Pete Holmes doesn’t read your email

Much of modern life is industrialized with urgency. We perpetuate this by taking it seriously. So we’re passing these hot potatoes back and forth. If someone could talk you out of it, you’d say, “That email didn’t need to be there. We didn’t need to do this. We didn’t need this meeting.” We get up and grind ourselves to death, because no one knows what the alternative is. Here I am with 55,000 saying this is possible. You can make a living, you can have a life, and leave 55,000 unread emails at a huge loss.

Music app: Spotify and Apple music

We have Spotify, but my wife often kicks me out of it. I’ll be in the car and all of a sudden Beyoncé starts playing and I’m trying to listen to rock music like The National. I don’t think my wife knows we have Apple Music. I love knowing that my little secret is Apple Music.

Computer model: 2022 MacBook Air

It’s a MacBook Air from 2022 with an M2 chip. I kind of had fun cutting into my bag. So I bought this without thinking, which is kind of unfortunate. This was the “I just need a laptop” laptop.

There were other laptops that I had more feelings about. There was an 11-inch MacBook Air that I keep thinking about. It was the smallest thing I had ever seen. Then there was the 17-inch MacBook. It was huge. I still think of those computers as if they were old friends.

I feel like there is planned obsolescence as well. No matter how many times I clean my Mac and try to keep things to a minimum, it will soon start failing. This prevents me from having a relationship. It’s as if you have a friend you know who is going back to Barcelona.

Last person I FaceTimed with: My wife, Valerie

I was parenting alone on Sunday, and we FaceTimed my wife, Valerie, so my daughter could say hello. Which is really one of the great achievements of modern life, is that it’s kind of artificially recreating – from my daughter’s point of view – “I saw my mother, and she was there.” I also FaceTime my mom. I like to say I FaceTime my mom’s forehead. She can’t frame it right.

Last thing I Googled: reverse image search for a muskrat skull

My daughter found a small skull in nature and we used Google Images to tell us what kind of animal it was.

Last video I took: My daughter putting her face into a strawberry shortcake

We have a tradition where we go to this pizzeria in town and get strawberry shortcake, and I always make a video of her sticking her face in it, which was the first part I did when I was her age. My first experience with comedy was mashing my face into bowls of ice cream or cake.

Last thing I asked for AI: Solutions to swimming pain

What self service. I swim every day and have pain in my arms and shoulders and it wakes me up at night. It was like, “Take a hot bath or do light yoga.” It wasn’t a great answer.

Don’t get me started on artificial intelligence. It is interesting to call this intelligence because it is actually something completely different. Not catastrophic. I think everything will be fine.

Preferred social network: none

I hate them all. If I were to look at one, it would be Instagram.

I will say that Reels and TikTok, if it goes into your pocket, it’s a treat, like a piece of cake. I’ll give credit where it’s due. I must pay respect. It can crack me up and make me laugh so hard. But this never happens for two days in a row.

Least favorite: Sora and X

Well, they just got rid of Sora. Sora was just an absolute nightmare. It actually gave me hope, and I said to myself, “This isn’t working.”

But I would also say that X is my least favorite as well. I’m old enough to remember when Twitter was the place you went to have fun. Shelby Farrow is a good example, as she has been writing killer jokes on Twitter. We’ve all been through them. Or Rob Delaney was great on Twitter. You will continue to do so and it will brighten your day.

Top three or most recently used emojis: 😭❤️😘

It is a crying face, a face with tears flowing. It’s the red heart. It is also the qibla. I always text my wife when I’m on a plane. And then the green check mark, because I record my standing, and when I listen to it, I put the green check mark on it.

Favorite news source: None

I don’t fuck with her. zero. I get my news from people. This is a biased and unreliable news source. And there’s nothing more fun than watching them wallow in mismatches – they can’t even remember why they’re so angry and afraid.

Here’s the difference. Everyone gets wrong information. When I get the wrong information, I can come back and say, “Hey Ted. That was a mistake.” Someone I can look at and say, “I was wrong.” You can’t tell Anderson Cooper he was wrong.

Preferred subsection: none

I don’t mess with Reddit either.

Favorite tech product: Noise-cancelling earbuds

I love noise canceling earbuds. I have a feeling of real love when I think about these things because I’m sensitive to sound, and with travel, you have to have them. I like to have a small pair in my pocket at all times. They’re basically earplugs. I put them on all the time without them playing anything. It’s also a way to tell your neighbor on the plane that you don’t want to talk.

Burner calculations:

Just one major one for Uber, Amazon, and pretty much everything. I love that feeling when someone wants your email and you know it’s to put you on a bad mailing list, so you’re like, “Come on, man.” You’re throwing it into the void. Every email on this account is like, “How was that thing you ordered?” We’re not friends, LL Bean.

The technology you’re most nostalgic for: the four-track TasCam

It was a four-track tape. You had little knobs and you could record four tracks, so you could play guitar, and then come back and record bass. And it was so much fun. It was very tangible. I made a record and that’s the pressure. A garage band is like, who cares?

The craziest internet rabbit hole I’ve fallen down:

I have a really weird obsession with people speed-playing video games from the 90s. I think they are great. I think society is very influenced by me. They help each other. They’re discovering things. I love calling salt on YouTube.

I’m in a real AI optimism hole where people say, “Look at the money, look at the marketing. Don’t forget that this is a business. Don’t forget that it really helps these companies to tell people that it’s the end of the world if they get it wrong, because that’s how they get deregulated. They can do anything they want.”