As a main topic, your hosts wonder how many cults they've each been in—and, hey, what even is a cult anyway?

John will not relay messages from Merlin to John's wife, and Merlin feels like he's finally getting over whatever passes for summer. Marco hates it when his phone hits his junk, and both of your hosts consider how an eagle, a monkey, and a bucket of water can do heroic work together. Also, Merlin can't remember several things, but he claims to have a method for back-solving the stack.

In vitally important Follow-Up, Merlin has found the original recipe for "Bachelor Pasta," which, naturally, leads to a deep dive on The Modern MAN'S Guide to LIFE. Together, your hosts learn how to buy a computer in 1987.

Merlin has finally gotten religion on Twitterrific muffles, but John seems a little reluctant to lead a challenge involving regular expressions.

Several years ago, the founder of IHOP, Mike Bickle, created a list of seven ways to recognize the difference between a religious community and a cult. Written down, the signs seem clear:

The line between delusion and what the rest of us believe may be blurrier than we think.

I’m specifically not talking about preparing or cooking fresh pasta, how to execute any particular pasta recipe, or why you should never, ever buy pasta sauce in a jar. (You really shouldn’t, though.) This is just about the basics: how to cook and serve dried pasta as part of some larger recipe, the details of which are out of scope, for now.