Dear Hank & John - 122: The Last Brand Deal

Episode Date: January 8, 2018

Am I too young to be self-supervised? Can I throw away my dead grandmother's sponges? How do I make a personal retirement PowerPoint for Rick? And more! Email us: [e-mail] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John! Gores, I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast for two brothers answer your question, give you the DBS advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, how are you? I'm very, very cold. Uh, it's unfathomably cold here in Indianapolis at the moment. And even though this podcast won't go up for a few days, it will still be cold when the podcast goes up. Hank,

I've been living near the White River for many years now. This is the first time I've ever seen the White River not only freeze completely over, but in fact, there are deer tracks that go from one side of the white river to the other, indicating to me that a deer very likely survived the traversing of the white river, indicating to me that I could potentially survive such a traversing and I could go visit my neighbors across the river, but I'm not going to attempt that because it's too cold to even go outside let alone risk falling into a river you just i mean you could just you could just travel that way you could go get yourself a dog

sled and just just yeah shoot on down the white river um it's colder in mizoula than it is in indianapolis though i guess that's probably not no no no no no no no surprise to to anyone no No, no, no, no, no. It's like 17 today in Missoula. According to the Google I just Googled, it's 21 in Indianapolis. No. Sheridan, do you think that right now,

outside it is 21 degrees? No way. No, it is like two at the very most. It is between zero and two right now. Are you counting the windshield and also the Indian Apple star website? No, no, no. The worst place I've ever been. Hey, don't make fun of the Indian Apple star website.

I've written for them before. It also, apparently, according to Google, it's snowing. And then I looked outside and indeed it is snowing. So that is a surprise because I was told that it was not gonna snow today And I wish that I had not driven my car that can't drive in the snow and now I don't know what to do and I'm a little bit upset I don't know how to proceed Hey, it's dark difficult times. That's all I'm telling you like advice on how to be cold Because I've been a negative 20.

It happens every year. Yes. And then the windshield will tack onto that another couple of minus 10 or 15. And then you're real, it's just not a good way to be. All right, yeah, tell me how to be cold, Hank. All right, so step one, put on your gloves before you put on your coat

because there will be a better seal between your gloves and your coat that way because you can't get your gloves to go over your coat. You want your coat to go over your gloves. Step two. What if I don't own gloves? Step one, step 0.5, get gloves and a hat and coat. You don't own gloves?

No, not really. I mean, I always have gloves, but then I've always lost one or I can't find one of them and then I go outside and with one hand stuffed in a pocket and the other hand with a glove, so I'm just sort of, you know what? I'm just navigating the world that way. One of the things that I found out when I moved to Montana 15 years ago was that having your hands out in the cold is unpleasant. But if you then touch something with your bare hand

and it is below zero Fahrenheit, you have actually injured yourself. So if you touch something metal, when it, like the heat from your hand is instantaneously gone and like you are actually in trouble now. This is a very important thing to note. Like, it's very different to have your hand out in the cold air than to have your hand touching

a cold piece of metal, which will happen if you touch like your door or your doorknob or a flag, I don't know what you're touching, that's metal, your snow shovelhovel, like don't touch that without your leather gloves on. And that is a very important lesson that I learned the hard way. Well, Hank, I just wanna tell you one thing right now,

which is that yesterday it was colder in Indianapolis than it was on the South Pole. Mm. Or possibly at the South Pole. I'm not an expert in prepositions. Well, it is. It is. It is something you just said. On the South Pole. Or possibly at the South Pole. I'm not an expert in prepositions. Well, it is. It is. It is something you just said.

It sounds like really, really good advice. Yeah, but it's the South Pole. Everything you said sounds like really good advice. The issue I guess I have with your advice, and I know that this is an advice podcast, and we should get to the advice portion quickly, but the only question I have about your advice is why I have no,

I'm not gonna go outside for longer than like a minute. Like I'm gonna take out the trash. Other than that, I'm gonna hunker down and wait for this to end. Well, if you live in a place like Missoula Montana, where the sun starts to go down at 4.30 and that, and it often doesn't come up at all because we only have 120 days of sunshine a year. It's very important to your health to go outside, even if outside is very bad for your health.

So Hank, as you know, I've been trying to go outside more, but right now I'm just not gonna do it. Rather than get a pair of gloves, I think I'm just gonna wait this out. Let's get to some questions from our listeners. You're taking the most dangerous possible course. This first question, in one way I'm taking the most dangerous, but it seems to be the most dangerous possible course would be to take off all of my clothes and walk outside.

I mean, not wearing gloves is basically the same as being nude. I mean, I'd like to see a randomized control trial on not wearing gloves when it's zero degrees outside versus standing outside nude when it's zero degrees outside. I'd love to see, I'm not sure how you'd make a double blind randomized control trial because I feel like the placebo would be pretty hard. I feel it'd be pretty hard for people to know

whether they were nude. Or I feel like it'd be pretty hard for people not to know whether they were nude. Or I feel it could be pretty hard for people not to know whether they were nude, but I'm pretty sure science would be with me on this one. But let's move on. This first question comes from Justin, who asks, dear Hank and John, are hamsters, hamsters?

Are hamsters able to live outside in the wild? Where would such a majestical creature be found? This just did. Just did. You got the answer to this, Hank? I do, yeah. Syria. Yeah, along other places in that part of the world.

But yeah, the hamsters that we have came from a single breeding pair that was brought to the US from Syria. Yeah, which is, yeah. And it's called the Syrian hamster. They dig very deep burrows. Their burrows can be like 20 or 30 feet deep, because it's pretty hot. And so they dig 20 or 30 feet down just to get nice and comfortable,

which might be why hamsters tend to like those very long tunnels that are just slightly larger than themselves. Yeah, no, yeah, that's exactly why. That's why they are encouraged. You are encouraged as a hamster owner to get the most tunnels because they feel at home in them. Jerbos. Wait, let me back up quick.

Did you just say that they came from a single breeding pair from Syria? Yeah, and not only did they come from a single breeding pair from Syria, the breeding pair was a brother's sister pair. Whoa. Wait, so there's an Adam and Eve of like American hamsters? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 100%.

And they've done studies to see if this is like problematic, but it turns out that they are wild, genetically distinct, and different from native wild hamsters. They are okay. They seem to be just fine. So apparently, maybe they had some good systems for dealing with inbreeding already genetically. I don't know. Wait, so if we went down to two humans,

which I think, that would be bad. By the way, happy new year. And I think we all know that 2018 is the year where it's 50-50, whether we go down to two humans. If we went down to two humans, would that be like a medium size problem or a big problem? I'm pretty sure it would be a big problem, but I couldn't tell you.

I've only read people saying that that would be a big problem. I have not read why people have said that would be a big problem. Okay. Yeah. I wouldn't say that. Well, let's just hope that the half of outcomes in the weird corner of the multiverse in which we find ourselves were more than two humans survived the year. Let's hope that we're in that half. It is really weird to me to think about wild hamsters and gerbals.

Like they're so intrinsically pet animals to me. Yeah. That it's, but in some places in the world, they're basically just squirrels, right? They're basically just ground squirrels, the version that they have there. Jerbels are actually endangered in their native habitat of Mongolia, where they are a crop pest.

Yeah, I would imagine that they're a crop pest. To be fair, and I know that I'm gonna alienate a lot of our listeners, I'm not crazy about gerbils. Why not? It's an interesting question. Like at what point, like if an animal showed up in your house, at what point do you treat it like a pet? Like, if a puppy showed up at my house tomorrow, I'd be like, all right, you can stay, but

like if a raccoon, this has actually happened recently, showed up in my attic, I wouldn't be like, all right, you can stay, but like if a raccoon, this has actually happened recently, showed up in my attic. I wouldn't be like, oh, here's some food and water and let's make a go of it together, you know? So at what point, I feel like if it was a hamster, I might be able to be like, all right, you're my pet now, but if it was a gerbil, I might be like, I'm gonna need you to do your best out there outside in Indianapolis.

The negative 20 degree Indianapolis. I don't understand why a gerbil and a hamster would be different in that regard. Is it because? Yeah, I mean, I can't explain it myself. I think gerbils are just a little too big for me. They're small, they're small with a hamster Maybe I'm not imagining a jury. I am imagining a guinea pig

Not that I have googled a gerbil They also are not welcome because they look too much like mice. They do have long tails Which makes them look a little mousy. But I had jiggles when we first moved to Montana, and I liked them a lot. We named them Mongolian names, because that's where they're from. Oh, well, that's sweet. What happened to them?

They died of natural causes. Well, that is, I guess, the best way to go. This next question comes from Ricker, who writes, dear John and Hank, my grandmother died this year. That's really, we're going back to our root tank, all death all the time. And when we were going through her things, not wanting to be wasteful,

I took an unopened packet of sponges. They're not special sponges or anything, but my question is, should I treat them differently from normal sponges? It feels odd just to throw out these mementos of my grandmother when they get brown and gross, but I mean, they're literally just sponges. It feels odd just to throw out these mementos of my grandmother when they get brown and gross, but I mean they're literally just sponges. Am I being disrespectful of the dead? Candy is dandy, but I'll always be quicker.

Ricker. Ah, that's good. I like that there's a person named Ricker in the world. Me too. I, it's, I mean this is up to you, Ricker. It's how you feel about your sponges, but I think that you've made the decision, which is that they're sponges. And there are other mementos of your grandmother that are important to you,

and that you're gonna hold on to, and that you're not gonna get brown in here. That's not in the, that is not in the question. That is not in the dimensions. At no point is it established, maybe like, it was one of those situations where everybody was in the house and there were a lot of grandchildren and all Ricker got with sponges. In which case, you do have to keep the sponges.

Yeah, I don't know though. I mean, at what point, like, at some point, imagine like, over the court, I assume Ricker's fairly young, but imagine over the course of Ricker's life, imagine that every time someone Ricker knows, dies, Ricker, and I hope you don't feel like this is a disrespectful Ricker, but I'm just trying to play out the possibilities here. Every time someone Ricker knows dies, Ricker goes into the kitchen of the deceased person, immediately goes underneath the sink, grabs the sponges, and that's Ricker's thing. Everybody knows, like, oh, you know, Grandpa died. My great aunt Sally Sue died.

Like, the sponge for Ricker. Everybody knows that, you know, we can split stuff up the way we want to, but Ricker gets the sponges. I mean, I have a concern, which is that like, if and when you cohabitate with anyone ever,

they're gonna open those sponges. Unless you keep them in somewhere very, very good and obvious, unless you get like a shadow box for your sponges. Yeah. People are not gonna think to treat your sponge collection with respect because of how they're sponge. What I liked about this question, Hank, is that it gets it something weird about humans,

which is that we associate artifacts with their history. And this is true of anything, by the way. Costume jewelry becomes far more valuable to us when it's our grandmother's costume jewelry, then when it's just something that you can buy at a party supply store. Yeah, I mean, you don't have to ask me this to me, John. I get, I get like sentimentally attached to a rock if I kick it more than three times.

I feel the exact same way. That fourth time you kick a rock, you think to yourself, well, I better pick this up and put it in my rock collection. And then you put it in your rock collection, and you look at it, at least for me, I literally have a rock collection. I look at my rock collection. And then you put it in your rock collection and you look at it, at least for me, I literally have a rock collection. I look at my rock collection. I'm like, I wonder where all these rocks come from. I have no memory of any of them. Yeah. Well, and it is important to note that kind of all value stems from humans assigning the value to the thing. So that's, that doesn't mean that that value doesn't exist. It is just as real as all other value. Exactly, that's why I'm saying like,

you can have a sponge that is incredibly meaningful and important to you. And so I think the call is yours, Ricker. Like when you look at that sponge, do you think like this sponge brings back wonderful memories? And this will be a great story to tell my grandchildren someday about their great, great grandmother. Or do you say like, you know,

Nanny would have wanted me to use these sponges quickly and efficiently and thoroughly, which is what, like when I think about my own grandmothers, I feel like both of them would not have wanted us to remember them via the sponges. What do you have from your grandparents, Hank? Do you hold on to anything? I've got a few tools from Papa's Tool Shed,

old, cool things, like with this thing that measures how many rotations something would have rotated if you stick it in. I don't know what that would be used for, but I think that it's pretty cool. I've got it elephant from dad's dad. I've got some Christmas ornaments from nanny. That kind of thing. Yeah, I've mostly kept Christmas ornaments because they do have a big sentimental value in our home.

Although in many cases, the Christmas ornaments with the most sentimental value in our home. Although in many cases, the Christmas ornaments with the most sentimental value are the weirdest Christmas ornaments and people are always like, where did you get that from? And I'm like, oh, well, it's a long sad story. And then they're like, tell it. And I'm like, okay, but it's really sad. And then at the end, they're like, well, that was sad.

And I'm like, I don't know what I taught. Hmm. Next question. This next question, John, it comes from Maria, and we're going to stick to the theme. When someone is buried at sea, do they make the coffin heavy so it sinks to the bottom or do they leave it to float along the surface?

I need to know because I'm thinking that I would quite like to be buried at sea, although I am scared of the sea and of death. Ave Maria. That's a good name specific sign off. Yeah, I do not know the answer to this. I have to say I am not an expert in burial at sea and it is something that I have wanted very much

to avoid if it all possible. Yeah, you're burial at land. What do you know about burial? You're looking for a burial at land. That's sort of your plan, correct? Yeah, I'm looking for whatever a burial or a cremation at land, and then I would like to have a headstone regardless of whether my body is actually there.

I'm a big fan of headstones. I like visiting the headstones of our relatives. So yeah, that would be my ideal situation. It's not super important to me because I, of course, will not be present. Right. I find the phrase burial at sea, which is very clearly the phrase a little funny

because burying does seem to indicate some amount of digging. That has not happened with burial at sea, but I did look up some amount of digging. That has not happened with burying. Let's see, but I did look up some specifics of burying. Let's see, and you can be buried at sea. The laws are different from state to state, but in the United States, you can be buried at sea as long as you get to some place where it's more than 600 feet deep and more than three miles offshore, something like that.

You might want to look at it as specifics. You're considering this. And sometimes you need a funeral director present and sometimes you do not, but you do need to be in a metal coffin, that will sink. And that is also the case for the Navy when they are burying people at sea. They do their best to put them in a box

that is not gonna float because that would be, probably just a boat at sea, then you would just be in a death boat and you'd probably end up somewhere eventually. What about the Viking thing where they just put you on a tiny little boat and then they burn the boat? Right. I mean there's a little bit of a mix there. You know you get a little bit of both.

It does seem like you don't want a super tiny boat. You need a boat that's going to get hot enough so that it's just not, and I don't wanna get too into specifics here, but you want the pieces to be mostly unrecognizable if they show back up somewhere after having been washed around in the ocean. Sure, okay, well, I still wanna avoid it. Right, no, I would like to have a tree or something.

I don't know, I feel like I'm getting, more interested in as you have said, a place for people to go to. But I, yeah. I, and I like cemeteries. I just don't know if they're, if we recreated the idea from scratch, which of course is not how humans do things, and

so I don't expect this to happen. I don't know that we would end up with cemeteries. It might be something more, like at this point, a little more friendly and inviting than I feel like a cemetery can be sometimes. I don't know. I think it all depends. So I didn't tell you this, Hank, but this is an amazing true fact. A few days ago, Rosiana forwarded an email that came into my public-facing email address

from the sales team at our local cemetery here in Indianapolis. I don't want to mess up the name. Is it like a preorder? I think she want a preorder, your death spot? Yeah, I don't want to mess up the name of the team that she worked on, so I'm just going to make sure I read it. My name is Redacted and I am an advanced planning advisor at Cemetery Name Redacted, Advanced Planning Advisor. I mean, I guess there's sort of like two kinds

of salespeople, right? There's the advanced planning salespeople who try to get out ahead of the issue by like years or decades. And then there's the, you know, post planning advisors. I don't know. I don't know what their team is called. The rush team. Oh God. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, I was like, huh, I guess I am now of an age where it feels not that weird for somebody to email me cold and say, have you considered where you would like your eternal remains to be buried? And if not, how about our cemetery? John, it is home to more dead-vice presidents than any other location on earth was that was that part of the pitch? Oh, no, it's just something I know about that cemetery

Indiana has a really strong history of producing vice presidents who don't become president It's like a weirdly it's not to say that that's going to happen with Mike Pence However, like Indiana has produced Dan Quail. So many, and Dan Quail, by the way, is not even dead. So when he does die, I assume who will be buried at Crown Hill Cemetery. It's down to the list. And then there will be yet one more vice president

who never became president, buried at Crown Hill Cemetery. Yeah, you got to have a crown Hill Cemetery. Yeah, I was gonna redact the name of the cemetery, but then I guess I decided not to. Ha, ha, ha, ha. I mean, well, you did give a telling fact. uh... yeah i would i was gonna redact the name of the cemetery but then i guess i decided not to i mean well you you did give up uh... telling fact is we're gonna talk about the vice president people can look it up if they want to the the question yeah can i just can i just give you a little list sure of of dead vice presidents that are

at crown hill cemetery yes alright hit me vice presidents President Charles W. Fairbanks, Thomas A. Hendrix, and Thomas R. Marshall are all buried at Crown Hill. Wow, I would not have been able to tell you that those were definitely people. Oh, I mean, none of them are even remotely famous vice presidents. Thomas A. Hendrix was vice president for Grover Cleveland. Charles W. Fairbanks was vice president for Teddy Roosevelt for a bit from 1905 to 1909. And I don't, the other one I don't

even know. Well, you've also got a president, John, at Crown Hill Cemetery. Possibly. Sure. The least, like if you were going to name them, my guess would be that this would be of the world naming presidents, the last on the list that of people would would remember. Old Ben, Benjamin. No way. That all Benjamin, anybody knew the last name of a president named Benjamin Harrison. A Harrison, Benjamin Harrison. I believe he's the only president, Ben. I believe you are correct that he is the only president, Ben. Proceeded and succeeded by Grover Cleveland.

That's right. He was in the, he was the meat in a Grover Cleveland sandwich. Which is something that we all should strive to be. God, I mean, who, very few people have ever been so lucky. Oh, my God. As soon as I was like, I have to say these words now. I don't know why, but I'm going to say them. Benjamin Harrison is not even one of the 10

worst American presidents. I'm not saying he's bad. I'm saying he's forgettable because he's from Indianapolis, which is where it's just i think i think that by spiked like unsuccessful vice presidents are are often from indianapolis in the same way that like you know you want you want to represent american indianapolis is where all the chain restaurants go to try out their first try because it's basically just

just distilled America down there. That's right. Do you want to know something interesting, Hank? When we have the next president, he said, hopefully, if there is another president of the United States, that will be the moment when Benjamin Harrison becomes the exact middle president by number. Maybe that's why I'm so forgettable, because he's just smack in the middle.

Like we got the history and we got the, the recent, but the middle is just like, I don't know what's going on. And he was a one in terms, he said that he was a one term president and very, very average and slightly corrupt. president and very, very average and slightly corrupt. But more successful than the three other people who served in the executive branch of the U.S. government who are buried in Crown Hill because all of them never became president. Hey, let's move on to another question before I have to contemplate my mortality any further. Is this one going to be not about death?

This question is not about death, Hank. Okay. It is about the death of one's career. It comes from Molly, and the question is, dear John and Hank, I just started my new graphic design job last month, and as part of the graphics team, it's my job to create the retirement power point for a long time employee. I don't know anything about this guy, or how to make a personable retirement power point,

especially since this is my first job I barely know how to start much less retire Do you be a advice requested at your earliest convenience never ordinary always a nom Molly? I know Molly. I get it. I have I know. Molly. Why is this even a thing that is a job? I can normally. Why is this even a thing that is a job? Everything about this situation is a disaster. First off, how unpopular must this long time employee be that everyone was like,

oh God, who's gonna make the PowerPoint for Rick? Oh, I know, we can make Molly do it. She's brand new. Instead of being like, oh, I'd love to do it. Rick's an old friend of mine. It's like the ultimate insult. Yeah, I mean, it's like, oh, I'd love to do it. Rick's an old friend of mine. It's like the ultimate insult. Like, it's like, hey, you gotta ask around, I guess. You gotta get people to send you some pictures of Rick,

maybe find Rick's Facebook or at least, as LinkedIn and be like, okay, how long's Rick been with the company? What of his job titles? I don't, you gotta, what are you supposed to do? You can't give this job to a person. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like all it's that they open being,

like it's my wife's anniversary. Could you make us like a really heartfelt video that'd be great, all of it. Since you're fifth to fuck. Can you please put a PowerPoint together? I, here's what I would do in this situation, because Molly, I don't think this is a great work environment. I'm gonna be honest with you.

I think you need to move on from this job, and I think the best way to say goodbye to this job is via a really hilarious retirement power point for Rick. So I think the background music has to be when beneath my wings. Did you ever know that you're my hero? And I think it all just has to be fading in and out of the same picture of Rick,

that's just his work ID picture, just fade in. And it's Rix ID picture and then you do that slow fade out and then it's like, what's the next slide gonna be? Oh, Rix, oh no, it's Rix ID picture again and it's the whole, did you ever know that you're my hero? And then the last, I know I can, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I get the last frame?

Cause I got a great idea for the last frame? Yes, the last frame. Yes, you do the last frame. It fades can, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I, can I,, underneath that inscript, it says like Rick 1964 to 2018. I was like, he died. Yeah, like he died, exactly like he died. Like he died and he left behind this photo. This work ID with a bald eagle. It's beautiful, Molly, and you will never have to make another retirement PowerPoint as long as you are a person working at this company. I just have to say I appreciate Rick's long-term dedication to the company and if you can find a way to do that, do it, but I don't know how to do it. Without like being like Rick, I have to get to know you real quick.

Tell me about your mom. Tell me about your family. Tell me about, like how did you get this job? Where did you start my man? What did you want to be? Tell me about that summer when you are a commercial fisherman in Alaska. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing you might do is like ask Rick about all the things that he wanted to do other than the career he ended up having and then like Photoshop Rick into those jobs so that Rick can imagine like what it would have been like if he'd made it to Major League Baseball or whatever because I find that that's always something something you want to make people feel upon their retirement. This is such a terrible job to have been given.

It is so highly inappropriate on every level and And I hope, by the way, Hank, PS, I hope that when I retire from Complexly, that there is no frickin' PowerPoint at my retirement party, also that there is no retirement party at my retirement party. Can everyone just please give me five dollars? Thank you very much. That's a wonderful party. John. Or make a donation to a charity in my name without having me to be physically present for anything. Yeah, John Yes, can we answer the question that we got the most this episode which is what do I do with the present that I was given that I did not want? Why do we still do presents? Oh, I mean, it is a disaster from macroeconomic standpoint.

I mean, why do we try to pick what people want when they can just tell us? Like, we had Liz, who was it Liz? Who got the KCD maker? Yeah, somebody got a KCD. What a terrible present. I don't want to criticize Liz's mom for getting her a KCD maker.

But like, and I also don't want to criticize other people who maybe got KCD a makers or gave them for Christmas. What a ludicrous Christmas present. Of all the things that can be made without a specific appliance for the job. KCDs have to be very near the top of the list. The other thing is that like, this first of all, it's not Liz, it's Nutmeg.

I don't know why I said Liz. It's like, the thing that Nutmeg liked doing is making case ideas. And so somebody was like, Liz is like, that's not Liz. Somebody was like, Nutmeg loves making case ideas. So let's get Nutmeg a case dea maker. What? No. I liked making case ideas. I don't need to have that step taken out.

I'm good at it, the way that I'm good at it. And I like it the way that I'm doing it. There's just too many things, John. And it's so hard to come up with good presence for people. The McElroy's were talking on their last episode about having a special golden acorn that you give to someone. Instead of giving them a present to be like, here,

I don't know, I don't know. It's just, I don't know. I got nothing. Here's a golden acorn, and that's the present now. And you can give that golden acorn to somebody else and just pass them around and be like, I thought about you, which is all we really are trying to say. Right.

I got, actually, though I have to say, I got really good presents from you in Catherine and I did think to myself, like, Hank and Catherine really thought about what I would want this year, and the particularity and specificity of those presents was really pleasant for me. I got a Indy 500 program from 1974, which was really cool.

It was really cool to read through that, and it's just like, anybody who knows me knows how much I like the Indy 500, and then I got, I can't remember what else but it was something else And you gave me a signed Edition like a signed first edition of Caleb West master diver which kids are real West master diver to classic weird thing to have found and I don't even know how you found it And it's amazing to me that it even existed and it is a now prized possession luckily

I have an unsigned, unfirst edition copy that I can actually read. Yeah, nobody knows what Caleb Westmaster diver is, Hank. Oh, I think we talked about it. What I don't know where we've talked about it, but Caleb Westmaster diver was the most popular book of like 1896 in America, like the top book in the world,

or in America, and of course everyone has now forgotten what it is, but it's a book about a guy building a lighthouse in New England, and it's really astonishing. Is not Caleb West. No, yeah, no. Caleb West is the diver that this guy employs. He's basically like a general contractor,

and he works with a bunch of very hard working American men on building a lighthouse, and they all have very good skills and they never complain about anything except like occasionally the wind. Right. It's a story of American industrialization in an age where the idea of building a lighthouse was so incredibly exciting that you could sell two million books just writing a book about it where nothing else happens. Yeah, I mean, there's like a love interest kind of and so on.

But yes, mostly there's a lighthouse being built. And the writer, Francis Hopkins and Smith, actually built White Houses, and you can see one of them, race rock lighthouse is probably his best lighthouse. It's very cool. Yeah, what a gentleman of the patron actually. We'll put race rock lighthouse on the patron.

He also built The the base of the statue of liberty before becoming the best-selling novelist of the 1890s in the United States Fascinating character Francis Hopkins and Smith he lived he lived a thousand lives He was one of those people who lived a bunch of different lives He was also one of the most famous visual artists of his time. And now his paintings are in the permanent collection of many of America's leading museums. And yet his paintings in private sales sell for only a few hundred dollars because he is so completely forgotten. Anyway, I don't know how we got on that topic. It's almost as if we've been learning an awful lot about Francis Hopkins in Smith for a potential project that we are thinking about it

We're thinking about it. I still don't think we've quite pulled the trigger yet, but we're thinking about it Anyway, Hank, I want to get to this question really quickly if you don't mind it's from pre who writes dear John and Hank I moved into my new apartment in Sydney about three months ago. Well, that was your first mistake Pre everybody knows that if you live in Australia or New Zealand you should live in New Zealand because it has no natural predators. The thing that I'm always concerned about is natural predators. That's my main concern, not like commute time or weather, but whether or not something might bite me. That is exactly my main concern. Anyway, the apartment's really cute and quirky, and I have a lovely housemate, but every so often I hear some sort of animal

on my roof through the bathroom vents. Again, this would not be a problem in New Zealand. Now I am concerned, okay. It sounds like a possum, but it could also be a giant rat. I mean, why do you think that those are mutually exclusive? A possum is a giant rat, anyway. This one time I kept some cooked bacon in my bathroom to lure it to my vents to take a look at what it was, but it last my experiment was

unsuccessful. It sounds really cute and I want to see it, but I cannot. Any suggestion? What kind of person hears and... Hold on John. Yeah. Hold on John. Yeah. Possums are different in Australia. Are they really? And they're cuter. Wait, let me Google Australian Possum. I mean, they're not cute. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

Hey, whoa, there's not that. That's a disaster. But it's better than an American Possum, which just looks like. No, no, no. Hard to. Look at the babies. No. Google Baby Australian Possum. Baby Australianum and then you'll be like oh

Yes, please give me to no no no no No, I like the size of the rest there had I mean I am this all this makes me love New Zealand ever more is there let me go down We Google New Zealand possum that there isn't one But there is oh dang it there is there is one. It let me Google New Zealand possum that there isn't one. I think that there is. Oh dang it there is there is one it's the common brush tail possum. It's the same possum yeah it's the same possum. It's swam from Australia to New Zealand that's a no it was

introduced by European set of tank European settlers. That's right ruining everything. They're all over the place they used to be nowhere but in the last 30 years they've gotten everywhere. Of course, of course. Well, pre, what I would do in this situation is just move. I do like your openness to the possibility here that it is something that you might quite like to see. I like that you think that the animal crawling around in your vents sounds really cute. I does not really usually how I respond to the sound of an unknown intruder in my home.

But I do like that perspective. I like that you think you hear something adorable and that you don't think, man, I wonder if that is a boa constrictor. There was at our old office, a man living between the floors. Yeah, I remember that. There was like a 13 and a half floor issue, like in being John Malkovich. My feeling about this pre is that if you're the kind of person

who's not totally freaked out in this situation and you think it's great and you're putting bacon there for this guest, like you are of a kind, you're a kind of like hardcore and open to the world that I will never be. And so I can't give you advice on this topic because you're so far outside the realm of anything that I can understand. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by really amazing Australians, amazing Australians, unafraid of possums. This podcast is also brought to you by Ricker's Dead Person Sponge Collection. It's just a bunch of dead people's sponges.

And this podcast is also brought to you by Hamsters, Ham they just they just want to be twenty feet under the ground and also this podcast is brought to you by john's sad christmas tree ornaments uh... you did probably didn't want to ask for that story did you know no pancliffe answer one more question before we get to the all important news from mars and a fc winbledon alright john this question comes from chrisa who asks dear hankin john i'm twenty two years old and i've recently taken a job where my primary responsibility is to plan a series of four hour long events four times a year. These events are aimed at nurturing the startup ecosystem in my country, the Philippines.

And I'm privileged to have the support of more prominent people and the tech and startup community, but they are not required to help me, and they essentially get nothing out of helping me. I also have no supervisor and no one I am directly reporting to. No one is telling me what to do or what to aim for. I feel like I want to enjoy my job because it sounds like so much fun to be able to self-supervised, but I have no key performance indicators. It's great that you're using the lingo to know if I'm doing well or if I'm behind. I fear that I may be too young to be left unsupervised. Any dubious advice on my situation would be incredibly appreciated remembering to be

awesome. Chrisah. This is a great question and I appreciate it and I also appreciate somebody dumping this much responsibility on you and saying, figure it out. It's not great management, but sometimes that is the path that sort of like that bit of a trial by fire to be like, you're going to learn a lot really quickly and it may not produce the best result and it may not be the most pleasant thing, but you are going to learn a lot. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, I think you've got to, for lack of a better term, lean in to that

lack of supervision and just understand that you're not going to be perfect at this to start. I always try to tell myself whenever I'm doing something new that I never have the expectation that like my children are going to be amazing at something the first time they try it. I'm never like, oh, Alice, you're about to get on ice skates. You will be at the Olympics next month, right? Like, I put Alice on ice skates and she falls down a bunch and then she starts to fall down less and then she starts to get going.

And, you know, pretty soon she can skate forwards. And I think you have to have that same set of expectations. And if the people you work with are giving you this kind of opportunity, like you've got to treat it as a warning experience rather than being like, oh God, all the things that I do wrong are gonna be, you know, it's gonna end my career or whatever.

It's hard to do that, but I find, like it sounds silly, but talking to myself the way I would talk to my children or someone else that I care about and love is helpful. Yeah, I think also putting things into bite-sized chunks, trying to make a list of things that you actually want to get done. If you're having some pushback from the people that you need to be supporting you, so you have people in the tech and startup community that you want to be supporting you. So you have people in the tech and start up community

that you're gonna be wanna be featuring and you want them to be having useful and interesting conversations. It's almost like I think about events a lot. So I probably have a lot of specific advice for this specific question. But you're gonna wanna give those people opportunities to feel really cool and important.

And it might to you seem like, of course they feel that way, but I bet you that oftentimes they don't and they want those opportunities to have to be meaningful in their world and to be put on something of a pedestal and to have opportunities to say the stuff that they have learned and to inspire people. I think that if you can find the stuff that motivates people to actually get up on stage and lend you a little bit of their expertise, that's really what is sort of the key to unlocking this. And that might mean learning a lot about them individually. It also might be learning

about sort of how people talk about and get excited about entrepreneurialism, which probably means listening to lots of entrepreneurial podcasts and reading up on whatever all those things are and sort of like getting a little bit obsessed with it and driving your brain into that world. And that's a lot to ask and it's a lot of new information to synthesize all at once. So I appreciate you taking on a hard

thing and I know I have both been in the situation and put people in the situation where you feel too young to be left unsupervised and it can be a really great experience and it can be a really great experience, and it can be a really hard one, though. So thanks for your question. All right, Hank, let's move on to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. If you don't mind, I'll go first. All right.

Okay, Hank. So, the Christmas period is very busy. The Christmas and New Year period, very busy for English soccer teams. There is no holiday break. In the span of eight days, Wimbledon played four league one games, which is a lot. And from those four games, they emerged with seven points,

which is great. That is really not half bad. They beat South End United 2-0, with goals from actually stunningly non-strikers. Two of our first non-striker goals of the season from Liam Trotter and Tom Sores. That 2-0 victory, by the way, matches AFC Wimbledon's biggest win of the year.

So yeah, then they got a 2-2 draw at Gillingham. Fighting back, it must be said. Fighting back, They were down, they were down in that game twice and fought back for a two-two draw goals from Harry Forester and penalty from the Montserrat again, Messi-Lyle Taylor. And then before that, they lost to Portsmouth and then before that, they beat Bradford City 2.1, which is probably the best win of the year so far for Wimbledon. Bradford City are up there at the top in the world. And so we have a great game for the first time in

the world. And so we have a great game for the first time in the world. And so we have a great game for the first time in the world. And so we have a great

game for the first time in the world. And so we have a great game for the first time in the world. And so we have a great game for the first time in the world. And so weFC Wimbledon are currently still in the League One relegation zone there in 21st place, 27 points after 25 games.

In order to stay up, Wimbledon are probably going to need like 51, maybe 52 points. So we've got 21 games left to play and from those 21 games we need 24 or 25 points. So eight wins from 20 games. It's possible. It's going to be, it's stressful. Hank, there's no getting around it. It's a very stressful situation even with 21 games to go, but hopefully this good run of form will continue and We'll be okay. Well, I mean it seems like things are going I Mean that that's good, right? You're yeah, yeah If we score if we get seven points from every four games that we play for the rest of the season will stay up comfortably

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but it won't be more than that. You won't be like in the mid or anything. You know, the one of the weird things about this season in League One is that AFC Wimbledon despite being currently in the relegation zone are only six points away from being in 11th. Right.

But, I mean, frankly, to be completely honest with you, do I care if we finish 19th or 11th? I do not. It should also be noted that the franchise currently applying its trade in Milton Keynes is in 19th and Wimbledon are only two points off of Milton Keynes, which is interesting in terms of events and that is our next league game We'll be playing them away, but before then and actually after this but This game will have already happened by the time the podcast is uploaded this weekend is our big

Moneyball game against uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh currently undefeated at Wembley, never been beaten at Wembley. That made that made change on Saturday, but currently never been beaten at Wembley. And I am taking a lot of hope. It's taught them to play a ton of football in the last week and a half. And they haven't looked that good. They look tired. I think they're going to rest some of their stars. And I feel a miracle coming. All right, John. Well, I'll be watching sports with John on Twitter to see what happens. And thank you to my phone for always keeping me updated now

on my news page with the scores. Because these days, I always know how things are going. John, Mars News. Yes. So some researchers just wrote a paper. It's a sort of a white paper, it's kind of thing in the journal Nature Geoscience, which is a really big scientific journal. The different way, like the way that we imagine how, where life would be and how to find

evidence of life is very different if you really wanna think about how life might work on Mars. So, like, photosynthesis, of course, is what drives the vast majority of life on Earth. You either are getting energy from the sun or you're getting energy from things that got energy from the sun and you're getting energy from things

that got energy from things that got energy from the sun. Like, it energy from things that got energy from things that are that got energy from the sun like it's just that's how the cascade works and There's very there is some what they call chemosynthesis where you take Chemicals that have energy in them and you go straight from the chemistry into the life and that happens like deep sea vents and stuff into the life, and that happens like deep sea vents and stuff. But almost all of its photosynthesis, and so we're sort of used to photosynthesis like life. And that's life that needs to be on the surface

in order to get access to the sun. But on Mars, one, it seems that there are a number of potential chemosynthesis candidates. There's a lot of hydrogen. There's a lot of maybe hydrogen sulfide, and that stuff can be synthesized by bacteria into useful energy that they can then use to like continue to be alive. So those things seem to exist. And also the surface of Mars is not a great place. There's no atmosphere, there hasn't been an atmosphere for a long time. There's no magnetic field, so it's constantly being bombarded by a high energy solar particles, and so that can really mess up any life forms strategies for self-replication and such.

So, the thing that these researchers are saying in nature geoscience is, these writers are, these researchers are saying and nature geoscience is like, probably if we're gonna look for, like really look for life on Mars and this is a pressing question because Mars gonna be sending the 2020 rover fairly soon and that's sort of one of the first missions that has the express purpose of, we're gonna actually try and look for life on Mars

rather than more geology-based missions like what curiosity's been doing. Then this matters a lot. And if it's just gonna be like collecting rocks from the surface and doing science on those rocks and maybe even collecting them for later return to Earth in a sample return mission, then like if you're just picking from the surface,

you're probably not gonna find a lab because it's a pretty harsh place. And so they're encouraging maybe like looking at, can we be looking like in collecting samples and also analyzing samples from what are called mineralized fracture zones, and I'm gonna quote now. These would be places where there was fluid flow in the crust and where you get mixing between different fluids from different sources that have potentially

different concentration, concentrations of important elements as well as dissolved hydrogen, which is a potential source of energy for microbes. So like cracks in the crust where water may have been coming from above, but also ground water would be mixing and bringing energy in the form of these chemosynthesis candidates to potential life that would be looking to continue surviving using chemical energy. So that's what they're looking at, and I don't know that this is like, it does seem to be like if we're gonna be finding life on Mars, that there's also some heat left. It would appear inside of Mars,

so that heat, like just sort of the way that, you know, Earth obviously has a lot of heat on the inside of it, that heat is less there on Mars, because it's a smaller planet, and it has, it's a lot easier to cool off if you're a smaller thing. But it seems like there's still some geothermal heat which could be melting water, which could be meaning it's a good chemical soups down there for interesting things to happen. But what we are learning is if we don't find life on Mars, it's not gonna mean that there is no life on Mars. There is going to be a lot of looking for a long, long time.

Mm, that's really interesting. Yeah, I mean, it is very strange to think about, and this is something I've been thinking about in the context of your book, Hank. It is very strange to think about what first contact looks like outside of the traditional ways that we've thought about it, or what interacting with alien life looks like when we haven't even...

It's just so mind-boggling to think like, well, what would life look like if it weren't dependent upon photosynthesis? Right. And we like, what would life look like if it didn't have DNA or RNA? Yeah, it's just mind-boggling. Really understand 100% of how it works with our version of life. Right. We certainly can, you know, grant up a rock and see if there was any DNA in there. And we can be like, well, there must have been something alive on that rock. But if it's not based on DNA,

you grant up that rock and you're like, well, I don't know what I'm looking for. Like, what is the complex molecules? What does self-replication look like? If it's not based on the same self-replication systems we have. And also, when you start to talk about like, it gets much more complicated when you get out of just, you know, sort of, I'm not trying not to be too jargony here, you get out of

just self replicating molecules and self replicating systems into like, how do things transfer information and how do we communicate? That would be a very weird thing, which much more weird. And obviously such great places for science fiction to go. And I've always loved those kinds of books. Yeah, no, I think it's really fascinating. Well, aside from that Hank, what did we learn today? Oh gosh, John, we learned that you are a prime candidate for the advanced planning advisory at your nearby cemetery. Yeah, no, it's terrible news. It's terrible news. We learned that, uh, John, John, I have a question.

Is it possible that this is like, can't you be like, but I'm like a kind of a big deal. Who wouldn't you just like pay me to be in your cemetery? It's basically like having another vice president. It's like your last brand deal. Oh my God, it's the last brand deal you'll ever make. I like it because it's dark and weird, but that'd be a funny email to send back

to be like, I have a proposal for you. How's about instead of paying for a plot in your cemetery, you pay me for a plot in your cemetery. I mean, you're welcome. I feel so good for all the people who made it through the Mars and AFC Wimbledon news so that they got that one. Thanks everybody. All right. Aside from that we learned that a sponge is only a sponge unless it's more than a sponge. And we also

learned that dang it, I don't need a quesadilla maker. I like making quesadillas. I am the ques DMaker, mom. And so true. Hank, thank you for partying with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. We'll be back next week. In the meantime, we want to let you know about the people who make this podcast.

This podcast is produced by Rosie on a Halter O'Hosson shared in Gibson. It's edited by Nicholas Jenkins. Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjorno. She's helping out with all that Patreon stuff. Thank you so much to all of our supporters on Patreon. You can support us for a dollar and you can choose whether you've performed Mars News

or AFC, Wimbledon News, or really quite frankly, neither, thank you. Or for five dollars, you can get our upcoming podcast or our Patreon Only podcast, which we are about to record this week in Ryan's. This podcast is also the theme music, the theme music that you are hearing right now at the beginning of the podcast are by the great gunnerola and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

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