March 23, 2016

#59 Good Job, Alex

by Reply All

Background show artwork for Reply All

This week, Alex tries to solve a problem and PJ makes fun of him. Also the return of Email Debt Forgiveness Day. If you’re thinking about sending an email, or if you receive an email for Email Debt Forgiveness day, tell us about it by emailing replyall@gimletmedia.com. We might end up contacting you to appear on the show! Together, we can all make our inboxes less stressful for another year. 


Further Reading


Alisa Libby's "Doffing a top hat" website. Alisa Libby's "Maniacal Smile" website. Email Debt Forgiveness day.

Transcript

ALEX GOLDMAN: This is just a quick language advisory for this episode. Throughout the course of recording this story, every single person--both hosts and guests--used the word barter when they meant bargain. We know that it’s wrong. We won’t do it again. Please don’t email us about it. All right, enjoy the show.


ALEX: From Gimlet, this is Reply All. I'm Alex Goldman.

PJ VOGT: And I’m PJ Vogt

ALE: Alright it’s time for me to put on my khakis. Lace my loafers

and crawl under someone’s desk because it's time for "Super Tech Support." Alright PJ. So, here’s the deal. Are you ready?

PJ: Yes.

ALEX GOLDMAN: I got an email from a woman named Alisa Libby. She is, she works at a college but in her spare time she is a young adult writer. And she had a website that she had made to basically promote her writing.

PJ: Okay.

ALEX: Alisalibby.com.

PJ: Very natural.

ALEX: Makes sense

PJ: Yes.

ALEX: Hi, is this Lisa?

ALISA LIBBY: Yes, Alisa!

ALEX: This is Alex, how are you.

ALISA: Good, how are you?

ALEX: I am good. Well, first of all could you do me a favor and just tell me what happened. . .

ALEX to PJ: So Alisa emailed me and said, "What would you say to a person that has done the the ultimate stupid thing?"

PJ: Wow.

ALEX: So I was thinking, "Wow."So Alisa had this website. She had it professionally designed many moons ago. When it was still really hard to design a website. So had someone design it for her.

PJ: Like HTML days.

ALEX: Yes. But it was really clunky and difficult to use, so she started getting notices from GoDaddy, and she was just like, fine, this thing can expire. But the thing is, that she didn’t quite understand what would happen when you let your domain name expire. I think she just assumed that the site itself would go away, but nothing would happen to the domain name. Like she could come back to it whenever she wanted.

PJ: Mm mm.

ALEX: Are you saying, "No she didn’t think that," or "No that’s not what happens?"

PJ: I’m saying the thing she believed in the past was not true.

ALEX: Right.

ALISA: It didn’t occur to me that like now, you know my URL is out there. And I write YA novels. So like any teenager who clicks on that link, like, now I’m afraid of where where they’ll end up and I’d feel horrible.

AG: Suddenly there is website out there which is her first and last name which is being used by some other person and her big fear basically was like, at any moment, suddenly alisalibby.com could become some kind of porn site.

PJ: Yeah.

ALEX: That’s not what happened. What happened was that immediately after her domain name expired, it was just bought. And then, well I can just show you what it looks like. Why don't we just go to the website.

PJ: Wow. OK.

ALEX: Would you care to describe this?

PJ: It’s a gray scale website. All the text is in, I think, Japanese.

ALEX: It’s Japanese.

PJ: And then there's a happy looking white man wearing a tuxedo and doffing his top hat, which he's wearing.That is so funny. Oh, and the grey scale pictures of bow ties.

ALEX: So I translated this, I used Google translate and it’s kinda hard for me to figure out exactly what it’s about, but it's about web marketing.

PJ: In all caps at the top it says “DISADVANTAGES OF WEB MARKETING” and then right below that it says, “There is a disadvantage to web marketing.” It’s funny that it’s, like, spam that’s about spam, do you know what I mean?

ALEX: It’s spam that’s decrying spam.

PJ Oh, right. Yeah, that’s good. I appreciate their sense of irony, this Japanese speaking spammer.

ALEX: And of course we've actually talked about something like this on the show in the past: there's a whole class of people who make a living buying sites when they expire and often selling them back to the previous owners at hugely inflated prices. And it can get very tense and very ugly and you don't know who to trust. You might remember. . .

IRA GLASS: Previously on Reply All.

MAX LINSKY: So we get this email from him. And it says, "We not received an unsolicited offer from a brand protection agency for this domain for 75 hundred bucks. We said, "Okay, $8,000." That more. He says, "Okay." Then he goes back to them, then he says the offer's 10. So now we're in a bidding war.

ALEX: If you don't remember this episode, two guys, Max Linsky and Aaron Lammer were interested in buying the website longform.com. But just by emailing questions to the owner about that domain it caused the price of the domain to skyrocket. So getting your domain back can be tricky and Alisa didn’t know what to do. And the thing about Alisa is A) she doesn’t have domain ransom kinda wealth, and B) she thinks it’s gross to pay someone a bunch of money for something that she basically thinks was stolen from her.

ALEX to Alisa: What does a reasonable price sound like to you?

ALISA: Oh, that is tough to answer. I’d, I'd be willing to pay $50, that's probably very lame isn't it? I mean, I don't know. . .

ALEX: It's not so lame. Here's what I was thinking. Like brand new domain costs like ten bucks, right?

ALISA: Yeah.

ALEX: So, if you say to this guy who snatched up your domain, like, "Look, I'll give you a hundred dollars." You're giving him 10x his investment.

ALISA: Yeah.

ALEX: They're, I'm sure there are very few other Alisa Libby's out there trying to get the alisalibby.com.

ALISA: I would be very surprised if there were. Okay, I think I'd be okay with 100. Could you barter? Are you going to barter on my behalf? Like, are you just gonna say, "Hey, 100, take it or leave it."

ALEX: Oh, I will barter.

ALISA: Okay.

ALEX: We'll see, I'll see what I can do. I, I'll be honest with you. I'm not known for my bartering skills, but we'll see what happens.

ALEX to PJ: My plan was actually pretty simple. I was going to figure out who owned the website so that I could do an end-run around those auction sites, and just appeal to that person’s better nature to sell it back to Alisa at a reasonable price.

PJ: Ok

ALEX: So one of the best ways to find out who owns a website is to go to what is called a Whois record. It’s a record that’s associated with every website on the internet, and it’s supposed to tell you who owns the website.

PJ: It’s like a deed for a website.

ALEX: Kind of. The problem is that a lot of them are inaccurate or they are just protected so you can’t see who owns them. But that wasn’t the case with the person who'd bought Alisa Libby’s website. It was a gentleman named Manaho Haga, who lives in Singapore.

PJ: Huh. Did it have a phone number?

ALEX: It did.

PJ: Really.

ALEX: It had a phone number and an address and I looked up Manaho Haga on the internet.

PJ: Is that a common name or an uncommon name?

ALEX: He's the only one I have found.

PJ: Huh.

ALEX: And it looked as though he was a Japanese speaker based on his Facebook.

WOMAN: Hello.

ALEX: Is Manaho Haga there?

WOMAN: No.

ALEX: Do I have the right number?

WOMAN: Uh, yeah. You have the right number.

ALEX: Uh, okay. Um, but he's not there right now.

WOMAN: No.

ALEX: Okay. Uh, I will try back later. Thank you very much.

WOMAN: Okay, sure, thanks, bye bye.

ALEX: Bye.

ALEX to PJ: She sounds so suspect. She sounds like...

PJ: No, she doesn't sound suspect, she sounds suspicious.

ALEX: That's what I mean. She sounds so suspicious.

PJ: Yeah, because a dude just called her not explaining what he wanted asking about somebody. Do you know how stressed out that would make you if that happened to you? Particularly if they were calling from like very far away.

ALEX: Yeah. I don't know. I guess I would be kind of interested, assuming. . .

PJ: No. . .

ALEX: . . .another person. . .

PJ: . . .you would not be interested. I have seen the like anxious way you crawl through the world. You're not like, "Oh, man, something I don't understand. It's probably good and interesting."

ALEX: Uh. . .

PJ: You would be mad. You would, before you knew what was going on you would just be mad. You would've been like, "How did you get this number?"

ALEX: So, she's. . .Oh my God we are really getting into the weeds here.

PJ: No, you're so weird.

ALEX: So, Manaho was not there. Manaho Haga was not there.

PJ: Just forgin' on.

ALEX: Yeah, I don't, I don't wanna, I don't wanna get, I don't wanna get bogged down in this. Manaho Haga was not there, but I knew I had the right number.

PJ: Uh huh.

ALEX: So I decided to try calling back a couple days later.

PJ: What's the time difference?

ALEX: The time difference is, well it was before daylight savings so it was 13 hours. They're 13 hours ahead of us.

PJ: So when do you call? Because if you call and the. . .

ALEX: I was calling at 6 a.m. on the impression that they would be probably at their house.

PJ: So you're, were you waking up early to do this?

ALEX: Yes. And I. . .

PJ: That's great.

ALEX: . . .woke up early several times. The next time I called this is what happened.

MAN: Hi, hello.

ALEX: I'm trying to reach Manaho Haga?

MAN: Uh, no.

ALEX: No. Manaho Haga's not there?

MAN: Ay, no. Where do you calling from? Do you talking about to webs haps. . .

ALEX: Yeah, I'm talking about websites, yes.

MAN: Uh, sorry, we have already website department, thank you.

ALEX: Oh, I I'm trying to, I'm trying to buy a website.

MAN: Oh, you mean you wanna buy our website.

ALEX: Not your website. A website. I I I found a website that is owned by Manaho Haga.

MAN: Could you please send email first.

ALEX: Yeah, what is the email?

MAN: info@zombie.net.

ALEX: Zombie?

MAN: Zombie.

ALEX: Z-O-M-B-I-E.

MAN: Yes.

ALEX: info@zombie.net.

MAN: Yes.

ALEX: Okay. Thank you.

MAN: Thank you.

PJ: You didn't say, "Hello."

ALEX: So what?

PJ: So what it's a human being, "so what."

ALEX: Is this, is this entire thing going to be about how I'm a weirdo?

PJ: You just, you're, you're like, you're like nerd detective Alex Goldman. You just show up and you're like, "I'm here about the website."

ALEX: Yeah, I'm like the worst Phillip Marlowe.

PJ: Yeah.

ALEX: If I can be perfectly honest with you it is all nerves. I find it very. . .

PJ: Really?

ALEX: anxiety inducing to like. . .

PJ: You don't sound nervous.

ALEX: Oh, that's good.

PJ: You sound creepy.

ALEX: Well, that's not great. If I had to choose between the two, God that's a tough call.

PJ: Nervous or creepy. . .

ALEX: I think I. . .

PJ: . . .sounding?

ALEX: I think I'm going to go with creepy.

PJ: Really?

ALEX: We are once again. . .

PJ: No, this is it, man. This is it.

ALEX: We're going down a rabbit hole.

PJ: The rabbit hole is where we go.

ALEX: So, info@zombie.net. . .

PJ: Wait, knock knock.

ALEX: Who's there?

PJ: Website design.

ALEX: Website design who?

PJ: I didn't say hello because I'm Alex Goldman.

ALEX: Um, so, uh, info@zombie.net. I emailed it and it's not a real email address.

PJ: Really?

ALEX: Yeah, it's not real. I think that that was like legitimate language barrier. A guy trying to get me off the phone. I think I misheard him and he was like, "Yes, fine. Go away." So, I knew that if I was going to do this I needed to, to actually get the services of an interpreter.

PJ: Mmhhmm.

ALEX: So I contacted Aya Kato who has helped us in the past. And Aya's a total saint because basically I was like, "Here's what we need to do. We need to wake up every morning at 6 a.m., call Singapore. . .

PJ: Uh huh.

ALEX: . . .in the hopes of reaching Manaho Haga.

ALEX: So, this is this morning.

PJ: This morning?

ALEX: Yes.

ALEX: Okay, this is 6:30 in the morning. I think this is attempt number 7 or 8.

PJ: You sound like you're about to try to record a ghost.

AYA KATO: Hello.

ALEX: Good morning.

AYA: Good morning.

ALEX: Today's the day I can feel it.

AYA: It is the day.

ALEX to PJ: That's Aya.

ALEX to AYA: Hold on. . .

AYA: It has to be.

ALEX: Yeah, it has to be. Thanks so much for doing this. Give me just a second. I'm just going to get this guy's number in here and then we'll give him a call.

PJ: You sound so tired.

AYA: All right.

PJ: Your voice is like 30 octaves lower.

ALEX: I was exhausted.

PJ: Uh huh.

ALEX to Aya: All right, we're dialing.

AYA: Good.

MAN 2: Hello?

AYA: Hai. Moshi moshi. [speaking in Japanese]

MAN 2: Moshi moshi. [speaking in Japanese]

AYA: [speaking in Japanese]

MAN 2: [speaking in Japanese]

AYA: [speaking in Japanese]

MAN 2: [speaking in Japanese]

AYA: [speaking in Japanese]

MAN 2: Hai.

AYA: [speaking in Japanese]

MAN 2: Hai.

AYA: [speaking in Japanese]

ALEX: I don't know if you heard it but she just asked about the domain Alisa Libby. I'll play it back for you.

AYA: [speaking in Japanese] Alisa Libby [speaking in Japanese]

PJ: Ah.

AYA: [speaking in Japanese]

MAN 2: Alisa.

PJ: Alisa.

AYA: Alisa Libby [speaking in Japanese]

PJ: The world is so big and weird.

ALEX: Okay, now I should note that as you know we're big fans of hold music in this office?

PJ: Yes.

ALEX: I previously, in a previous "Super Tech Support" I found the best hold music.

PJ: Yes.

ALEX: This is the worst hold music.

PJ: Wait he has personal, at his home hold music when he puts people on hold?

ALEX: I'm gettin' there.

PJ: Okay.

ALEX: So he put us on hold and this is what I heard.

PJ: But you know this song. What is this song? Bwerh bwerh bwerh, I hate this song, I'm so with you.

ALEX: This is the worst hold music.

PJ: Uhhhh. . .It's like a parade in hell.

ALEX: Okay, so turns out the gentleman that we were talking to was not Manaho Haga.

PJ: Really?

ALEX: Yes. Here's the deal. Do you remember how in the episode that we referred to earlier, the the where we were trying to get the longform.org website? We eventually ran into a guy who's name was Michael Berkins who sold maybe a hundred websites a year but they were all very high value.

PJ: Yeah.

AG: So Michael Berkens, he’s like a bigshot in the domain world. But Manaho Haga, you could think of him as like the owner of a giant thrift store, because flips the equation. He buys websites that are of pretty low value but he buys thousands of them

PJ: Okay.

ALEX: So he's the owner of about 11,000 domains.

PJ: Wow. So is this like one of his guys?

ALEX: This is someone who works for him and that's why why we got hold music cuz I'm calling an office. I'm not calling. . .

PJ: Right.

ALEX: Manohar's house.

PJ: Cuz it's night time there. I can hear other people.

MAN 2: Hai [speaking in Japanese]

ALEX: Yeah, you can hear people in the background.

MAN 2: [speaking in Japanese]

PJ: Other podcasts calling for other domain names.

MAN 2: [speaking in Japanese]

AYA: Hai [speaking in Japanese]

PJ: Oh, what was that? She got excited.

MAN 2: Hai [speaking in Japanese] PayPal.

PJ: Paypal.

AYA: [speaking in Japanese] U.S. dollar.

PJ: U.S. dollars.

MAN 2: Hai.

AYA: [speaking in Japanese] Alex?

ALEX: Yes.

AYA: So, he said we can buy for $100 by PayPal.

PJ: That's great.

ALEX: Ok. Can you ask, did you try and barter with him at all. Is there any way we can go cheaper than that.

AYA: Uh, [speaking in Japanese]

PJ: She's bartering?

ALEX: She, I asked if she could she could, we could get it for any cheaper.

PJ: Oh my God. You’re such a jerk!

AYA: [speaking in Japanese]

MAN 2: Hai [speaking in Japanese]

AYA: Hai. Yeah, it's $100.

ALEX: Okay. It's a deal.

ALEX to PJ: So we got the domain back from Manaho Haga. What's happening now is in a couple of hours they’re going to, to, they're going to issue an authorization code that will allow me to transfer the domain's ownership.

PJ: Uh huh.

ALEX: And what I want to do. . .

PJ: Uh huh.

ALEX: . . .is I want to transfer the domain's ownership to Alisa and then redirect alisalibby.com to like a Tumblr page of you and me, weith, that says, "We got your domain back."

PJ: Why do you want to do that?

ALEX: Because then I can get her on the phone and say, "Can you go look at your website," and it will be a nice surprise.

PJ: Okay. Feels a little self-aggrandizing is all.

ALEX: I was thinking that we could like, we could do like, Hulk Hogan muscles, like we're. . .The look on your face, the look on your face is amazing.

PJ: Like, you hire somebody to fix something for you. They fix it, but like they're so proud of themselves, like, they're like, "Hey, I found the car, but guess what else I spray painted my face on it cuz I'm the best and this is definitely about me." Just give the lady her domain back. You don't have to write yourself an ode. We can make a Tumblr page. Whatever.

ALEX: So, yeah, I'm really proud of this one.

PJ: Yeah, that's very obvious. God. . .

ALEX: Why can't you just say, "Good job?"

PJ: Because you do such a good saying it to yourself. "Hey, we were able to negotiate this painful divorce settlement for you and also I wrote a song about what a great lawyer I am."

ALEX: They're, a lot of times our reporting just leads us down blind alleys and we never get anywhere.

PJ: Uh huh.

ALEX: This feels like getting somewhere and I feel really happy about it.

PJ: That's totally fair. You should go to jail.

ALEX: You know what. You don't deserve to be on the webpage. I'm going to do it by myself.

PJ: Cool.

ALEX: Because I'm the only person who ever congratulates me on anything anyway. Good job, Alex.

PJ: Gaw, so real.

ALISA: Hello, this is Alisa.

ALEX: Hi Alisa, it's Alex Goldman. How are you?

ALISA: I'm good how are you?

ALEX: I am good. So, are you a place where you can open up alisalibby.com and just take a look at it?'

ALISA: Yeah, I am. Hold on one sec. "Hi, Alisa, I got your website back!"

ALEX: It's a photo of my smiling face.

ALISA: Yeah, that's awesome. Oh, my God.

ALEX: So. . .

ALISA: I'm so, I'm so impressed and so thankful.

ALEX: I said to PJ, "Hey, we should make a website where we are smiling on it and say, 'We got your website back.'" And he was like, "You're such a narcissist. Why don't you just give her domain back you weirdo." And I was like, "Don't you think that would be funny? "

ALISA: Yeah, no I think it's funny.

ALEX: Okay, great.

ALISA: Yes. . .

ALEX: That's what I wanted to hear. I, I'm really excited to rub that in his face.

ALISA: Yeah, it is funny and frankly it will, as it would be confusing, maybe, for people expecting to see a young adult author and instead seeing someone just smiling maniacally, sorry, but kind of maniacally, like, it will kind, it might inspire me to actually put something here. You know. Like my, something about my book.

ALEX: Alisa Libby is the author of the novels The King's Rose and The Blood Confession and the owner of alisalibby.com. If you wanna see what Alisa's website used to look like or if you wanna see my grinning maniacal face, at the moment you won't see either at alisalibby.com, but you can go to replyall.fail where we will have posted links to both.

Coming up after the break it’s that time of year again.


BREAK


PJ: Alex.

ALEX: Yes.

PJ: Do you remember last year when we invented a holiday.

ALEX: Yeah, how could I forget? We invented a holiday. That's like a big thing.

PJ: It's the type of thing you remember.

ALEX: Yeah.

PJ: So do you want to remind people what it was?

ALEX: We invented a holiday and to be perfectly fair I think that this was mostly your invention because it speaks to, your. . .

PJ: A problem that i have.

ALEX: . . .your deepest anxieties. Called Email Debt Forgiveness Day. It is April 30th and it is a day where you are allowed to send an email no matter how late it is, as though, no time has passed. So if you are 10 months overdue on an email on April 30th, Email Debt Forgiveness Day, you can send that email.

PJ: No apologies.

ALEX: No apologies.

PJ: No. . .

ALEX: No guilt.

PJ: When you think about who you would want to message on Email Debt Forgiveness Day, I don't care if it's an email or text message or whatever, like, what comes to mind for you. Like what what has been festering for you?

ALEX: My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Lawther.

PJ: Wow.

ALEX: She was super cool. She like recognized in me things in my personality that I think are so fundamental that like I and no one else really recognized at the time.

PJ: Like what?

ALEX: Like my obsess, like, like, my obsession with like dumb pop culture and. . .

PJ: In fourth grade?

ALEX: Yeah. She like encouraged me to sort of go down those rabbit holes a little bit? She encouraged me when I like was I was really into Rolling Stones at the time. She was like, "Yeah, yeah, here's a book about The Rolling Stones. You should read up on them and learn all about their albums and blah blah blah blah blah."

PJ: That's great.

ALEX: And she was great. And generally every couple of years or so I will send her an email which is like, "Hey, just want to let you know where I am. How I'm doing. What I'm up to."

PJ: Uh huh. Who was the last person to send an email between the two of you? Like, did she send you an email and you left her hanging or?

ALEX: She sent me an email which was sort of a response to mine which was like, "This is what I'm up to. It's so great to hear from you." And probably asked a couple questions. I, she, I haven't spoken to her since Reply All started.

PJ: Why not?

ALEX: Cuz it's like usually the the emails that you send on Email Debt Forgiveness Day are the ones that require a lot more brain power and emotion than the stuff that you dash off during a normal day. So, like, I, every time I'm, I'm like, "I should sit down and write that. I don't have the energy for it." So who are you planning on sending something to.

PJ: You know what I actually have a lot of? I have a lot of people where, so I'm really weird over email which is to say like. I won't answer, but then I'll "answer." Like, for instance, people will sometimes email and say they want advice about doing podcasting stuff. A lot of times I'll just be too busy. I won't email back. And then like the fourth person I'll send them like a six paragraph essay about what I think they should do. And it's like very intense and I think they're surprised. And then they'll be like, "Thank you, and one more question." And then I'll never show up again. So I'd actually like to do just clean up on a bunch of times where I had like a really emotional back and forth with the person and then like, didn't actually just finish it. I think it would be very confusing to be on the other end of that.

ALEX: Yeah, yeah, you, it's not like you're doing the fade away.

PJ: No, it's like I'm coming on too strong and then disappearing. Yeah there’s actually a bunch of those. I'm starting to think about it and my stomach is starting to, like, vinegar. And actually some of my worst debt isn’t even email, like voicemail. Voicemail's really bad. I have 384 unlistened to voicemails.

ALEX: I think I have 85. And 85 voicemails,

PJ: Bush league.

ALEX: And a lot of them are just from my grandmother who I know is just gonna be like, "Call me back sweetie, I love you." Which is great but I can just call her back.

PJ: But you don't listen to the voicemail.

ALEX: Right.

PJ: I actually have a solution for that. I found this app, this free app called "No VM" that disables your voicemail. So I'm not getting anymore stuff there. My dad was like, "Did you disable your voicemail?" And I was like, "Yes. Yes I did."

ALEX: Wow. What happens when, does it just never pick up?

PJ: It rings forever?

ALEX: Huh.

PJ: Okay, so last year when we did Email Debt Forgiveness Day it turned out to be exciting for people in a way that we hadn't really anticipated, like I don't think we'd realized how many people had the same problems that we do. And we kept hearing from people afterwards who were upset that they'd missed it. So, if you want to do it this year, here's how it works. It's very straightforward. If you have some sort of message you've been putting off, on April 30th, send it. We're going to have a, on our blog, on the website, replyall.limo, there will be just like a thing describing what Email Debt Forgiveness Day is. You can just include a link to that and then include that in your email and people will click the link and they'll know what's going on. And also, in the run up, if there's, if there's something like you're particularly agonizing over, something that feels surprising or just insane, get in touch with us about it. Just send us an email at reply at gimlet media dot com. In the subject line put "Email Debt Forgiveness Day" and tell us what you're worried about and if you need help, ask, via email.

ALEX: PJ won't answer. I'll answer.

PJ: That's actually true.

MATT FARLEY: Inbox email, open and read

The thought of writing back fills you with dread

So you keep on putting it off until

replying feels impossible.

What will they say if you respond after several months have gone?

Email Debt Forgiveness Day, oh yeah.

You'll feel no shame and you'll get no blame.

Email Debt Forgiveness Day, oh yeah.

Everybody else's inboxes are the same.

Email Debt Forgiveness Day, oh yeah.

PJ: The Email Debt Forgiveness Day anthem was written by and performed by the very talented Matt Farley. He's written songs about basically every single thing on earth. And if you'd like to commission an ode he takes custom song orders.

Reply All is me, PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman. We were produced this week by Tim Howard, Sruthi Pinnamaneni, and Phia Benin. Production assistance from Mervyn Degaños. We were edited by Peter Clowney and mixed by Rick Kwon. Matt Lieber is one more hour of sleep. Special thanks this week to Aya Kato. Our theme music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder and our ad music is by Build Buildings. You can find more episodes of the show at iTunes.com/replyall. You can find this week's episode in article form on digg.com and our website is replyall.limo. Thank you for listening. We will see you next Wednesday.

MATT: You had the chance to help and you did not refuse it.

You suffered through some unbearable hold music.

You got up early to use the phone

with somebody in far off time zone

because you wanted to retrieve alisalibby.com.

And I'm here to tell you, Alex Goldman, you did it.

That's right Alex, you did a good job.