take record the video and then they they just do the voiceover later. But like “here, we’re just going into a hotel and this is our hotel room” and all that stuff. But to be honest, like, even even when I did try and do it, I was just like, wait a second. I don’t want to be holding around this camera this entire time. Alright, nevermind. Like we went to a bush maze. The one of the biggest in in New South Wales.
Georgie 36:56
Is that literally what the name suggests?
Geoff 36:59
Bago maze.
Georgie 37:00
Oh, wait, hang on, is this out in...
Geoff 37:04
It’s in Port Macquarie.
Georgie 37:04
Oh, no, I’ve been to one and like... oh, wait, no, actually, can you can you have a zoomed out? I think I’ve been here.
Geoff 37:12
Yeah?
Georgie 37:13
Port Macquarie. Yeah.
Geoff 37:15
Yeah, it’s near—
Georgie 37:15
It’s like, there’s like a winery or some shit nearby or something.
Geoff 37:18
Yeah.
Georgie 37:18
Yeah, I have been here. I have been here.
Geoff 37:20
So we’re in here. We’re going in. I’m just like, oh, man, this would be kind of cool to like, record us like trying to figure this out. But then I was like, but then like yeah, my partner just like, Yeah, but then, like, sounds like a bad time to recording like recording this whole thing. I’m like, yeah, okay, well, you’re right, it’d be a bad time. Also wouldn’t be that interesting, right? You’ll just see more and more bush, the entire time, you just like turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right. And then there’s just more bush.
Georgie 37:48
I think that’s where the aspect of like, being a good storyteller comes in. Like, you probably take some B roll of like this stuff, like, of you going through the maze, but then voiceover and like, say, hey, it was fun and stuff. And this happened but not record the absolute entirety of you trying to go through the maze.
Geoff 38:07
See? So much effort, like I don’t want to do that either. I don’t want to have to string together some cohesive. And, and then there’s those times where you’re like, man, it’d be really good to have a drone shot right here.
Georgie 38:20
But you don’t care enough man.
Geoff 38:22
But you don’t care enough to buy a drone. And it’s for this one shot. And I’m like, yeah nah.
Georgie 38:26
I also think drones are a cop out.
Geoff 38:28
Yeah, me too. I thought ir was like, yeah, what?
Georgie 38:31
Yeah, you’re not even taking the photo—
Geoff 38:32
Not even holding the camera.
Georgie 38:34
Oh, my god, I thought this was just me. Yeah.
Geoff 38:37
Yeah. This is all these things while you’re travelling, you’re just like, you know, it’d be nice to record some of this because this is kind of picturesque, and this would be nice drone shot and then you just ay the end of it. You’ve at the end of the holiday, you’ve pieced together the entire vlog without actually doing any of it. (laughs) But yeah, I do prefer like choice shots. You know, that’s why I got my new iPhone 14 Pro thing to make those choice shots. And then—
Georgie 39:02
Do you have big risk muscles now? Because you said it was like really heavy?
Geoff 39:05
Oh, yeah. I don’t know. I think actually, I have like fairly fabric based shorts that I’m wearing because it’s so freakin hot now, and you put this big heavy phone in that it—
Georgie 39:18
Does it bag out the—yeah. (laughs)
Geoff 39:18
Just bags out the pocket.
Georgie 39:20
It’s shit.
Geoff 39:21
It’s shit. And then now I’m thinking hey, why don’t I just put, cell, like buy the cellular plan for my watch, so I don’t have to carry the phone.
Georgie 39:30
See, I had that and I actually got rid of it because I just I just didn’t use it. And I preferred very much preferred having the phone on me just—it’s like the iPad and the Mac. Like the reason I don’t have an iPad is more because I gave it to my mum because I just prefer the more things multitasking and especially on a laptop and the iPad just couldn’t do that. So.
Geoff 39:52
Nowadays, I chill in a chill in bed for a longer period of time. So I have the iPad which is not much nicer to just watch stuff.
Georgie 40:03
You know what’s funny is because like I have the new MacBook Air.
Geoff 40:06
Yeah.
Georgie 40:07
It’s so fucking nice that I feel more inclined to sit in bed and like use it. Whereas before I was just like, so heavy, can’t get like, uh, (whining) gotta take my computer to sit in bed, and now it’s like “doop doop doo”.
Geoff 40:20
Just flipping it on my fingers, spinning it!
Georgie 40:22
Yeah, it’s so light. I’m still amazed by it. Recommend it, by the way.
Geoff 40:26
You know what? That’s not entirely a bad idea. Why don’t I just take my Air into the into into bed and just use it there? Maybe. Might actually help my neck, because the iPad has nothing—
Georgie 40:37
Which Air do you have?
Geoff 40:38
I have the M1 Air.
Georgie 40:40
The new—wait, the one—
Geoff 40:41
The one before the M2 Air. to I don’t know if you’ve got the M2 Air but I’ve got—
Georgie 40:45
I got the one, yeah, the one this year.
Geoff 40:46
Yeah. Okay, you got this year’s one. I got last year’s one.
Georgie 40:49
So you got another like 10 grams. (laughs)
Geoff 40:51
Yeah, yeah, I got, man. 10 grams. But yeah, anyways, so, so you know, these dollies photos of this maze that like from top down and I’m like, oh, man, I’d like to take that photo. But yeah, I don’t know, drones are a little bit of a cop out. Yeah. Anyways, you know what else is a cop out?
Georgie 41:10
Ending the episode.
Geoff 41:10
Don’t forget to follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter!
Georgie 41:17
And go find our podcasts on Spotify, Apple podcasts and the big maze. Good luck finding your way out.
Geoff 41:24
Yeah, it was a bit of a tricky one. There was a part where we didn’t know if we were supposed to walk down there.
Georgie 41:28
I think I know exactly which one you’re talking about. Like I did it like 10 years ago, and I still remember. It’s good though.
Geoff 41:34
Yeah, it’s good. And new episodes every Monday so...
Georgie 41:41
See you next week!
Geoff 41:41
Bye.