72: The Seventh Alarm Clock

This week kicks off with recalibrating some expectations and repeatedly clicking some buttons. Merlin likes dog shopping and dislikes that dumb Winston Churchill movie.

In follow-up, John scores a monarchical point to listener, "`swilliams`," and Merlin likes Parliamentary questions. In an accidental nano-topic, your hosts discuss the decline of **Shame**. In further follow-up, John has some more tips on getting the lyrics right.

In this week’s mini-topic, John has some pointed questions about Merlin’s quote-unquote **Caffeine Addiction**. Is Merlin a Fake Migraine Girl? John still doesn’t like coffee, and Merlin is weirdly protective about his eyeglasses. Much like the great John Hurt. This leads to a broader discussion of addiction, focusing on how smoking used to be much more of a thing.

Pivoting off of Merlin’s obsession with infrastructure, John throws a very large piece of very red meat on the table: **What If Productivity, but Too Much?** In the pursuit of efficiency and professional development, how do you know when you’ve gone too far? And what are the downsides when you do?

(_Recorded on Tuesday, January 30, 2018._)