Dodgy markets, software engineer stereotypes, and lies you’d tell your past self.
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Dodgy markets, software engineer stereotypes, and lies you’d tell your past self.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:08
And welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I’m your co host Geoff, and as always, I’m here with Georgie.
Georgie 0:16
Hello.
Geoff 0:17
Pew pew pew pew. (laughs) I got this from basically—oh the Zoom has been pissing me off at work because the the screen sharing controls, they just float there and they don’t hide. But for our podcasts the controls hid themselves. So I have no idea what’s happening with the work one.
Georgie 0:42
Is that an account... Maybe it’s an account based setting, or—
Geoff 0:45
Yeah.
Georgie 0:45
Are you on the same computer?
Geoff 0:47
I don’t know. No, I’m not. But essentially, like, super awkward in one meeting, it got to the end, and I was screen sharing. So I was like, shit. I had, I had basically completely hidden the controls. Like I couldn’t, I couldn’t see them anymore. I didn’t know how to get them back. So I was like, stuck in the meeting.
Georgie 1:08
Sharing your screen?
Geoff 1:09
Yeah, sharing I’m like, oh my god, I can’t exit this meeting. And everyone’s just sitting there waiting for me to—
Georgie 1:14
Wait, did you want to leave? You wanted to actually leave the meeting? Or did you just want to stop screen—
Geoff 1:19
...actually want to—Yeah, I wanted to it was the end of the meeting, like, all right end of the meeting. And then I was like, shit, how do I get out of the screenshare? And then everyone’s sitting there, like, observing me being stuck in the Zoom meeting.
Georgie 1:33
Can’t you just control quit or something, command Q?
Geoff 1:37
True. I could have just like, yeah, command W or Q or something like that.
Georgie 1:40
Wait, what? Uh, did you have that red button in your joystick thing or that button that you can press tl leave the meeting?
Geoff 1:46
Oh, okay, so storytime about that. So I got the I got this audio interface, which is super extra for the setup. And it comes with a microphone volume knob and a headphone volume knob. So I don’t necessarily need the fancy knob anymore. And yeah, so it’s now sitting there doing like nothing. Because—
Georgie 2:15
I think it needs to be an abort—
Geoff 2:16
Supersede it.
Georgie 2:17
Abort meeting! Help!
Geoff 2:18
Yeah, like a huge, big button. They on Shark Tank, they came out with this thing. That was literally a big mute button. And it would change colour, depending on whether or not you’re on mute. To help you, like, not be on mute every time you enter.
Georgie 2:36
So that must be pretty recent than right, because this mute thing was only a problem as we—
Geoff 2:41
Yeah. It was basically I think the season during COVID, or the season just came after COVID. So they were like we made this big mute button. And, and the sharks were not impressed. I wasn’t impressed, I’m like, why would you make a whole business around a button that meets an unmutes you with like and their their their differentiator, from other mute buttons is that you—
Georgie 3:05
You could just program—
Geoff 3:05
It’s the only one that lights up.
Georgie 3:06
...you could just program a lamp, which is what we did in our old office, we would program lamps when the build failed. So they just be they would just start flashing red or they’d be red, if something was wrong with the builds. So you could just program one of those if you’re not on mute, or. Bloody hell.
Geoff 3:23
But I don’t know. Either way, it’s just like, you can’t make that a million billion dollar company. Because all you’re doing is creating a mute button. Anyway, so yeah. The big fancy knob doesn’t, isn’t doing anything. So it’s kind of, yeah, a big paperweight at the moment.
Georgie 3:47
Damn.
Geoff 3:48
What were we talking about? Before that?
Georgie 3:51
Zoom controls.
Geoff 3:52
Zoom controls, right. Yeah, right, right.
Georgie 3:54
Oh—
Geoff 3:54
And before that?
Georgie 3:54
I used that, I use that thing that you mentioned in like, a bunch of episodes ago about sharing part of your screen.
Geoff 4:01
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 4:02
So I did that, because this is gonna sound very odd. But I was doing a presentation and I’d—it was like not work related. Like it was about like building communities and stuff like that, actually it was called “Creating welcoming spaces”. And I use Nick’s iPad to draw or like, like handwrite some of the slides just because I wanted to have that nice touch to it. And then I did that in the Notes app. And then I pasted them, now for some stupid reason—okay, I hate Google Slides—I just couldn’t just copy it from the note and paste it in Google Slides. So I was like, fuck you. I’m gonna go to Keynote because at least I can copy this like image, I suppose. Which is that my handwriting, turned into a n image, copy that from the note and then put into Keynote. And then I don’t love the way that Keynote does a presentation when you start the presentation, because it hijacks your whole screen. And yeah, and it’s just a pain with Zoom. So I did it as a PDF. I know it sounds ridiculous. But I decided I’ll just do it as a PDF, there were only like 12 slides or something. And, and they were really only like supplementary to my talk. And then I just shared part of the screen and just scrolled through the PDF, but what people could see is just like an image or writing just like changing.
Geoff 5:18
Yeah, I think what I like to do sometimes is when I go into, like, I don’t know, something I’m presenting that no, you don’t need too much polish. But actually, a lot of people are doing it these days. And basically, Miro or Whimsical, Whimsical is the one I really like, I basically do a live presentation, where if I want to, you know, say—it’s a tool to make visual diagrams, like flow diagrams, so you can easily put a box down, and then you hit a button, and then it will create another box with an arrow aligned to it. So and you can do this, you can do this in a couple of ways. And if you want three, like one box has three different outcomes, you can essentially hit the button three, like the hit the button three times, it’ll just put all of the boxes in the right place with the arrows that split three ways, which is really handy. So it’s really good to like map out a flow of some sort. And so I got really used to the controls—oh here, you can see like, there’s a button that yeah, there’s a button that just opens another box and then puts an arrow to it. So I use this to kind of live explain what I’m talking about as a presentation sometimes.
Georgie 6:46
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 6:47
Yeah. So if I’m like, oh, yeah, we have a, I dunno, start here—
Georgie 6:51
Like a mind map. Yeah, like a real like as you go—
Geoff 6:56
Procedure, mind map. Yeah. So it’s sort of like, yeah, so I start with the topic, I don’t know, colours. And we want like three different variations of colours. So I would just make three different boxes with the arrows and how they split up and then decision making and stuff like that. So I would do that live. Holy crap. This is, look, this looks pretty, um, oh, here we go. You can you can have a look at how you can do this.
Georgie 7:19
Oh this is like advanced.
Geoff 7:20
You can get pretty mad. Yeah, advanced. So—
Georgie 7:25
But then—
Geoff 7:25
What I started doing—
Georgie 7:26
It’s better than whiteboarding, right, because in a real whiteboard, I feel like—
Geoff 7:30
I can’t fucking draw squares.
Georgie 7:33
Yeah.
Geoff 7:35
Yeah. So what I do it on top of that is if I wanted to do a presentation where I knew I had two different options for a technical strategy or whatever, I would have one flow for, or one diagram for one solution, a second diagram for a second solution and a third diagram for the third solution. And what I would do is just literally move the canvas—
Georgie 8:00
Oh yeah.
Geoff 8:00
...as I talk, and it’s like, I don’t have to write slides. I don’t have to do very much. Just three diagrams spaced apart.
Georgie 8:11
Nice.
Geoff 8:12
I know Figma, I think Figma you can now do somewhat of a presentation with Figma, which is a design tool for those who don’t know. But yeah, this is the type of presentations I do these days.
Georgie 8:30
Funny.
Geoff 8:32
Yeah. Yeah. And people can jump in and you can they can—
Georgie 8:37
Collaborate!
Geoff 8:38
Mess around, collaborate. Yeah. So it’s pretty good. So you said you went to like, something this, something today? Called—
Georgie 8:48
Yeah, I went—
Geoff 8:48
Called Sydney Streets?
Georgie 8:49
Yeah it’s called Sydney streets. And I think it’s the City of Sydney Council doing like this cool thing where they pedestrianise different streets in Sydney. And it’s kind of—so actually, a lot of people in Europe probably have this already, where there’s lots of pedestrianised streets, outdoor dining, people with stalls, things like that. I don’t think we get enough of them in Sydney. But today, they had one in Harris Street in Pyrmont. And I was kind of looking forward to it to just like, you know, go through the street and see what kind of stalls and things that they had, but it was a disappointment.
Geoff 9:29
Boo.
Georgie 9:30
Yeah, so the businesses on the street—that they close off, by the way, to any vehicles and things—and this runs from 10am to 11pm. So it’s like a whole day thing.
Geoff 9:43
Oh, I can still go.
Georgie 9:44
You can still go so maybe you could tell me if it sucks. Like at night.
Geoff 9:49
Nah, I won’t go.
Georgie 9:49
Maybe it’s better. Yeah, so it was a little bit dead. This Harris Street part, in Pyrmont, there weren’t too many—
Geoff 9:56
It’s in Pyrmont. Who wants to go out to Pyrmont?
Georgie 9:59
Yeah. Well, we were we planned to go to brunch in Darling Harbour. But anyways, so we’re like, oh, we’ll just, let’s just check it out. Like we sort of made a day of it sort of thing. But there were some businesses on that part of the street that had, that were had outdoor dining setup. And there was a gym that was trying to sign people up. And there was a little bit of entertainment, not a lot, there was someone on a like a—what do you call it? Like uh, he was riding a bicycle that was like old, like a cart with a woman on it, who was doing some like hula hoop type, like tricks and acrobatics. And then there was like two people on stilts, just like performing. So there was a little bit of entertainment. And then there was something else with some circus related thing where families and kids were like, doing some activities. But other than that, there wasn’t much? Like I don’t really know what I was expecting. But I think I just expected it to be a bit more lively, but I’m hoping the one next week is better, which is in Crown Street, Surry Hills.
Geoff 11:05
Maybe they’re not going to do one next week. And it’s all just a joke.
Georgie 11:09
Nah, I feel like, see, look at the pictures. You know what the pictures are of? They’re of Crown—most of them are of Crown Street, I think, actually. Like literally that first one with the guy with the trumpet and oh, the little band walking down. That’s that is totally Crown Street. The one after that? I think it’s another part of Crown Street. I’m not sure. But the other one after that is definitely Crown Street.
Geoff 11:36
Yes. It’s very, like performance arts, like focused. Usually, my partner and I only go to food based markets.
Georgie 11:48
Yeah.
Geoff 11:49
We’re not too interested in the knick-knack based markets.
Georgie 11:53
Like the craft kind of?
Geoff 11:55
Yeah, craft markets.
Georgie 11:57
I don’t mind those. Like, I actually like to check them out anyway, even though I might not buy anything. I just kind of like the vibe. But this was barely a market in Pyrmont, on it was kinda like businesses opening up outdoor seating, which, in Crown Street. So next week, I feel like there’s not gonna be that much of a difference because they’ve started to do that alfresco dining already.
Geoff 12:19
Yeah, I think in the, I don’t know, 10 years of being in Sydney, and he’d go into various markets around Sydney, I have bought one thing. And it’s a set of four coasters that are made with concrete.
Georgie 12:37
Holy shit. Did you just drop?
Geoff 12:40
It’s okay. It’s okay. didn’t land on anything important.
Georgie 12:44
That’s funny, because I didn’t hear anything.
Geoff 12:45
Yeah, it’s got like, it’s got like, cork on the bottom. And it’s like concrete ish. And I got four of them. Because you know, guests, I guess need something.
Georgie 12:54
Yeah.
Geoff 12:54
But yeah, that’s like, one. One purchase out of for, like past 10 years. I don’t like buying knickknacks. I’m too minimalist for that shit.
Georgie 13:07
Yeah, like, for me, it’s mostly like crafty, kind of not stuff, but it’s usually like jewellery, so stuff I can wear. Or some other kind of maybe maybe clothing. I can’t remember. But I think last time I went to a market. I bought a pair of earrings, which I’ve actually worn a lot. So that was a good purchase. And it was like made by a local designer. So that was good.
Geoff 13:30
That’s cool.
Georgie 13:31
Oh, actually. Have you ever (laughs) Paddy’s Markets? Opinions?
Geoff 13:38
Opinions? It’s close enough to real Asian market that’s kind of nice, but man, there’s some dodge stuff in there.
Georgie 13:49
(laughs) So I went to UTS right? Yeah, well, I hope I’m not doxxing myself—nah, everyone knows I went to UTS.
Geoff 13:57
It’s in your blog, right?
Georgie 13:58
Yeah, I went to—unfamiliar with the acronym, if you’re unfamiliar, University of Technology Sydney and its campus is not like one entire grounds, unlike quite a few other universities in our state. It’s sort of got buildings dispersed across the city and I kind of liked that about it but anyway, not the point.
Geoff 14:20
Fricking pain in the ass getting to the library.
Georgie 14:22
Oh!
Geoff 14:23
It’s like—
Georgie 14:24
You got to walk away from like the main area, or, yeah.
Geoff 14:28
yeah, you got a couple of buildings like where all the causes are and then 10 minute walk to get to your friggin library.
Georgie 14:34
Yeah, but I did like like that I could just walk around and if I wanted to go for lunch, I could pick somewhere in the city to eat or something like that. It wasn’t too far. Anyway.
Geoff 14:47
KFC. (laughs)
Georgie 14:47
(laughs) Oh there was, and I—it’s been gone for years now. There was a I think it was a Chinese hand, I don’t know if, what the cuisine was, I think it was Chinese, handmade noodle restaurant. In the in like a little back, sort of not an alleyway, but it was like in a complex, but the entrance to the complex was just, you could you could easily miss it. And they had these amazing handmade noodles. And then it was fucking gone. Disappoint. Anyway.
Geoff 15:15
It’s too long. That’s actually the thing with you know how we, like I complained about last episode about the roti and the paratha crap.
Georgie 15:23
Yeah, the authentic.
Geoff 15:25
Yeah, to like there was one place that made it authentic. And then what I distinctly remember was it takes 10 minutes to make that fresh, and the only way you would enjoy it is fresh. So it’s kind of like a big downer for business like, like very, very few people would be willing to wait for that. And then very even more few people would be willing to wait for it for the roti. So it’s like, one in, I don’t know, stats about it. But I think that’s kind of like the downfall, right? If people aren’t willing to wait for it, then what’s the point of putting it on your menu? What’s the point in stocking it, and then you just stop selling it, altogether which is—
Georgie 16:05
Unless you’re like a crepe place, which I think people already know, you have to wait for them to actually like make the crepe, although when I first got out there was like a place, I don’t think it’s there anymore. There was a place in Town Gall station that was a Chinese or Asian grocery and they did crepes our the front. And sometimes I’d just get one as a snack. It was so good. And it was so affordable as well—heheh, uni student shit. But I just remember being an impatient little shit. I was just like, I just, like how hard is it like, but then it was very popular. And other people wanted crepes as well, obviously, but there were only two hot plates. So even making two at a time. You’d still have to like wait.
Geoff 16:46
Yeah, you go to the markets where there’s food and crepes are usually there and everything you have to wait for the market, because just making it fresh.
Georgie 16:54
Yeah.
Geoff 16:54
All the time, especially crepes.
Georgie 16:57
Yeah.
Geoff 16:57
And paellas and stuff.
Georgie 16:58
So anyway, Paddy’s Markets.
Geoff 17:00
Yeah, Paddy’s Markets. The dodgiest thing I’ve found—
Georgie 17:03
So it was funny—yeah?
Geoff 17:04
...is probably dental tools like surgical dentists, tools?
Georgie 17:15
(laughs)
Geoff 17:15
No joke. I think there’s a photo of it.
Georgie 17:17
Shit.
Geoff 17:17
Scalpel mirrors, like teeth, things.
Georgie 17:22
Probably made of like, cheap metal.
Geoff 17:25
I wasn’t allowed to take photos. But I took a photo—
Georgie 17:27
What.
Geoff 17:28
Like, no, no, no photos, because, like probably illegal for them to have this.
Georgie 17:32
That is fucked.
Geoff 17:33
And sell it.
Georgie 17:33
But also kind of funny, because I’m not surprised.
Geoff 17:36
Yeah.
Georgie 17:36
Like, I dunno, so we walked, we walked past it today. And Nick said, “I think I’ve only been there like, once in my life”. And I was like, “Well, when I was in uni, if you were fucking bored, and you had time between your lecture and your next tutorial, you just fucking go to Paddy’s Markets and look at all the shit”. And like, the thing is all the stuff there is kind of the same. And I mean this in, I’m just gonna be really blunt. It’s just like cheap, cheap Chinese shit. Like, you know, cheap clothes—
Geoff 18:10
Apple knockoffs. Everything else.
Georgie 18:12
Cheap phone cases, cheap—
Geoff 18:14
It’s like—
Georgie 18:15
Keyrings, souvenirs.
Geoff 18:18
Like, people who think that I guess people do have quite a good record of this. But basically, you buy a whole bunch of something that you think is popular, and you just sell it on Amazon or eBay.
Georgie 18:31
Yeah, it’s all online now.
Geoff 18:32
Paddy’s Market is this it’s like the in person version of that.
Georgie 18:35
(laughs) Yeah. And Nick was like, yeah, but I said, well, I used to come here frequently, whatever. And he said, “Yeah, I bet you’ve been there at least 54 times in your life”. I’m like, yeah, undoubtedly, man. Undoubtedly.
Geoff 18:49
54 is a weird number.
Georgie 18:51
I know but.
Geoff 18:51
I’d go with 42.
Georgie 18:54
But 42 is too much of a nice number. So you gotta, I would go with like 73.
Geoff 19:02
Such a weird, such an awkward number. Oh, have you heard of the meme, the five out of seven meme?
Georgie 19:08
I think we talked about this.
Geoff 19:10
Have we talked about this?
Georgie 19:11
I think someone commented, rating a movie out of like—
Geoff 19:14
Yeah, really like—
Georgie 19:16
Someone like made fun of them saying why would you use this kind of rating?
Geoff 19:22
Yeah, it’s like they, it’s like “I really liked the movie. So I rated it at five out of seven”, like then why wouldn’t you do seven out of seven. Or like, six, anyways. Yeah, Paddy’s Markets, we have something similar in Perth. It’s called the Fremantle markets.
Georgie 19:40
Oh, I’ve been there but that seemed way nicer if that makes sense.
Geoff 19:45
It’s more artisanal.
Georgie 19:46
There we go. Yes, yes.
Geoff 19:48
Than the whole, “buy a whole load of crap and try to sell it for cheap”.
Georgie 19:53
I think Glebe is a bit like that, but I only went to the Glebe markets recently and it still felt a bit dingy.
Geoff 20:03
Yeah. Is that the one that’s like under like, no. Under the bridge?
Georgie 20:11
Um...
Geoff 20:11
Yeah.
Georgie 20:12
It’s...
Geoff 20:12
It’s it’s like an under bridge thing I’m pretty sure.
Georgie 20:15
No it’s in like a school I think. Oh, I’m not talking about the fish markets, I’m talking about... Yeah. So this one obviously is like vintage clothes and some, there are some like—
Geoff 20:25
Oh it’s this one. Yeah, I’ve been to this one.
Georgie 20:27
Cheap jewellery and things like... Oh, there’s one like, I haven’t been to this one yet. But there’s one in Moore Park Entertainment Quarter. I think it’s mostly fruit. And like, produce, though.
Geoff 20:39
I think it’s the Kirribilli markets.
Georgie 20:40
Oh, is that the one that’s kind of like a flea market as well.
Geoff 20:45
This is where I got these coasters from. Why does no one have photos of this? Any case. Yeah, I don’t know. Images. But yeah, oh there you go. It’s it’s a bit of a, under, underpass.
Georgie 21:02
Oh, that’s Kirribilli. Yeah, that’s like, across the across the bridge.
Geoff 21:06
(laughs) Yes. Across the bridge.
Georgie 21:09
Yeah.
Geoff 21:11
But yeah. This—back, back to the, back to this the Sydney streets thing. Yeah. seems more performance. You know what they should do? Just have some chess boards. I think that’s always a winner. Just have, have some open chess boards. People sit down and play chess. It’s, that’s, that’s a winner.
Georgie 21:31
I wouldn’t.
Geoff 21:34
But you might watch somebody play chess. Nah, OK.
Georgie 21:38
I might. But okay, here’s the funny thing. When we were at Devcamp up in Hunter Valley, the venue had a kind of nice looking chessboard in the bar.
Geoff 21:46
Yeah.
Georgie 21:47
And so many people were playing it, even people who weren’t great at chess or considered themselves not good. Not great at chess. And I kind of got bored real quick of watching them. No offense.
Geoff 21:59
Yeah, it’s—
Georgie 22:00
I think one of them might be listening to this pod.
Geoff 22:05
The yeah, chess is a bit of a weird thing. I know somebody who’s tried to who said that they watched Queen’s Gambit, but couldn’t finish it. And I was like, okay, then you definitely don’t like chess, like there’s no, if even if you find chess, if you find chess just a little bit interesting, then you would finish Queens Gambit, but if you really don’t like chess, then...
Georgie 22:30
So Nick has a chess app. Actually. I think I probably mentioned before and he said after Queen’s Gambit came out it was like the revenue just went like up because every—
Geoff 22:41
Oh 100%, like you can do chess.com.
Georgie 22:43
Cheese dot com.
Geoff 22:46
Yeah. cheese.com. During COVID I think they had a they had a problem with their servers during the resurgence. $500 million company. I don’t know if that was just over over the chess, chess.com. But yeah, here we go. “Chess is booming, our servers are struggling”. But that’s Jan 2023.
Georgie 23:13
Oh, wow.
Geoff 23:15
But yeah, December 31. We had 7 million active members on chess.com, 2022. In a single day for the first time. “On January 20 we had 10 million active members. Nearly doubled since the beginning of December. Servers are struggling, especially peak hours”. Yeah. This wasn’t even, all but five days in January.
Georgie 23:38
No not that, this one here.
Geoff 23:41
31.
Georgie 23:42
No the one above that.
Geoff 23:44
“We had over 300,000 members join in a single day over 100,000 more at the peak of the Queen’s Gambit”. Yeah, there you go. It’s crazy. Yeah, I started replaying it after Queen’s Gambit as well. And I only vaguely remember ever like playing it as a kid. One, like one or two times and then when Queen’s Gambit came out I started playing with a few of my friends. But I continue to play at least like a game a day. To be honest, it like it takes a lot of energy. So I don’t know why I do it.
Georgie 24:22
Mental energy, I assume.
Geoff 24:23
Yeah, a lot of mental energy. But it’s kind of fun. Hey look, you can, of course you can get like a diamond studded chess set.
Georgie 24:33
And you have to like handle them with gloves.
Geoff 24:35
Polish the shit out of it. The thing is like I don’t want a chess set. I think—it’ll sit on a table and then it’ll get dusty—
Georgie 24:46
Yeah. But you’re a minimalist so it makes even more sense. Like.
Geoff 24:51
So yeah.
Georgie 24:52
Yeah. I can’t see you... nope.
Geoff 24:55
I have a folded, I have one that folds up and it has like little wooden magnetic one so you can like travel with it if you really want to, if I really want to play chess, but yeah. Yeah look, 4 million dollar chess set.
Georgie 25:07
Far out.
Geoff 25:09
It’s got pearls and shit on it. Blue sapphires, 500 carats of diamonds, and pro royal chess set is... is valued at 4 million.
Georgie 25:20
I’m sure someone would love this. It’s just not me.
Geoff 25:25
Just not me. At the Web Directions conference, there was a chess set. I think the second day because we were just decided to, like brain was melted from the previous day. I just, I sat there and played a, like a game of chess with somebody. Oh, well my colleague. So funny. One by one. People started gathering around.
Georgie 25:46
And they were watching you play the game.
Geoff 25:48
They were watching us play the game.
Georgie 25:50
So good.
Geoff 25:50
Something about developers and chess. Is it problems.
Georgie 25:54
Or is it just chess? Because—
Geoff 25:56
I dunno. A bit of a, I realised I was a stereotype. I knew I’ve got I had like a few commonalities in in hobbies and stuff with other developers. But, my friends, friends and I went to a tea tasting, I can’t remember why? Did they get it for free, or free tickets or something? They won it. Anyways.
Georgie 26:23
Okay.
Geoff 26:23
Went to this place to taste some tea.
Georgie 26:25
Okay, sounds like my jam. But I’m like tea snob.
Geoff 26:28
Yeah, yeah. I found the only one tea that I would that I sit and drink and I’ve got some leaves in, in my, in my pantry. But essentially, they were teaching us about how tea ceremonies work and how actually the, people like back in the day—
Georgie 26:47
I need to ask, were they white?
Geoff 26:50
No, they Asians.
Georgie 26:50
Okay, okay. So yeah. I just had, I just want to make sure like, were you actually, yeah.
Geoff 26:55
Yeah, we weren’t sitting down and painting and drinking wine.
Georgie 26:58
(laughs)
Geoff 27:00
So they were teaching us about tea ceremonies, and more importantly, how they made tea in ancient times and how the fact that because all the teas take different temperatures of hot water.
Georgie 27:14
Yeah.
Geoff 27:14
If nobody knows, it’s different teas, different hot water, brings out more flavour.
Georgie 27:18
Essentially, if you don’t know, I think you should just know that white and green should just not be boiling hot. Because you fuck up the taste of them compared to black tea.
Geoff 27:28
Unless you don’t care about tasting your tea. And you just drown it in milk and sugar anyways. So, the, so they were telling us about how, I think I asked the question, or they were just giving us an overall view. But essentially, they boil the water. And then they they use steps, so they could walk like—
Georgie 27:49
Wait you about this on the podcast already.
Geoff 27:51
Have I talked about this before?
Georgie 27:53
Yeah. They time it by taking...
Geoff 27:55
Yeah, yeah, steps.
Georgie 27:56
Yeah by walking and seeing how long it would take. And that was actually how they measured when it was like ready.
Geoff 28:01
Yeah. Okay. So I did talk about it. In any case, that that’s when they, and I said they should make a board game out of that. And they that was the moment I knew I was a stereotype because they were saying, “oh, are you a software engineer?”
Georgie 28:14
Oh fuck, are you ser—
Geoff 28:16
“Yes, why?” And they’re like, oh, because we get a lot of software engineers, and they always talk about board games, rock climbing. (laughs)
Georgie 28:23
Oh my god. Ugh. I’m almost annoyed that it’s actually accurate. And...
Geoff 28:29
It’s, it’s... Yeah. And now just adding chess. Chess to it. Although I don’t know many software engineers that actually play play chess.
Georgie 28:40
Me neither. But I think it’s just like, if it’s there.
Geoff 28:43
Yeah.
Georgie 28:43
Chances are.
Geoff 28:44
I mean, I did play in the middle of a developer conference. And lots of developers came came forth to watch. So the interest is there.
Georgie 28:55
The board games was interesting. Because, I don’t know. Because I haven’t always been like a board games person. The first the first tabletop game that I really—the game that got me into games was called You Think You Know Me. And that was only in 2018. Before that, I didn’t really give a shit. But now I’ve like when someone pulls out a game at work. I’m like, alright, I’ll give it a go.
Geoff 29:19
Something weird at that, the workers dinner we had—workers dinner? Colleagues, like colleague dinner. I don’t know.
Georgie 29:30
You know what, I don’t know what to, I don’t know whether to call it colleagues or co workers. I actually prefer coworkers. I feel like colleagues—
Geoff 29:37
Do you not believe anybody’s your colleague? Like they’re—
Georgie 29:41
No?
Geoff 29:41
None of them are my equal.
Georgie 29:43
Okay, here’s the thing, right to me when I say the word co workers... It’s people I work with, but colleagues just sounds like some rando word. Maybe I’m just weird.
Geoff 29:54
No. Yeah, I think you’re like acquaintance. And co worker.
Georgie 29:58
Yeah. Coworker seems nice, you know, I think maybe that’s why I kind of when I write about on my blog, I think that’s why I’m the most was just saying “coworkers”, it sounds more friendly.
Geoff 30:09
Yeah. Anyway, so this is called game called Reflex. And apparently it’s like, it’s basically conversation, conversation starters.
Georgie 30:21
Oh yes. This is like the one I have. Yeah.
Geoff 30:23
Yeah. The thing is like, it would be like, is life too short? “Is life too long or too short?” And you refer you have to reflexively answer. And, essentially, I guess people kind of, well, apparently, as my colleague described it, people kind of picked apart the answer then like—
Georgie 30:45
They dug deep.
Geoff 30:46
“Is life too, too long or too short?” It’s like, “it’s uh... it’s too long, yeah, it’s too long”. And then you’re like, “Oh, why do you think it’s too long?”
Georgie 30:55
Yeah. Yeah, that’s why I love that these—
Geoff 30:57
“Not too long, it’s too short”.
Georgie 30:58
...these conversation games. It’s like, it always goes beyond the answer. So like, when we were playing, You Think You Know Me, someone said, “oh Georgie” on the card—they picked me—the card said, I think you have or have not been in a car accident. And they said, “I think you have not been in a car accident”. And I was like, “No, you’re wrong” and then I started telling them.
Geoff 31:18
You’re from inner west!
Georgie 31:20
No, from the west, but like, I started telling these stories, and the arrow was telling stories about like, horrific car accidents and stuff. And we just went on this tangent. And then I think we started talking about someone’s like, hat, like cap. And then we started talking about collecting hats. And then we’re just like, how’d we get here? Had to remember where we were in the game.
Geoff 31:42
Yeah, so it’s one of those things. And so, someone was giving it back to somebody else. And then we started talking about what this game was, but we never played it. And I was like, what why aren’t we playing that game that they’re like holding on to, just before like dinner started? Questions you actually want to answer, critical thinking conversation card game. “What disgusts you and why?” I mean, that’s the whole point of this podcast.
Georgie 32:13
Yeah, people eating on video. In video blogs. We talked about this.
Geoff 32:18
I think we, we do have an episode of that.
Georgie 32:21
Men who wear shirts that are too tight. I’ve talked about that one too. Like just when they’re a bit too tight. And I’m like, eww. Get one that fits, please.
Geoff 32:35
What disgusts, oh, yeah. Like people who who rummage when they’re when they’re eating, where they’re eating something like a share plate—
Georgie 32:45
What do you mean?
Geoff 32:46
Where like—
Georgie 32:46
Oh.
Geoff 32:46
There’s basket of fries, right? And they just like pick one up and put it down, and then pick up another one. And put it down. And like, they find the one that they want to eat. And then they eat that one.
Georgie 32:54
Why would you do that? I just don’t understand. Like...
Geoff 32:56
Yeah.
Georgie 32:57
You take the one that you touch.
Geoff 32:58
Use your fricking fork. Yeah. So that’s, yeah, it’s these these look like your type of game?
Georgie 33:07
Yeah, I also have the I don’t know if you’ve seen mine called We’re Not Really Strangers. That one’s like, deep, like you ask deep questions. And then they recently released obviously, like an X X X rated one or whatever. Oh, there was, there was a thing. I think they posted on their social media. And it said, “remember, you chose all of your exes”. And people were chiming in in the comments going, oh, my god, I’m like, triggered and stuff, you did not have to remind me, and you know, but it’s like a reality thing.
Geoff 33:41
Is it over?
Georgie 33:44
And like, yeah, it was like—
Geoff 33:45
“Your anxiety is lying to you”. “Would you rather relive your worst heartbreak or race the person from your memory?”
Georgie 33:53
I wouldn’t rather relive the heartbreak personally.
Geoff 33:57
Yeah, probably really the heartbreak, don’t want to mess—this is like time travel. You don’t you don’t want to really want to mess with your memory.
Georgie 34:05
Oh, well, I was talking, I was talking to my friend Chris about this time travel thing, right. So you know how they say if you could go back in time and tell yourself something like what would you say? And usually, it’s like a learning or a piece of advice. I think we somehow got onto the possibility of going back to our past self, but trying to try to fuck with them, like telling them something that they should do or shouldn’t do. And then they’re like, you make them panic yourself, panic and go, isn’t this meant to happen? Like, am I supposed to like, meet someone? Like what’s going on? You just, like, and you just do it for fun.
Geoff 34:42
I mean, you could be giving them early life lessons. Like, you could say, oh man, if I had started if I had started learning how to deal with my anxiety a lot earlier then I’d be better. So you just give you give your past self more anxiety.
Georgie 35:00
Nope, I think it was more like you tell them entirely false things. I think for the example I gave, was telling my past self “Hey, you’re adopted”. Just like just like completely like fucking with yourself.
Geoff 35:12
Yeah, but then when in pure time travel method—
Georgie 35:16
Yeah.
Geoff 35:17
You yourself your, would feel the anxiety of being adopted. You would remember that. “You meant so much to me. I wish you knew”. Would you... “it’s not what I feel for you. It’s what I don’t feel for anyone but you”.
Georgie 35:35
Yeah, so it’s like all this kind of emotional stuff.
Geoff 35:40
Emotional damage from that Steven Hung guy?
Georgie 35:46
Steven He?
Geoff 35:47
He, Steven He?
Georgie 35:49
Wait have we talked about this? I’m like, I really wish he gets royalties for every time his audio is used. Because I don’t think people know that he’s the originator of “emotional damage”.
Geoff 35:59
Yeah. Oh man. Maybe he’s not the original guy for emotional damage.
Georgie 36:03
No he is. I watched his YouTube videos before I ever saw him and just like his voice his audio just come up on like Instagram by like someone else.
Geoff 36:13
Oh man. Yeah, he should get he should get it patented. But yeah, there’s this guy on YouTube for those don’t know. He basically like took all the characteristics of like growing up Asian I suppose, as an Asian and created like a video game type.
Georgie 36:31
Oh my god. That, yeah.
Geoff 36:33
Video game type skit. And the one of the one of the ways he dies is from emotional damage. And that’s pretty good.
Georgie 36:42
Like some examples. I guess I like ah, my. I’m trying to think. Like he’s like he’s a YouTube creator and he poses as like, talking to someone, like a friend’s parent. comparing himself to another Asian person who’s like, probably got some high paying job and things like that.
Geoff 37:01
Yeah. The constant comparison to more successful family members. Hey, 9.01 million subscribers.
Georgie 37:13
Yeah. Wow.
Geoff 37:14
He’s gotten quite good. “When Asians actually want to play music”, but yeah, I haven’t. Oh.
Georgie 37:22
Highly relatable. Oh, it’s got TwoSet—
Geoff 37:25
Oh TwoSet, it’s got TwoSet here. Yeah. Yeah, they’re they’re all buddies. You know, the Asian the Asian YouTube community.
Georgie 37:31
Remember Wong Fu?
Geoff 37:33
Ah, Wong Fu. RIP Natalie? Community channel?
Georgie 37:38
Oh, yeah. She just she just like disappeared or whatever.
Geoff 37:41
Yeah. She’s coming up on the great Australian Bake Off.
Georgie 37:45
Yeah. Does she just do like, what do you call it? Not commentary, but that kind of media stuff. Present. A media presenter kind of role is what I say.
Geoff 37:59
Yeah, so I don’t follow her. But yeah, she did a whole thing with travel with a travelling—
Georgie 38:08
Lonely Planet?
Geoff 38:10
Lonely Planet. That’s the one. She did a whole thing with Lonely Planet. And then I think she did some presenter stuff.
Georgie 38:16
I sincerely wonder, like I wonder if she was the kind of person who was like oh, I see some kind of like fame and career coming out of being a quote unquote content creator—because she was like, obviously early, early YouTube like 2006.
Geoff 38:33
Yeah.
Georgie 38:34
I wonder if she was just like, “Nah, I don’t want to do that”. Or if she decided to pursue media saw the world change and is like regretting not being a content creator. I kind of lean towards the former but that’s just my opinion.
Geoff 38:49
Yeah, I think I think she maybe just fell out of love with making the videos. She does do like a short every now and then I think, but... or maybe it was more along the lines of she thought the best productive way to utilise her existing fame was to pursue something she wanted to do in the same—
Georgie 39:19
Yeah.
Geoff 39:19
...neck of the woods. Yeah. In which case then she’s like well, I’m not going to do YouTube anymore. I’m gonna go try become—
Georgie 39:27
Presenter?
Geoff 39:28
I don’t know classic, classic successful person? I don’t know, classic profession. Classic profession.
Georgie 39:37
Yeah, it did make me think about like, while I was out and about today, a thought popped into my mind and I thought I’d kind of hate to be one of those influencers or content creators because they don’t have to be bloody videoing everything I’m doing right now and things like that. Yeah.
Geoff 39:53
It just doesn’t seem appealing.
Georgie 39:54
Yeah.
Geoff 39:55
There’s a YouTuber that a vlogger that my partner watches, he’s like a coder vlogger in New York or whatever, and he moves around a lot. But essentially, he he made a video exactly about that. He goes, Well, the problem with vlogging every part of your life is that is that you’re, you’re, you are your own content. So creating content can be very difficult. And... oh what was the main point? I can’t quite remember the main point, but it was kind of like you, they kind of stopped liking to do it because they didn’t... They weren’t doing anything. That was vlog worthy.
Georgie 40:43
Worthwhile? Yeah.
Geoff 40:46
The thing they were doing was they were doing a startup. So they’re vlogging essentially that daily life as like a startup founder or something like that. A startup owner... Yeah. In any case, they fell out of because it is tiring. The sound, looks tiring. Sounds tiring?
Georgie 41:07
Yeah, I, the thing that I experienced, because I’ve been blogging for a really long time is kind of almost falling into the trap of like, creating content, quote, unquote, because what I have done and have been doing is just writing about myself or my life or whatever. And with no problems. And I think some people who are maybe influencers or content creators, they can’t really like, do that that’s like kind of different, or they when they have to do that, because they don’t have quote, unquote, proper content about whatever topic they’re they specialise in. Then they’re like, oh, I have to do like a, “get ready with me” video, or “here’s what I ate” and like stuff that I suppose that people find interesting, but maybe as a content creator, they might just be like, this is weird. I brushed my teeth.
Geoff 41:58
It’s, it’s I mean, we touched on that earlier. It’s kind of like the saran wrap kid where it kind of like—
Georgie 42:06
Wait, we lost that episode.
Geoff 42:08
Did we?
Georgie 42:08
I think that was the one we lost.
Geoff 42:11
Did we lose that one? Anyways, it’s too late to talk about it. So maybe next episode. And you can follow us.
Georgie 42:25
(laughs) You can’t do that! That’s a massive cliffhanger!
Geoff 42:25
You can follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter.
Georgie 42:28
No, no, I’m continuing this man. I just want to give—
Geoff 42:31
What! No!
Georgie 42:31
I just want to give, I just want to give a brief—it was a TikTok where some parents were criticised for wrapping a...
Geoff 42:36
Okay, yeah, saran wrapping a kid is probably need explaining.
Georgie 42:39
Yeah. And then it was kind of like people have said, they were just doing that to create content without any concern for the safety of the child.
Geoff 42:50
I think that was essentially the takeaway. They didn’t feel remorseful for saran wrapping their kid, they simply thought, hey, we shouldn’t post it. So they just saw it as the wrong kind of content to post on social media. Not that it was anything wrong.
Georgie 43:10
Yeah.
Geoff 43:10
...with doing it.
Georgie 43:10
Hey that means we lost the story I told about me being wrapped in cling wrap. But anyway!
Geoff 43:15
Yeah. But anyways. We won’t do. We won’t redo the episode.
Georgie 43:21
We probably will. (laughs)
Geoff 43:22
This is an insight into we lose some episodes sometimes. So see you next week.
Georgie 43:35
(laughs) You can find our podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you find your podcasts and the big saran wrap. Without the kid in it.
Geoff 43:47
Yeah, so.
Georgie 43:48
See your next week.
Geoff 43:49
New episodes every Monday, see you next week.
Georgie 43:51
Hot mess, hot mess. Bye.