Category Archives: Books

SaMcast 168: Young Suckers

They made a 30 for 30 just for Me and Adam actually “read” a book, with paper and everything.


Picks!
(11:36) They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us
(18:41) Once upon A Time in Queens (ESPN)
(30:16) LuLaRich (Amazon Prime)
(37:25) Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

Drinks!
Adam – Equilibrium Brewery 400x
Mike – The Princeton

Followup and Footnotes
Music Break: Duke Deuce – “WTF!”
Brooklyn 99
Shang-Chi
The Courier

Enjoyed a Princeton for recording this week.

It’s still fun to cook up a new-to-me cocktail for podcast recording but I struggle sometimes with inspiration. Googling for cocktails kind of sucks.

That the is The Princeton, according to this great 1971 4th edition of Playboy’s Host and Bar Book. I wouldn’t have considered adding lime juice to a dry martini, but the result isn’t bad at all.


There are a jillion recipes in this book, but also a lot of old-school party hosting rules and advice. Like, it goes into the right kind of ice and explores a wide range of glassware options. Sadly, despite being a Playboy publication, no nudes.

Safe As Milk Podcast #167 – Relax your Brain

These are still a lot of fun so we’re still at it.


I read a book! Adam has some YouTube inspiration! And we both have new tunes to recommend! Enjoy!

Picks!
(12:31) The Rook by by Daniel O’Malley
(16:48) “Pray for Haiti” by Mach-Hommy
(23:15) “The Ballad of Dood & Juanita” by Sturgil Simpson
(32:28) Modeling/Diorama Youtube Boylei Hobby Time || Plasmo || Luke Towan || Studson Studio

Drinks!
Adam – Gin (Beef Eater) + Tonic (Fever Tree)
Mike – Negroooooooni with Few Barrel Gin

Followup and Footnotes!
Music Break: Kelly Lee Owens – “Melt!”
Nacho Helmet
Safe As Milk Tunes on Spotify
Recursion (ep. 159)
CW Pencil Enterprise (ep. 122) closing up shop
Nobody (2021)
The Adventure Zone – Ethersea
Subnautica Below Zero (ep. 101)

Blomerth Wallpaper

Brian Blomerth was the featured artist in the latest Smoke Signal from Desert Island Comics.

I really loves this guys work. It’s playful and psychedelic. This wallpaper selection is neither, but it made me laugh.

1981 Knowledge

Borrowed a copy of Defying Gravity from one of my gym pals. A lot of it is very “1981 meathead”, but there are some timeless bits of advice in there.

SaMcast 156 : The Big Wet Way


It has been a long long time since we could record in person, but we are back at it:

(20:31) Wonder Woman Dead Earth
(24:11) Invincible (Amazon Prime)
(29:40) Sad About the Times
(36:43) The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Drinks!
Mike & Adam – Pink Jimmy

Followup and Footnotes
Music Break: Company Flow – Silence
Hot Ones parodied on SNL
Snowpiercer (TV series)
COD Warzone
Kong vs. Godzilla
The Usual Suspects
The Public Radio
What Had Happened Was
LOTR: Return of the King

Easy Monday Mail Day

I’m just starting Desert Oracle, so I can’t say much about it yet.

This issue of MAD is an all-Aragonés tribute, so it’s good reading. Our oldest subscribed a few years back. I don’t read them all, and I’ll read even less now that they’re just reprinting old stuff.

2020

Going to make this Hobonichi Weeks notebook fit into my workday.

I’m a sucker for this kind of thing.

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup is the fascinating , and infuriating, story of Theranos, a Silicon Valley startup that promised a host of common blood tests performed from a single drop of finger-pricked blood on a machine that you could have in your home. It is exactly the kind of pie-in-the sky idea that gets a startup funded with piles and piles of money, and Theranos definitely got piles of money. John Carreyrou is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and his work covering this company led to the discovery of massive fraud and general bad practices that eventually led to the dissolution of Theranos, altogether.

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO, is obvs. a bad person lacking any kind of moral compass. An impossibly self-obsessed, and weirdly Steve Jobs-obsessed, monster who cast aside the concepts of patient safety and fiduciary honesty to pump up the profile and funding of her company. I’m not spoiling anything when I tell you not to worry, she gets her just desserts in the end.

The story is very well-told and Carreyrou keeps up the journalistic tone even when he becomes a part of the story, as Theranos starts suing him for his reporting. Startup culture seems miserable. The fake-it-til-you-make-it mindset that was foundational to so many successful companies just doesn’t work when you’re trying to “disrupt healthcare”. “Fudging some numbers” when people’s lives are potentially at stake is fucking monstrous, no matter your valuation.

It is important to remember that there are lots of stories where the Bad Guys lose. This is one of them. It’s an an idea that could use more play nowadays, IMO.