Dear Hank & John - 111: Omagles All the Way Down

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

How do I get in on my neighbor's cranberry bread? How do I live in a very small room? Who's responsible for the divider in a checkout line? And more! Email us: [e-mail] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Gorsair for Think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast about death where two brothers and two questions give you to be a advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. We haven't talked about death that much lately John. How are you? Are you too distracted by things that are not death that you're not thinking about death as much? Oh, I've been thinking about death a little bit. Don't worry about that. But as this podcast

is airing, my new book Turtles all the way down comes out tomorrow. It comes out October 10th. And that's a bit of, you know, it's my first book in six years. It is occupied. I would say a majority of my consciousness over the last couple of weeks. And I would say essentially all of my consciousness over the last three to five days. So I would love to think about something other than turtles all the way down right now. I will say, Hank, you know this because you were with me. but just before we recorded this podcast, we did our monthly Patreon livestream Patreon.com slash

dear Hank and John, less, I only, shill for one of our products in a 30 second period. We were doing a Patreon livestream and someone came into the livestream and said, hey, I'm having a baby today, but I didn't want to miss the livestream. I just wanted to check in and say hi to everybody.

And upon further investigation, Hank, it turns out that this person, Jessica, was actually about to have their first baby in labor, currently in labor at the hospital laptop open to our live stream. So that was great because it did for a moment make me think about something other than turtles all the way down. Jessica, we wish you well and we appreciate you bringing new life into this world. If you wanna come see us on the book tour

that's beginning tomorrow, bad news is that almost every place is sold out, except for our California dates, which are towards the end of the tour, and Nashville, Tennessee. So, hello, Nashville, Tennessee. Is there any other dates that are not sold out, John? I think that's it. You can find out more at TurtlesAllTheWadeDownBook.com. Hank. Yeah. Can I read you a short poem?

Okay. Alright, this short poem is by Robert Frost. It was sent in by Caroline. I don't know if it was the same Caroline who complained about people singing songs about her name, but regardless, that is a great song by Neil Diamond. All right, moving on, Dust of Snow by Robert Frost. The way a crow shook down on me, the dust of snow from a hemlock tree, has given my heart a change of mood, and saved some part of a day I had rude. Just a nice little short poem about having a crow dust some snow on you.

Thanks, crows. If you would like to see a crow putting snow on your shoulder on tour, that's not a thing that exists, but we will be in Seattle for PodCon December 9th and 10th. I just feel like we're pushing stuff a lot today. Whoa, so I'm just like, hot, hot. I mean, I haven't heard something so obviously inserted into a podcast since you said disco pants last episode. All right, let's move on to questions from our listeners.

This one comes from Katherine, who writes, dear John and Hank, just bought my ticket for your San Francisco show on Halloween. I'm very excited. Oh my God, I can't believe there were still shiller. I'm very excited, but I have one burning question. Should I wear a Halloween costume? I want to be festive, but I don't want to be

the only one dressed up. Will you both be dressed up? Face paint and checkered vans, Katherine. Checkered vans. Catherine. Checkered vans, oh the shoe, the shoes. The shoes. I was like, that's a weird Halloween costume. Just paint my face and get it a checkered van. Yes, I will be in costume,

but I will be in costume at all the shows during a portion of the show. Ish, kinda, it's complicated. I think there is a 95% chance we are going to do that bit during rehearsal and we're both going to be like, this is a horrible mistake. I think it's a 5% chance. I think it's a 95% chance that I hit it out of the park. You haven't heard my talk yet. I'm excited to see if this bit works. But yes, Hank will be in costume. I mean, you can't, you can hardly get Hank out of costume.

But there, I mean, so I just found out that our rehearsal shows have people at them. And I'm actually really like, at first this made me like kind of upset that I was like, no one told me we were rehearsing for the people. But now I'm excited about it because if it was me on the stage doing this bit with nobody in the audience, John would think it was terrible, but I need the audience reaction.

Because otherwise, otherwise it's gonna get voted down and I'm not gonna be able to do the weirdest idea that I've had so far. I mean, listen, I think it is a great bit. I just don't know if it's one of those bit like there are so many bits in our lives. I think that when we talk about them, they are so, so funny. And then when we actually execute them, we're like, oh man, like that was like it turned out to be a brother thing. That turned out to be a thing that we both liked because we were raised in the same family. I don't think this is going to be that bit. I agree. You know what? It's going to be great. I don't think this is gonna be that bit. I agree, you know what, it's gonna be great. To answer the question, Catherine,

I will 100% be in costume on October 31st at our San Francisco show, our Halloween spectacular. I am 100% gonna be wearing a hilarious costume, possibly more than one. Oh wow, that's exciting. John, I'd like, are we gonna have to like stop at the costume store on the way to the show? Correct.

Or maybe people would just give us costumes along the way. We'll see. Who knows what will happen. And also, yes, please come to our Halloween show in costume. It's, should everybody be a turtle? Is that, should everybody be, should be all turtles? No, I think there should be some turtles. But if everybody's a turtle? Should everybody be all turtles? No, I think there should be some turtles.

But if everybody's a turtle, then it's actually a pretty good joke if everybody shows up as a ninja turtle. Everybody's a turtle. It's pretty weird. You know the people at the theater are gonna be like, well, this is gonna be a weird night. Yes, we got the Ninja Turtle convention in town. We've done some weird Halloween shows before, but not this one.

All right, let's ask another question. All right, this one comes from Brendan who asks, Dear Hank John, I'm a cashier at a nationwide warehouse club. Like, you could just say Costco, it's okay. It could be Sam's Club. It could be Sam's Club, you're right. And I need a ruling on register etiquette when one person has their items on the conveyor belt

and another person comes up with their purchases is that the job of the first or the second person to put the divider up, I cannot recall how many times no one has done it and I start to ring up the next person's items and then I get yelled at. You do be as advice as appreciated. It's Brendan, not Brandon, Brendan. I have a strong opinion about this. I don't know if you do.

I have a pretty strong opinion as well. You go first. When you begin to place your items on the conveyor belt, if there are items in front of you and you have not put the divider there, you yourself, the person placing the new items on the conveyor belt, I don't want to say that you're a bad person because lots of people aren't bad people but do bad things, but you're doing a bad thing. Yeah, I mean this is like, so the person who's currently check, like it could be I'm currently checking out, which means that like maybe I'm helping bag or I'm having a conversation

with the cashier, I'm currently interacting with another human. I can't be held responsible for what's happening on the conveyor. That's no longer my area. It's not my job. I've done my conveyor work. No, no, you put your stuff up there. Yeah.

If you put, if the person who is currently checking out puts the barrier there, that's okay. That's a politeness. That's saying, oh, hey, I see that there's, I've noticed another person come up behind me and I'll put the thing there. That's okay, that's a politeness. That's saying, oh hey, I see that there's, I've noticed another person come up behind me and I'll put the thing there. You're allowed to, but it's not your responsibility. And if you don't do that, why wouldn't you do that? Are you afraid that the thing's gonna bite you? It's not made of swords. It's just a little piece of plastic. It'd be cool if it were made of swords. That would make it a high stakes game.

Then I would love every trip to Costco, because it'd be like, who's going to put the divider there? And I'd be like, not me, it's made of swords. It'd be a great stare down game. I have, I mean, I'm worried. Regardless, the one person whose job it definitely isn't in my opinion is yours. So the next time you get yelled at, now I know that the customer is always right and everything, but the next time you get yelled at,

just remember in your heart that we know that the person who's yelling at you is wrong. Absolutely. Also, do you know that turtles all the way down is gonna be available at both Costco and Sam's Club? That is very exciting news. podcom.com December 9th and 10th. Oh God, we're unbearable.

We don't have a real sponsor this episode, so we're crushing it with self-promote. Yeah. Oh God, speaking of which, this next question comes from Grace, who writes Dear John and Hank, my sister and I both paid for John's book when we ordered it. As the date when it arrives grows near, we have started to debate about who should get to read it first.

She says that she should get wait. I started this question thinking that they'd both ordered a copy that they'd both paid for a copy, but it turns out that they must have gone havesies on one copy. Okay. She says that she should get to read it first and she is older and I say that I should get to read it first because she got to read the fault in our stars first. Who should get to read this book first? We are both really excited. Amazing comma grace. Ah, good one. Can you just like read over each other's shoulders

and be like, okay, I'm done with the page, you turn. I'll turn, you turn, I'll turn. That'd be cute. It's cute, but it's not like the ideal situation for reading a book. I feel like this is up to me. I feel like I get to make the call here. Oh, well, that's terrible news for the a book. I feel like this is up to me. I feel like I get to make the call here. Oh, well, that's terrible news for the younger sibling. Grace, I've got good news and bad news.

The bad news is that you're always going to be in the shadow of your older sibling for the rest of your life and nothing you ever do will be as cool as your older sibling. for the rest of your life and nothing you ever out. It's arriving and Grace read quickly. Be a kind and thoughtful younger sibling, but yeah, that is it. I'm the oldest. I'm the oldest is not a good reason. And if she read Tiffy O's first, absolutely, you gotta do it. You gotta trade back and forth.

Good, good soon. That's right. But then the older sibling gets to read an absolutely remarkable thing first I'm sorry we just hadn't mentioned that you also have a book coming out I realized that there was it's it's not even a product We can really promo yet since it's not a pre-order but there's nothing wrong with a little pre promo promo Yeah, you got to get excitement going also pizza mess is coming up John YouTube dot com slash vlog brothers will be making a video every single day for two weeks, every weekday.

While we're on tour for some of it and selling some pretty truly remarkable pizza-john products, I will not lie, I just saw one of them that we got and it made me giggle, like a little tiny boy. I giggled like a baby getting tickled on his neck. It was great. I can't wait for everyone to find out about it. Alright, Nick, let's answer another question from our listeners. Uh, this one comes from E who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm about to start university and move out for the first time. I'm really excited, but I recently found out that my room is gonna be very small. Thank God I'm only 5'1".

I don't want to let this spoil my first year, so I was wondering if either of you guys have tips, advice, or experience for living in a very small room. Thanks, E. Oh, you got to watch that House Hunters Tiny Houses. Tiny House Hunters International, or whatever it's called, and you'll be like, oh, look, it's so great. People are paying extra to live in tiny places now. It's the hip-cool thing! I think a tiny house is a great idea.

So Hank, I actually have some life experience on this subject because as you may know, I lived for two years in a walk-in closet in Chicago. It was a three bedroom apartment and I had three roommates and my buddies and I drew straws in a competition that I still believe was not completely speaking fair. And I got the short straw

and I lived in a walk-in closet with no window for two years. Here is my advice. First off, you've got to use the height of your room. So if you've got like an eight foot ceiling, you've got to remember it's not just that like eight feet by four feet that you have to sleep on. You essentially have like five levels of eight feet by four feet. So in a way, I'm not a mathematician, but it's like a 32 foot by 20 foot room. It's just broken up into five different levels.

And so it's those levels wisely. Yeah. Actually, I still sometimes like to sleep underneath my clothes and just look up at them. There's something kind of comforting about it. Do you mean like just like you know, it's like pile your laundry on your body? No, I just mean like I'll just like go lie down in the, I mean, this is a little weird, but sometimes when I feel really overwhelmed by the amount of stimulus that's coming into my life, which

I have a little bit just I've been the last last couple of weeks. Sometimes I just go into my closet and I I have a little bit just time in the last few weeks. Sometimes I just go into my closet and I just put my pillow down there and I just look up at my clothes and I just take some deep breaths and I think, you know, this is probably the safest room in your house right now. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I would say that you're the weirdest man on earth, but I also feel very, very good inside of a closet. And well, ever since I was a kid,

we'll close myself into closet sometimes. I do not know, I did not know that you do that, and I would not have admitted out loud that I did that unless you had done it first, but I do occasionally like to just lay down inside of a closet. All right, there you go. And half since I built, I built like a place,

like a separate closet in my closet that I would go in when I was a child. And it was not a big closet. No, I remember your childhood closet. It was actually quite small. Yeah, I built it out of Omega. I built a closet in my closet and I would go. Oh my god, Omega. Holy snooed. You just took me all the way back. Oh my god, Omega.

Nobody, nobody, I mean, this, talk about a podcast that is not going to interest anyone other than us. Everybody thinks that Omega is an app where you talk to weird strangers, but no. Omega was a thing. It was a physical thing that you used to create physical goods. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, and I cannot, I cannot find it on the internet. I can't explain. You have to find a picture of it to show people on the Patreon because Omega, is what's it called, Omega? I think so. There it is. Omega constructions.

Omega's the build anything toy. Oh my God. Omega's. So maybe if I have an Omega's, it'll be better than Omega. Nope. There's one. There's that.

That's it. That's it. Oh, it's Omega's within a. Oh, we remember we used to build like cars together that you could actually ride on. Do they not make omegles anymore? I mean, I'll tell you one thing, they're about to, because I am about to apply all of my available resources

to the resuscitation of omegles. I'll tell you what, they do not. You can buy old dirty, gross, looking omegle pieces on eBay, but not available in its original form. And by old dirty, gross-looking omega pieces on eBay, but not available in its original form. I mean, for a little bit of context about how awesome Omegles are, there is a lot of 162 omega pieces available on eBay right now. And I would like to describe the,

it's for sale for $230, and I would like to share with you the description. 160 pieces used and incomplete. Most pieces have evidence of usage, and it's still $230, and also I'm about to buy it. I don't know, John, why don't we just buy the Omega's brand? Hank! What? Hank. What? Hank.

What? We have to get out of all of these stupid businesses that we've been in. That have been taken up so much of our time. Yeah, I just try to sell weird tickets to weird shows, sell books. Why? T-shirts.

Why? We could be on the makeup list. Why do we sell items every November with my face on them with a mustache that says pizza below them when we could be in the omegles business? Oh my god I cannot believe that I forgot about omegles until just now. I haven't felt this way Hank since I was seven years old We have to buy we have to buy omegles. We have to build them. We have to bring them back Well, I don't know who owns omegles John, but honestly, it can't be that patented. It's just tubes.

It can't be that patented. I mean, one thing that might hurt our ability to defend ourselves in a trademark litigation of the future is when we say, like, oh no, we just thought we were building our own building a big toy. And people can be, the Omega's people can be, like, I no, we just thought we were building our own building anything to it. And people can be, the omegles people can be like, I'd like to point you to the podcast where you screamed loudly,

Hank, we have to drop everything and start building omegles. I think it's owned by Hasbro, John, which is not great, not a great outcome. Oh no, I got a buddy there. Oh yeah? No, but I do have a Twitter and I've got a verified account and I'm adding Hasbro right now at Hasbro. Hey guys, I Would be your new Omega ambassador all I need is 50% Omega situation I would like to bring back

Omega's will do whatever Ne whatever necessary within reason weirdos. How many? Do you want 280 characters? Yeah, because that was a long one. I don't have 280 characters yet, but I did just tweet Hasbro. Hey guys, what's with the current Omegle situation? I would like to bring back Omegles. We'll do whatever necessary.

I decided to cut the within reason part, because actually I will do whatever is necessary. I know my enemies are gonna say this is a fool's errand, but you have never played with Omega's. Omega's are amazing. Oh yeah, no man. I don't know, kids today, kids these days, they got Minecraft, they're just building stuff

in the, in the, in the ether space now. But Hank, remember, you could build a chair and then you could build a desk on which you could do your actual homework. That's true. I mean, why would you, why'd you have any furniture at all? It was Minecraft, but IRL, you don't think, you don't think kids these days want real life Minecraft, of course they do. Oh my god, are there advertisements for omegles on YouTube because I want to watch them. Oh you know what we're canceling the podcast and Hank and I are just gonna watch. You know like my kids are always watching unbox toy unboxing videos which I could totally don't get except now suddenly I do get it because I realize that I could maybe

watch an omegles oh boy actually when you you Google Omega's all you get is really upset. Oh, there's one, there's one, there's one. I found an Omega's video hank. Yeah, I got, yep. I'm watching, watching, watching. Oh, we're watching it together. Oh, this is, it's funny. This is not good. This is not a good YouTube video. This is a very bad video. Well, most of them are bad. What I like about this video is that it is obviously as excited about Omegles as we are. What I dislike about the video is literally everything else.

Okay. All right, John, you want to answer another question or do you just want to go Omegles all day? Well, the answer to your question, Hank, is that I want to keep talking about Omegles, but I recognize that since we are the only two people listening to this podcast who know what omegles are that we should perhaps move on maybe maybe What was the question Oh, was there a question it was about

There wasn't this question comes from Julia who writes dear John and Hank about three months ago I started to think about studying abroad in England I would really really love to do it and no wonder Julia, because it is your best opportunity to see AFC Wimbledon live in person. But my question is, how do I ask my parents without it sounding like I hate you and don't wanna see you for the next few months? Oh, and please pay a lot of money for that.

Only death is free, Julia. Ooh, my goodness gracious. It's not even true. Death is actually very expensive. Yeah, well, also there are some free things. Are there Hank? I mean, air. We don't technically pay for it. In a capitalistic economy, anything can be valued.

Oh, certainly it can be valued, but it is currently free. John. Yes. People go overseas and it's a valuable experience and parents want their children to have valuable experiences and that is the first PowerPoint slide in your PowerPoint presentation. That's why you're going to go to England for a month or whatever. Rip that audio of Hank introducing this idea. Hello, Julius, parents, it's me, John Green.

Did you know that England is a wonderful country full of educational opportunities? You can put that part in, you can just cut that and then put it over and over again. It's scientifically proven to make people more susceptible to spending money and losing their children. I mean, it's money and losing their children. I mean, it's not really losing your children with three months apart.

I think that the way you present it is as an opportunity and probably your parents understand that as you get older, they will probably see somewhat less of you. And you just need to like get them used to that idea anyway. Agree. Hank, I have to ask you another question. It's extremely important.

Okay. I don't know if you know the answer to this because you didn't highlight it in the questions and I don't know why because it's obviously so incredibly important. Okay. This question comes from Kelly who writes, dear John and Hank,

I just walked into the hall of my apartment building and someone is baking when I believe to be cranberry bread. I'm pretty shy and I don't know any of my neighbors, but I haven't had breakfast and I'm out of eggs. You see my problem. My question is, how do I get in on this? Hungry belly, Kelly, which is great because it runs, but that's also how she's feeling.

So I mean, I just gonna like sniff door cracks until you find the one where the cranberry bread's coming from. And that's a good strategy too, So, I mean, are you just gonna like sniff door cracks until you find the one where the cranberry bread's coming from? And just not? Oh, that's a good strategy too, because then if somebody happens to be walking out of their hallway, that's their first impression of you, and that's a good first impression.

And you could be like, you know what you do in that situation. Somebody opens the door and they're like, hello, and you say, do you smell cranberry bread? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha It wasn't just me multiple neighbors. Yeah, yeah. Joey over here. From across the hallway, I'm assuming that this all takes place in the friends universe. Joey over here from across the hallway. Also smelled the cranberry bread.

And now here we are Phoebe, it's nice to meet you. And that's actually how your sitcom starts. Yeah, years and years and you're all going to get millions of dollars in episode now. I think it actually was only $1 million per episode. What a, I mean, that was a simple time. That was in the 1990 dollars though, which are now a way, worth way more.

Hey, what? Can you answer the question just because while you're talking, it's going to give me an opportunity to scroll further through the Google image results for Omegles, which is making me happier than I've ever felt in my entire life. Well, I mean, I could go back and actually answer a question about how to live in a small space,

because we didn't answer that one at all. We got really stuck on Omegles, which is I have not found there to be a huge correlation between a amount of space and quality of life, once you exceed a certain minimum amount of, you can fit your bed and stuff in a space, especially if you don't have a roommate, which you didn't mention having a roommate, which is just like, well, that is amazing. So it got space to yourself is better than having a lot of shared space, even if it's a

small amount. In my opinion, because roommates can smell bad, how are those omegles doing, John? Amazing. I'm on the omegles has a Pinterest group. There's 34 of us, I would say, because I have just joined. Um, and I'm just scrolling through all the Omega pins, wondering how I didn't remember Omegles until just now. What is it with human brains, Hank, that something that I obviously care,

starting right now more about than I care about, literally anything else except for my family, but I had forgotten until you mentioned it 12 minutes ago. I don't know, man. I also was sort of surprised that I was able to just call the word omegles out of my brain after having pictured this thing that I built with the yellow tubes and the popping plastic things that made the wall. And remember, it had wheels, it had like those popping tires, so you could turn like,

you would have a chair and then suddenly you would have a chair that could go places. John, speaking a little bit of this conversation, do you remember how it was maybe two episodes ago? We found that there was a women's store in the middle of, like, in the two different sectors. Oh, your women's clothing. Women's clothing. In Arkansas, yeah, women's clothing. Everybody remembers women's clothing. Well, I recently went back to women's clothing

and found that that dear Hank and John fans have left over 77 reviews of women's clothing in the middle of a field. They're all pretty good. So I just remembered that because we were talking about things that we had forgotten. Oh, that's gold. That's gold, Hank.

Speaking of gold, let me ask you another question from our listeners. All right. This question comes from Madison, who writes, dear John and Hank, I didn't celebrate Halloween growing up because of my family's religious beliefs. Madison, if you considered celebrating Halloween with us in San Francisco. All you gotta do is get to San Francisco.

Now that I'm older, my friends who love Halloween are insisting that I go to their parties this year because they think I've been deprived of a tremendous joy and I must experience it. But I'm confused. Is Halloween not mostly a holiday for children? If not, how do adults celebrate it? Are these parties going to be based around a nostalgia for Halloween that I don't have? Is it even possible to love Halloween as an adult without having loved it as a child? Parties and pumpkins, Madison.

I think that it's interesting. I had never thought of it that way, but yeah, I think that there is a certain component of nostalgia for the fun that we had as children and Halloween, but I think that's a pretty small part of it. It is, I mean, to be totally just frank and open, it's just an excuse to party and have a party and dress up in weird clothes and drink. Well, but not everybody drinks at Halloween parties, I assume.

Yeah, no. It is mostly an excuse, I think, to dress up and to wear a costume and to try on, living a life vastly different from yours for a few hours, which is something that is fun in childhood, but can also be fun in adulthood. So I think maybe that's the attraction of it. I was never that into the spooky aspects of Halloween. I have always been a person who felt that real life

was plenty frightening without the introduction of unnecessary skeletons, et cetera. But I did always like the dressing up part of Halloween, like being someone else's part. I wasn't listening to what you were saying at all, John, because one, I'm terrible at podcasting, and two, I was reading Adam McClean's review of Women's Clothing Store and the Geographical Center of Arkansas.

He says, being a person that does prefer the fit of men's clothes, I was really here because of the recommendation from Dear Hank and John. I'm also from the future where we didn't make it to Mars in time. While I will agree with other reviews that the infrastructure could be improved and would be welcome for accessibility, I'm pretty sure this site is not ADA compliant. I also agree with others that it is very eco-friendly and locally sourced fabrics are a pleasant find. There seems to be minimal negative environmental impact from this establishment and it may in fact have a net positive impact. We need

more businesses like this, DFTBA. While we're reading responses from past episodes, I have to read you this response we've got from Omaya. You may remember that in a previous episode of Dear Anconjohn, we discussed a researcher who stung himself with bees all over his body to find out what is the most painful part of the body to be stung via bee on. And Omaia wrote in to say, dear John and Hank, I am listening to your most recent podcast and you talk about Michael Smith, the Cornell graduate student who stung himself with a bee multiple times for science. And I know him.

I was an officer in the Cornell B-keeping Club for several semesters. And he is the graduate student advisor for the club, so we met several times. I can attest that his name is Michael Smith, and that he is quite a character. And that if you met him, you would no longer be confused

about why he would do such a thing for science. He is very committed to B's. Don't worry, be happy, Omaia. Well, the B with two E's, don't worry, be happy, omaya. Well, that'd be with two ease, so don't worry, be happy. Good, well, I'm glad that that was real and as a real person, it's not that big of a world, John. It isn't that big of a world.

Speaking of how small the world is, Hank, I wanna ask you a question from Ariana before we get to the news from Mars and Nancy Wimble, then dear John and Hank, last year, I made a very good new friend who has been nothing but kind to me. On my birthday, she went out of her way to get me multiple gifts and welcomed me at my new school. Although I know she has told me when her birthday is, all I remember is that it is maybe

in January or February. I would really like to get her something, but I don't know how to find out when her birthday is without hurting her feelings. In desperate need of a name specific sign off, Ariana. I mean, I feel like, like, first of all, you can't just look at her Facebook page, is that a thing? Isn't it just on Facebook? No, people don't, no, young people don't use Facebook. Okay.

When we were kids, only young people used Facebook, and my kids, I mean, 30. Okay. And now, only young people used Facebook. Well, it was kids, I mean, 30. And now, no young people use Facebook. So, Sitch is from my perspective. You say, hey, what's your birthday? Is that weird? Are you supposed to know? Yeah, of course you can't do that.

Yeah, well, you're not like born knowing what everybody's birthday is. She says in the question, she told me a birthday, and I forgot it. Once you've told somebody a birthday once, if you forget it, that's on you forever. There's no coming back from that. Everybody knows that.

Sorry. Okay. Ariana, you have to move again. I'm sorry. Ha! I know that you just got used to this new school, and it's great that you've got this great friend, but it's over.

I mean, I feel like there's so many people in the world who know this person's birthday. Why, like ask their mom, be like, hey, what's birthday? Oh, that's a brilliant idea. That is a brilliant idea. I just, yeah, I was gonna say call the home phone, but of course, that's not an option. That's even more inachronistic

than a high school student with a Facebook. I mean, I'm like, what a sweet thing to like get one of your friend, one of your child's friends to copy you and say, Hey, what's the, I just, I just wanted to know because I like your child so much that I want to celebrate her birthday. Yeah, Ariana Hank is right. It is not bad to just ask, but obviously it won't be as much fun if you just ask.

So we need to think of a way that you can figure it out without asking. You got to find her birth certificate in her house. I like Hank's suggestion that you should burgle your friend's home. It's bold, it's innovative, but I think it's wrong. I think the right solution is that you should hack into their computer. Oh no, just the NSA database.

Oh, that's an idea. Yeah, call Ed Snowden. Get into that NSA database. And they'll just be like, so what do you need? Do you need records of all the calls you've ever made? And you'll say, no, no, I don't. Thank you, though. All I need is my best friend's birthday.

Yeah. Yeah. By the way, Chris and I have been best friends for many, many years. I could not tell you if Chris's birthday is, I couldn't tell you a season. Could you somehow get them to reveal it without asking? Could you be like, oh, what was your last birthday like?

And it was in Coles, yeah. Yeah. Was it a windy day? Yeah, my birthday is rained. What was the top single on the charts that day? Do you remember was it was it was it was it Demi Lovato or was it Ariana Grande because I can never tell the McDonald's part Do you remember when McDonald's ran out of tomatoes for three weeks? Was that during your birthday?

Yeah, I did. Try to have your McDonald's birthday fun, but it was, you weren't sure, it was all ruined by the tomato shortage. Yeah, in closing, Ariana, ask your friend. Mm. And get her omegles for her birthday omegles available soon at john and hank brought back omegles dot com you can also go to hank and john brought

back omegles dot com but that website isn't as good right it uh... it's a fulfills many of the same purposes but it has much better design uh... that reminds me that's it is podcast is brought to you by Omegles. Omegles, a real toy that Hank and I played with endlessly throughout our childhood that I had forgotten about until half an hour ago. This podcast is additionally brought to you by... Sniffin' Dorcracks! Gotta sniff out those Dorcracks to see where the cranberry bread is. That was weird.

That was weird. Part of me wants to go back in time to win before I heard it and just live in that place for the rest of my life. I apologize. And additionally, today's podcast is brought to you by Turtles All the Way Down. Turtles All the Way Down, available in bookstores everywhere,

starting tomorrow, also Costco and Sam's Club. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by Amazels. Amazels, not at all in any way inspired by or related to Omegles. John and Hank's new product in Case Hasbro does not have an interest in this. Amazels. Amazels, available atels. Available at... Well, I guess there is no more toys on us. Only on Amazon.

It's an Amazon exclusive. And what is amazels.com available? Oh God, is it? Hold on. Run, don't walk to amazels.com. It is 100% available. Oh, dang, I'm getting it. It's happening. We are bringing back omegles with calling them amazels,

and I am ready to go to court with Hasbro. That's it. Hold on, let me see if they've replied to me. No, they haven't. I've replied to you, John. You don't know that, Hank. I have a very important Twitter. You know, people notice when I tweet them.

No, they have not replied to me. There's one like on that tweet, John, and it's me. So hold on, let me go to my analytics. Well, that tweet just so you know, it's had 200 impressions, Hank. And nobody liked it. Just one of them liked it. I mean, to be fair, if you haven't heard the episode, it's a little bit of a weird tweet. Also, if you have heard the episode. Hank, before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I want to share one fact with you. Mm-hmm. Do you know what that fact is?

No, sir. It is a name... Uh... It is a name specific sign off from Natalie. Okay. Uh, she has two. Uh, one is... You have a great perse, Natalie. Okay. She has two. One is you have a great person, Natalie. You have a great person, Natalie. That's really good. A great person, Natalie. I mean, I wish

that I could go back in time and rename my kids Natalie, all both of them. She also has one that is based off the Bruno Mars song Natalie. I ran away with all of Bruno Mars' money, comma, Natalie. I don't understand that one because I don't know about that song. Alright Hank, what is the news from Mars this week? Oh wait, should I do the news from AFC Wimbledon first? It's so incredibly exciting. Well, do it, man. Hank, Hank, Hank, what if I told you that mom and dad,

our mom and dad went to an AFC Wimbledon game at Kingsmeadow on September 30th? Oh, that's wonderful. They had an awesome time. And do you know how AFC Wimbledon celebrated the arrival of my parents at the Wimbledon game? With goals! What is the other possibility?

With no goals! That is the one you gotta take on the second try! Ha ha ha! Oh no. AFC Wimbledon did not score in that game against Rockdale, Roachdale, Roachdale, rosiana is not here. Okay, so I'm not going to get an answer on that one. Yeah, they did not score, which I don't know if you know, it's been a bit of a

theme. There hasn't been a ton of scoring. AFC Wimbledon have now played 11 games in their League 1 campaign and they have scored five goals, which I'm not a mathematician but that seems to be less than one goal per game and in fact less than one goal per every other game. I am sorry. It's not going great. We slipped to 21st in the table which is in the dreaded relegation zone. The bottom four teams in League One are demoted down to League Two, which is the bottom wrong of full-time professional football in England. And that is not where we want to be.

We want to be in League One, the third tier of English football, where all the cool teams are like Don Caster and Oldham and Peter Burrow. It's a very difficult situation right now. Neil Ardley is concerned. I keep looking at his face on the sideline when I watch the games on my phone and I see the face of a concerned person and I share his concern and I am, ha, I'm worried and I don't know what to do and I feel a little bit, I don't know what to do. All right, what is the news from Mars? The news from Mars, I mean, there's so much news from Mars

this week, John, but I think the obvious thing that we have to talk about is Elon Musk's very ambitious plan to send two large payloads to Mars by 2022, followed by payloads of human passengers by 2024, which I will remind you is way before 2027. Also way before we could ever possibly do that. Like I could imagine a world in which a rocket could get there in that fast, maybe, but to build all the things

that would need to go in the rocket for the humans to get there and survive, that seems a little outlandish, but 2024 is like three years before 2027 and four years before 2028. So I don't know. We got, hey, we got lots of opportunities. So the news is basically that Iran Musk's company SpaceX was working and is still working on a rocket called the, I think, the Falcon Heavy, which would be one of the biggest rockets ever, but it turns out that it's very hard to build a big rocket and they thought that they could just sort of

strap some extra things on top of their existing platform and that would be the new awesome rocket, but not's not that simple. So they wanna build a new kind of rocket, the one that is still based on one booster that will push a payload up and then return back to Earth and land and be able to be reused regularly. And what that would allow for is getting not just one of these, one of these payloads, a very large payload, 150 tons, I think of the max, up into orbit, but then they could shoot up another one that would just be

full of fuel. And that could refuel the entire payload that got into low Earth orbit, and that would allow that, because getting from orbit to orbit to like the hard part is really getting out of like the atmosphere and out of Earth's gravity well a little bit. So that would allow for that rocket to get much farther with just one refuel or with several refuels to get to Mars, which is a really smart and interesting way to do it. So to allow for a refuelable rocket. But then all of those boosters, all of the really expensive parts, are all coming back down to Earth to be reused again.

And this is Elon's plan for how do you make this something that happens economically, because it turns out the fuel is a relatively minor part of the cost, the engines themselves, which we have previously just been crashing into the ocean and not reusing, are the costly part. And he wants to make a really, really big rocket called the BFR, stands stands for Big F and Rocket. Apparently, it's my guess.

And it was not discussed. And use the BFR to expand humanity's space flight, capabilities dramatically by 2024, which John would maintain the name of this podcast. Come, L.R.I. Water. Dear Hank and John. So I just want wanna confirm real quick what you just told me, which is that Elon Musk announced

that he, the way that he thought he could get to Mars isn't gonna work. So instead they're gonna do a totally different way, but it's also going to take less time. Correct, John. It's all about innovation and hard work. Okay. Well, I am so excited for dear John and Hank coming to a podcast near you in 2028. All right. Well, we'll see what happens, John. It doesn't matter as long as we're working hard on amazels by then.

I mean, the truth is, I think we both know we're gonna be out of the podcast in game entirely because we're gonna be running our Amazels Empire. John, what did we learn today? Well, I mean, the most important thing we learned by far is about omegles. Right, we also learned that apparently there's something either genetic or habitual that it makes both John and Hank really like to be in closets alone. We learned that John and Hank will both be wearing costumes on October 31st at the Turtles Tour in San Francisco. Hank, what was your phrase the week? Can I guess? You can guess. Was it mm-hmm? Because you said that like 12 times. Ha ha ha. No, apparently that's just a new verbal tick I have.

Okay, what was it? It was, come hell or high water. Oh man. I should have gotten that. All right, what was mine? It's snuck it in right at the end. I'm guessing got the short straw? No, no.

It was not, although it could have been. It was fool was fools errand and I snuck it in right at the beginning I shouldn't I shouldn't caught that Yeah, yeah, well there you go Hank and I are getting better at this game so much better It's almost impossible to catch us at this point. Yeah, all mind stopped paying fun. We're gonna have to pick some harder phrases. Hank, thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. You can email us at Hank and John at gmail.com or find us on Twitter where I am John Green.

Hank is Hank Green. You can also find us on patreon.com slash deer, Hank and John. We're gonna go record our Patreon exclusive podcast this weekend, Ryan's right now. But in the meantime, thanks again for listening and for all of your wonderful questions. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins, produced by Rosiana Halsey-Rohas and Sheridan Gibson. Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjorno, who keeps making fun of

me, forgetting her title run. So I did it right this time. And our theme music is by the great Gunnarola and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.