Dear Hank & John - 131: Space War Fears

Episode Date: March 12, 2018

How do I handle the surprise baby hamsters? Can I take things from someone else's shopping cart? Are we all gonna die in a space war? And more! Email us: [e-mail] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn This episode is sponsored by Squarespace! Head to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and use the offer code DEARHANK or DEARJOHN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Of course I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your question, give you a DB's advice and bring you other week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hi John, how are you? I'm alright, you seem a little sick. I can tell even from your voice that you're just not feeling 100%. I'm not feeling 100%. I have a sudden onset in test and all discomfort. And now I'm just working my way through.

There's a bunch of pigeons that have decided to live on my house and they also seem to be in distress. I don't know. Like this, this time when you feel really sick and you just like end up saying like, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, like you feel that bad. The pigeon seem to be making that noise all the time.

It is outside of my window either, I don't know what's going on. Like I don't know if that's just them communicating with each other or what what but they do not seem Happy and I'm just thinking to myself well if you're not happy here maybe go somewhere else with all your poop So I have recently come in possession of several thousand pounds of wood chips I'm covering my garden area with wood chips and then putting some soil on top of the wood. It's called lasagna gardening.

I don't wanna get into it too deeply. But the nice thing about being in possession of many thousands of pounds of wood chips is that it requires you to be outside moving those wood chips with a pitch fork almost 24 hours a day. Okay. And so how's your bones and muscles and stuff?

Bones are great, muscles, not, I'm fine until I stop working, and then as things start to seize up pretty quickly. But the point here is that I have been afforded the opportunity to do a great deal of bird watching in, in the area around my home. And we have a lot of pigeons as well. We have an almost, I would say, an infestation of pigeons. There's some chickadees and some beautiful doves, you know, that just kind of hang out on the ground.

But then there are these pigeons. It's like the Piazza San Marco or something. They're, they just descend and hang around. And I agree with you. I'm a little bit over pigeons. Now to me, it's not a candidate geese level issue yet, but I'm a little bit over pigeons. Hank, do you have a short poem for us today? That's not how this works at all.

Okay, well I don't have to worry there. The pigeons at my window poop out many eggs. They make whole new generations. That's good, eh? They have little eggs. That's good, that's very good. That's very good. Speaking of babies, can I read you our first question?

Oh, okay. That's really, we're really just starting now. We didn't, okay, that was our poem. All right, take our first question, comes through Amanda who writes, help three exclamation points. I just found three baby hamsters in my hamster cage. What do I do? I wasn't sure about the sex of my hamsters,

but now I know for sure, I separated the parents, but I'm not sure what else to do. I don't know anything about baby hamster care. Any Dubies advice would be much appreciated. Not a panda, Amanda. Also, I should add, she sent in this question two months ago. So those baby hamsters are now like middle aged. So we can definitely not help, which is great,

because the only information I have for you is that pet stores will not take baby hamsters. Is that true? Yeah, no, they won't. They're like, nope, we've had enough of those. have for you is that pet stores will not take baby hamsters. Is that true? Yeah, no, they won't. They're like, nope, we've had enough of those. We are actually gonna suggest that Amanda get into the pet store business

to like see this as an unexpected business opportunity. I just, I don't think that there's like a shortage of baby hamsters in the world. I think Amanda, you now have three new hamsters. Hopefully that'll go okay. I guess you should put them with the mother if you can tell which one that is. I assume that you can. It's the one that's nursing. Just be like, fingers crossed and if it doesn't go well, then that's okay. They weren't going to die anyway eventually. Boy, Hank's in a great mood.

Well, I tell you what, if you take your hamster to, if you take your hamster to the pet store, they might be like, yeah, we'll take them, but I can't guarantee where they're gonna end up. Oh, good Lord, Hank. Okay, let's move on. You asked the question. Amanda, if I were you,

I would turn to my favorite veterinary advice podcast, not necessarily my favorite advice podcast about death, because I don't think we're going to be able to help with this one realistically. No, I mean, but the good news is that your hamsters are well onto wherever they were headed because it was two months ago anyway. This next question comes from Jessi, who asks, dear Hank and John, my roommate and I recently gotten to a debate about how to tip our pizza deliverer. I only had $1.00, I only had $2.00 $1 bills,

but we have a lot of quarters. I was always taught that it's rude to tip people with change in sit-down restaurants. She argued that if she were a delivery driver, she would rather have more money than less money. It was correct. It was correct. It was correct. A pretty sure she's right.

Yeah, this got me thinking. There are different tipping etiquettes for different kinds of jobs. Also, can I tip my pizza delivery driver with my laundry quarters. Advice of the dubious and non-dubious categories both are appreciated. John, I think that even at a sit-down restaurant, you can give change, right? You can't give just change. So, not just change. Well, what I will, sometimes like, I'll get the money back and like,

I'll put 20 bucks in and then it'll come back with like, you know, my $5.25 change. And then, you know, I'll just leave that. And that's okay. Yes, that is acceptable. I don't think that you've ever been a restaurant server and I have been one. So if you'll moderately more qualified to answer this question,

when I was a server at a restaurant, I wanted money. And I did not really care about the form of that money. Like, if you wanted to leave me a role of quarters, that would be fine. I did mind, is the money clean? Is it delivered to me in a way that is designed to embarrass or humiliate me? For instance, the person who left me a $20 tip, thank you.

But covered it in the, I would call it the nacho cheese. Oh no. But the restaurant that I worked at, I think we were not allowed to technically call it cheese because it didn't have any cheese in it. So we called it nacho cheese sauce. But they left it covered in the nacho cheese sauce. And I was like, it's such, that's why, why?

Because now I have to clean this $20 bill and go through this whole rigmarole, which is humiliating. So don't do that. Yeah, that's good advice. So if you're gonna give somebody $6 in quarters, it's obviously not an ideal way to get tipped as a delivery driver.

So I might put it in a ziplock bag, or if you can roll the quarters up, so it's a little bit easier for them to deal with, but it is way better to be tipped $6 in quarters and a two and two $1 bills than it is to be tipped just two $1 bills, for sure. When you got it, dude, Jessa, and I'm just gonna throw this out here for everybody,

load up that laundry tray with some Sacajaweas. Oh my God, stop trying to some Sacajaweas. Oh my god. Stop trying to make Sacajaweas happen. It already happened. It's the whole point, John, is that it already happened. So I mean, if the laundry, it may be that your laundry was doesn't take Sacajaweas yet because they aren't here with the rest of us in the 21st century.

But first of all, talk to them about that. Second, it works in the parking meters in my town. That's good. Yeah. So Hank's advice is to only tip in Sacajaway as to try to make Sacajaway as happen. So Hank's advice is to go to your local bank. And instead of getting $100 in 20s,

get $100 in the form of $101 coins and then hand those out like Ebenezer's Scrooge after his revelation. And then people would be like, oh, that's money, I guess. No, it is the sex. It's my favorite person to deliver pizza to. The person who tips me in $1 coins. This is like walking away, loaded down, weighing five extra pounds.

Okay, let's move on. I think we've solved this problem. We're gonna move on to Jessica's question, who asks, dear Buggins Shrimp, I'm very proud to be the advice columnist of my college's newspaper. It's really cool to see dear Jessica in print every few weeks and I love feeling like I'm able to help someone.

The problem is that hardly anybody asks me questions. As people who have a successful advice giving platform, do you have any tips for how to get people to ask questions? Dear comma, Jessica. Ah, I hate the situation, Jessica. How to get people to ask questions. Do you have a comma Jessica? Ah, I hate the situation Jessica. Is that like both with your advice column and like every other advice column that has ever gotten started from scratch?

Is you make it up? You make them up Jessica. You make them up. And that way you can ask questions that you know how to answer. Which is nice. You can tailor it to your specific expertise or something that happened to you that week and be like,

well, Melinda, thank you for writing in. Just this week I was trying to figure out how to tip a pizza delivery driver with all of my second away ads. Right, I mean, do you think that was a real problem that someone had Jessica? Of course it wasn't. We made it up because Hank, Yeah, I feel bad that I skipped skipped several weeks of not mentioning ants Canada. So ants Canada. That's good YouTube channel.

Yeah, I mean, I remember making up questions when I first started making question Tuesday videos like 10 years ago. We would get some questions, but sometimes we wouldn't get the questions that I wanted to answer. And so I would find myself thinking somebody would say, oh, what's your favorite color? And I'd be like, that's not that interesting of a question. But if I asked, what's your favorite beetle first? And then I could say, John Green, that would be fun. And people would like that. And so I think there is nothing wrong

with making up the occasional question, Jessica. And in fact, I think that it will lead to people asking you more interesting questions over time. Because that said, I think that it will lead to people asking you more interesting questions over time because that said, I suspect that Jessica, because she's at a college newspaper and has certain obligations as a reporter, she's probably not allowed to fabricate facts. So here's what I would do, Jessica, to get around the issue of journalistic ethics. And this is probably deeply immoral, but you have to remember that Hank and I will do whatever we need to do to get a laugh. I would just say to my friend, hey, I noticed that you have this problem. Can you write me about this problem? And I would

just talk to people in your real life and ask them to submit questions that are of interest to you and then start from there. And then once you get a following, the questions will come in on their own and they'll be fascinating, like questions about what to do about baby hamsters. Yeah, or how to list it more questions for your advice column at your newspaper.

Or also this next one from Veronica. This next question comes from Veronica, who asks Dear Hank and John. I'm having an identity crisis. I'm a 25-year-old Canadian named Veronica. I have been receiving emails for the past year from a British person named Veronica, living across the pond, living her best life. Every time I receive one of these emails, I kindly reply back that they've got the wrong Veronica.

But lately, her life has gotten very interesting, and I can't help but like, read into her life. Things I know so far. She's recently interviewed for a teaching position at a primary school. She nailed that interview and got the job. I know this because the head of the department sends me her lesson plans. Three, she dressed up for Halloween as sexy Mrs. Clause. I got the order confirmation. Core, she owns a yacht and frequents the Yarmouth

Harbor yacht club. Soon she'll be doing a rally to Burmbridge Harbor plot twist. That is a huge plot twist. It's a primary school teacher. And then I'm on one plot twist with sexinesses claws and apparently British Veronica doesn't know her own email address to which to send this email confirmation, which is a big surprise for me. And then boom, she also owns a yacht. Yeah, I gotta learn more about the Yarmouth Harbor or a yacht club.

Right, I mean, do we know what's a yacht? Well, what is a yacht really? Are there little yachts? Can you have like a reasonable yacht? I just feel like, well, there is a yacht really? Are there little yachts? Can you have like a reasonable yacht? I just feel like, well, there is a white river yacht club here in Indianapolis. I don't know if it's exactly the same thing, but the white river yacht club almost everyone

owns some kind of small pontoon boat. But I have heard that if you are a member of the white river yacht club, they have reciprocity with like every other actual yacht club in the world. And so you can go to the White River Yacht Club, they have reciprocity with like every other actual Yacht Club in the world. And so you can go to the Bermuda or whatever, and you can go to the fanciest Yacht Clubs because you're a member of the White River Yacht Club.

I, however, am not a member of the White River Yacht Club. My part of the river is completely non-navigable and therefore inaccessible to people in their pontoon boats. I gotta say, John, it appears that there are a lot of yacht clubs in England. Yeah. So the Yarmouth Harbor yacht club is on the Isle of White, interestingly. Ooh. And, but it's surrounded by other yacht clubs.

So, apparently, I don't know if this person lives on the Isle of White, if British Veronica lives on the Isle of White, that's very cool. That would be cool, please. The Isle of White, is it in the north of the south? They don't have a this person lives on the Isle of White, if British Veronica lives on the Isle of White, that's very cool. That would be cool. Is the Isle of White, is it in the north of the south? They don't have a team in the football leagues. I don't know much about them. Oh, it's like part of France.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He said starting an international problem. It's definitely not part of France. It is now, it's a crisis. People are calling it, the are calling it the next great thing in international relations. Francis just claimed the Isle of White, Veronica's got problems now.

You're lucky you're living in Canada, Canadian, Veronica. I might be questioned. There's headed to the Isle of White with their cheese and their wine. My big question is, how is it that this Veronica apparently doesn't know her own email address? I mean, yeah, like the thing is, Katherine has this problem too, because she has an email address that is an initial and then a last name.

Yes. And anybody who has that email address is just gonna get it. They're gonna get it from a bunch of different folks who are like, yeah, that's me. I'm pretty sure that's me. Yeah, I've also been through this where I end up with an email address that's one letter or two letters different from someone else's and you become a sort of weird neighbor of them

knowing a lot about their life and yet still not participating in it. I would try to track down this British Veronica and I would try to become her friend. I mean, she seems cool and she has the yacht. We didn't finish the question. At the end of the question, Veronica asks if it's okay for her to just take over other Veronica's life.

No. It does seem like becoming friends would be a better option, especially if you could be like, hey, so I heard that you're headed, you're doing that rally to Burmbridge Harbor. I was wondering if I could just like, bring a couple of Mike's hard lemonade and do that. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

The Hank Green Dream. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So what is it? Drinking two Mike's hard lemonade since he's called becoming Hank drunk. It doesn't take much. I mean, light weight. What I can tell you, John, is that the way that the Isle of White works appears to be

that Newport is just the geographic center and it is where all of the people are. But if you want to go from Yarmeth to whatever that burn bridge harbor, you pretty much have to go around the whole island. So I don't know which way you go. I don't know if you go around the top of the, around the bottom, but it's pretty much the complete opposite side. So that's quite a trip. I bet you could get through a couple of Mike's Heart Limonades on that trip.

It's going to be a wonderful rally. You should definitely look up Veronica, Veronica, and you guys should become friends. But don't take over her life that's not cool No, it's weird that you even thought about that Yeah, I don't think it's that weird, but it's not appropriate. You've got a you got a squelch that Desire speaking of which our next question comes from Ayushi who's the speaking of which by by the way, is completely irrelevant. It's just a thing I like to say.

How are we gonna squelch this desire? I'm gonna squelch our U-She's desire, not to have an apocalypse from space. Yes. Okay, ask the question some people and I'm asking a few. It's tortured. Dear John and Hank, in my history class, we watch CNN 10 daily

because my teacher wants us to be in-decoran offense. I enjoy this bit, but the recent one was very distressing to me because it was about how we were going to go into World War Three and how it will be a space war. What the hell is CNN 10? Well, yeah, I had to look up what CNN 10 is. Is this like a TV show for high school students in which like- It's like digital CNN, I had to look up what CNN tennis. Is this like a TV show for high school students in which like, it's like digital CNN, I think.

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. It's for tennis completely dedicated to how we would all die if a hacking satellite interfered with one of our good, making everything work satellites. Are we all gonna die in a space war? I find this highly improbable,

but everyone in my class seems to believe it. Great job, CNN 10, and CNN is a reputable and trustworthy corporation or something. So should I be inclined to believe it? Should I be preparing for the fight of our lives? It rhymes with sushi, Ayushi. Thanks for letting us know that. I, uh oh yeah, I mean, the thing is, we might all die in a space war. Well, to be fair though, we wouldn't all die in a space war. We would die in a space war that affects ground. Right, we wouldn't be in space when we died of the space war, but the space war.

No, that would be us. That would be us. Yeah, right, we would die as a result of a space war. Yeah, that's possible, I don't think it's guaranteed. No, yeah, that's the thing, is that these are meant to be illustrative of a potential thing that may happen and so we should be prepared to have that be a thing

that does not happen is the idea, I think, behind why they terrify us so regularly. Oh, no. I think service, they think they think maybe that they are achieving. I think that they know exactly what they're doing, which is trying to maximize audience retention. And the great thing about predicting the future, Iyushi,

and one of the great secrets to essentially all of contemporary linear television so far as I can tell is that if all you do is speculate and predict the future, no one ever comes back to say, hey, wait, you've been wrong about everything. Because you're not talking about what is happening or what happened, you're talking about what may have happened and what might happen. And the magic of those verbs is that they allow you

to never, technically, ever be wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And, but I don't think that it's bad to say like, hey, look, what if something took our all of our goods satellites and messed them up What how how would that go? No, I think it's important right? It's important it's important to think about problems that we might have

But it's important to think about them so that we can try to prevent them rather than thinking about them so that we can just feel kind of vaguely afraid and you know having this like creeping sense of dread that accompanies us through every minute of our day especially when we are young and Completely powerless in the face of space wars. I just don't know if it's that productive. Yeah, I agree with you, John. I don't think it's going to be space war, but I could be wrong. It might be. There is a thing that humans might do that will end humans. Ever since we've had nuclear weapons, we've had the ability to really mess up Earth pretty dang good, at least for us. There is this one, like nanotechnology,

this idea that we could create like a nanite that would just multiply and turn everything on Earth into itself. And then I recently read about some scientists who accidentally made a flu virus that was the kind of thing that would kill 70% of people if it got out of their laboratory. And so they just destroyed it and didn't publish their research because that was like,

oh, nope, that's real bad. We shouldn't. And like the way that they made it is not technically complicated. And I'm like, boy, I bet we wouldn't have to like go super deep into nanotechnology to get sort of a crazy, like, global level pandemic on. You, apparently, it's just flu. And like, a flu virus has like eight genes, John. It's not complicated. It's a very simple thing. And it's terrifying. It's so scary.

That scares me. That is to me. That is my space war fear at the moment. Right. I use she since we don't think that you should be terrified at morning, noon, and night about space war. We're going to tell you what you should be really scared of. A genetically engineered flu virus that is extremely easy to make and that anybody could make in their laboratory and that someone eventually will make and it will destroy 70% of humans. Great, Hank, what's next? Do we cut that out? But the good news, the good news, I use, no, we should keep it in.

The good news is that you have a 30% chance of surviving this catastrophic flu. And believe you me, the world that emerges from it will be great. Lots of stability, all of our political institutions, which can just barely survive our prosperity, will be completely intact, don't worry. And everything will be completely intact, don't worry, and everything will be great. People will be playing golf on manicured lawns and it won't at all be like a post-apocalyptic hellscape. This next question comes from Ian who asks, do you're hankin' John?

Recently, as I grocery shop, I found myself having intrusive thoughts along the lines of, what if I just take that bread from somebody else's shopping cart? I don't know, I'm not gonna do this, but it's gotten me thinking about who has a legitimate claim to the contents of a shopping cart. The shopper hasn't paid for them yet, so legally the store still owns them. So should I legally be allowed to take something

from someone else's shopping cart? But if the store's, yeah. No. No. I mean, but legally though, our shopping carts like embassies, technically the territory of the store, but the shopper has sovereignty over them? Yes! That's exactly what it's like.

That's brilliant. Good analogy, Ian. You've answered your own question. That is a brilliant analogy. A shopping cart is a traveling embassies. This is like the embassy of the ownership of Hank. And I get still on the sovereign, still sovereignly owned by Safeway, but.

Right, right, right. It's my control. This bread belongs to Safeway, but it is currently being administered by Hank. And Hank has reserved the right to purchase this bread from Safeway, and that sacred contract is being expressed by the fact that it is inside of Hank's part. And let's all just enjoy the fact that we can go to a grocery store and get food because believe me, after

a hundred percent of people are destroyed by Hank's flu virus, we're all going to be gardening. My little wood chip garden is going to be all that stands between whatever surviving descendants I have and complete destruction. Hank, I can't get over this. I'm sorry, but if I could just ask you to turn, are we still gonna make a podcast? Like, what is this future going to look like? Are they're gonna even be podcasts?

Well, that's the thing. We'll hold on to some technology. Podcasts might actually be more stable than food systems, which is a problem. But yeah, so what I wanna say, actually be more stable than like food systems, which is a problem. The, yeah, so what I wanna say to dial back the fear factor a little bit is that this is something that's known by people who study these things

and part of the reason they study them is so that like, we can anticipate changes, flu viruses might make naturally because eventually these things might even happen naturally without somebody with malicious intent. And so that we can create vaccines for those things so that we can treat them so that we can, yeah, all that good stuff. So the reason that scientists are working on this is so that it isn't someday a problem. And hopefully that will be a thing.

And also they're doing it intelligently enough that they realized once they did it that they should undo it. Yeah, they did. I don't know that I trust every group of people who stumble upon a discovery to be equally. It just worries me. It's a little, it just freaks me out a little bit but I'm going to assume that everything's going to be fine because I've been alive for 40 years and everything going to assume that everything's going to be fine because I've been alive for 40 years and everything as well. It hasn't really, it's been a really good four decades for humans and I believe that the next four decades can be even better. I know that I talked about how I was completely abandoning optimism for pessimism and that I still believe that this was the best year yet, but I also believe that it would be the best year ever. But I'm, I'll pick, I'm back to optimism.

I believe we are good at solving problems and we will find a way to solve them, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by the people who chose not to share that flu with the world, the people who chose not to share that flu with the world, saving actual billions of lives. This podcast is also brought to you by the Yarmouth Harbor Yacht Club, the Nile of White, serving up Yacht's and Mike Sard lemonades

to American and British Veronica's. Also Canadian, she was Canadian. Sorry, Canadian. And today's podcast is, of course, brought to you as always by Sakajewaiz. Sakajewaiz just on the cusp of happening since their release. And additionally, this podcast is brought to you by the Space War. The Space War. It's coming for you.

I had to say Hank, before we move on, how much I like the cover of your book, an absolutely remarkable thing, which is available for pre-order now. I'm really, really cool book cover. I hope that you're happy with it. It's pretty rare to get a book cover on a first novel that is so good. Yeah, I like it so, so much. I have been thinking, obviously, a lot of book covers lately and there's a lot of different directions you can go and you start from the sort of infinite number of possibilities. And I think we ended up in a really great place. I'm looking at it right now, John. I am, I've never been more obsessed with a piece of design

in my life. I have an unhealthy relationship with how much I like this book cover. The weird thing is that you do as the author have to live with it so much and for so long and in a way that nobody else has to, right? Because it's going to be, you're going to show it to your kids and hopefully one day you'll show it to your grandkids and, you know, our great, great uncle wrote a novel and there are hardly any copies in circulation, but you and I have seen the cover of it. And so it's something that survives in a weird way. And as the author, I mean, I know that like the cover

of Looking for Alaska, I never could have imagined how much time I was going to spend looking at that cover and thinking about it over the next 15 years. But I'm very grateful that I ended up with a cover of a book that I like. And actually, these days all of my book covers are ones that I like. So that is a real blessing and a rare one. So I'm glad that you like it.

I really like it. I'm really happy for you. And also, John, not me, John with no age, donated to the project for awesome, to get us to say this message, which we are happy to say, because we are really interested in the work that this organization is doing. So this is John's message that he donated to the project for us to get us to say. This message is a plug for an organization. I am a really big fan of GiveWell, a nonprofit dedicated to finding outstanding giving

opportunities through in-depth analysis. Thousands of hours of research have gone into funding. Their top-rated charities, these charities are evidence-based, thoroughly-vetted and underfunded. If you want to know more, check out givewell.org and check out their research. So again, that's givewell.org. Thank you, John, for donating the P4A and for taking the opportunity to try to decrease world suck.

Totally dope. That was very cool of you, John. I thought that was going to be about me, but it wasn't. It was about a different John. I've always just wanted to say that about me, but it wasn't, it was about a different John. I've always just wanted to say that about me, but it's never happened. Let's answer some more questions.

You're also dope. Uh huh. Is that what you wanted to hear? This question comes from Will, who asks, do you're hanking John? My girlfriend and I just moved in together for the first time and I am ecstatic. However, I do have a slight qualm.

She has these lamps and tables that are bright, periwinkle. How do I express to her that they don't exactly go with the rest of the decor and that I would rather go with simple white? Her mom painted them and I don't want to offend my possible future mother-in-law. Her mom can be a bit standoff, shithimes, any dubious advice would be greatly appreciated. Where there's a way, there's a will. Um, will. Yeah, will. Will, I think John and I have the same piece of advice for you.

You're gonna learn to love those bright, Perry Winkley tables and lamps because people who you care about, who are important to you and your life Worked hard to make them and made conscious careful thoughtful choices about that color and You're gonna incorporate it into your life Yep That's it man. I mean let's let's see is there another is there to say about this, or is there just another way to say it? Yeah, I, yeah, I mean,

you're, just paint the other stuff white, right? And so the periwinkle becomes the pop of color in that room. Just have, have your bed be neutral or your carpet be neutral. I think, I'm not an expert in this field, but I think it is a bad plan to repaint that lamp. Yeah, and I think it's a weird conversation to have. To some extent, like, you may imagine this as like emotional labor on your part, like a thing that you are doing, and that it means that your, like, your living experience isn't the exact way that you

would imagine it, but that it is a part of being a part of this new thing that you are creating with your SO. I took me a second to figure out what an SO was, but now I realize it's a significant other. I was just going to highlight that for people who might have struggled with it the way I was struggling with it. We have something in our house that is somewhat similar to this. There's a painting in our house that there's stuff that we once you form a partnership, I think you start to pick out stuff together, right?

But then there's some stuff that you bring into the relationship that you bring into the first apartment that, you know, like you picked out on your own, it might not suit the other person's interest and that you may not have picked together. And here's what I tell myself when I see this one painting. Someone I love loves this painting. That's what I think. And I find it very helpful. And it makes me like the painting.

And I think eventually you're gonna like those Periwinkle lamps. Actually, to me they sound nice. I think will you might be wrong on every level. I think these Periwinkle lamps might be a winner. But even if they're not on every level. I think. This iswimpro lamps might be a winner. But even if they're not at every level, I think. This is what you've added to the pod for.

I'm just trying to level with you, Will. I think you're headed down the wrong path. Hopefully we saved you in time. Alright Hank, this next question comes from Megan who writes, Do you John and Hank, I must know, where does the phrase, the world is your oyster come from? And how does it make any sense? If the world is your oyster, does this mean the purpose of life is to discover your pearl?

What if your oyster doesn't have a pearl? And if a pearl is actually just made up of irritants and calcium, isn't it more like a kidney stone? Are you allergic to shellfish? dubious answers are welcome as my friends and I have been plagued by this question for a long long time, although apparently not long enough to Google it. Was that part of the question? Did you add that in? No, I added that in. So I don't want you do you are you gonna tell me the actual answer to this

question? I am gonna tell you the actual answer, but go ahead and speculate first. Well, I'm just gonna say that like, what I know about oysters is that they're ugly and like gross and like scraggly on the outside, and then inside the shell are nice, but then there's like this goopy, soupy thing that is the animal itself. And so I don't even really know where the oyster begins

and where the shell begins. I don't like, not entirely sure. Like the world is my oyster meeting. You could open it up and see what's in there, I guess. But in general, I just feel like, no, no. First of all, oysters very small, very simple, and goopy gross. I don't want the world to be any of those things.

And indeed, the way that it is currently used makes no sense, especially when you find out where the phrase came from, which is from William Shakespeare's The Mary Wives of Windsor, and in this scene, Fall Staff says, I will not to pistol, I will not lend you any money, I will not lend the appenny, and then pistol replies, why then the world's mine oyster which I with sword will open and then Falstaff says not appenny. So what Pistol is saying is, okay, you won't lend me any money. I get that. I know how to get money out

of you by using a sword. I.e. I am going to rob you. I am going to force your pocket book open with my sword the way that I would force an oyster open with my sword. So it has essentially no relationship to the idea that the world is your oyster because I mean, I guess maybe the world is your oyster because, I mean, I guess maybe the world is your oyster if you have, if you already have money. No, I think we get it. Or the world is your oyster. If you have a sore.

The oyster is signal waiting for you to open it up. Right, but in the scene, what's happening is that pistol is threatening false theft with theft. Well, then, is, aren't we all stealing every time we eat an oyster because that was the property of the oyster. Yes. The body of the oyster. I find it to have been essentially

like a mistranslated phrase that it must be the way that it, the way something, maybe it's Iambic or something, there must be something about the phrase itself that feels true to us even though The more you investigate it the less true it becomes which is maybe also reflective of something about How we actually think that we have a lot of control and sovereignty over our lives and what happens to them

But in fact the world in truth is almost never our oyster. Right. The world is your oyster in the sense that maybe the world is just like some oyster, somewhere far away that you can't control and that you have, you'll never be able to find. And it may or may not have pearls in it. It's just like every person that has an oyster and it only exists for a limited amount of time and you like no one ever actually gets it. There you go. Thanks for listening to Dear Hank and John. Next question. I just saw one more question before we get to the news from Marzenaews on the John.

It comes from Aaron who asks, Dear Hank and John, I've recently been invited to join a small weekly critique group which is fantastic, but one of the members looks almost exactly like Ryan Gosling. The resemblance is eerie. I can't look at him in the eye. It's like looking into the sun. How do I have to spend one evening a week in his presence? This guy has a reputation for being professional and kind and honest. He's a good contact to have.

I can't risk weirding him out, and yet I'm sure that I'll either say something idiotic or else avoid interaction to the point of unfriendliness. I could do with some dubious advice right about now. Trial and Aaron. So my best friend Chris looks a lot like Vince Vaughn. I realize this isn't the exact same problem Aaron. But he looks more like Vince Vaughn. In some ways he looks more like Vince Vaughn. Different problem. In some ways, he looks more like Vince Vaughn than contemporary Vince Vaughn does. Like Chris looks more like Vince Vaughn in wedding crashers than Vince Vaughn

looks like Vince Vaughn in wedding crashers. And the way that I dealt with this, Aaron, is by the first time I hung out with Chris, I had a few drinks, and then I looked over at him and I said, you know, you look exactly like Vince Vaughn and you also talk like Vince Vaughn or it almost seems like kind of a performance and he paused and he said, I usually get Vincent Denofrio and then that then it was over. A different Vince, who's Vincent Denofrio?

He was in like law and order criminal intent. I think he had a long and storied career before that, but I most recently saw him in law and order criminal intent. I think he had a long and storied career before that, but I most recently saw him in law and order criminal intent. Yeah, no, that guy looks like Chris. Yeah, essentially every Hollywood actor named Vince looks like Chris. Vincent, don't offer you the guy who plays the Edgar and Midden Black. Possibly. And then the alien puts on the, the egg or sea.

I feel like we're stumbling into this week's this week in Ryan. So let's not get ahead of ourselves. Hahaha. Yeah, I mean, have you had ever had the problem where you are sort of like someone is so like, I don't know, beautiful to look at that it interferes with your ability

to have a normal human relationship with you. Well, is that the question? I thought that it was so distracting. I thought it was just so distracting to have somebody who looked like a celebrity. I think I misinterpreted the question. Well, I think it's a little bit of both. So one, this person looks like Ryan Gosling.

Second, have you seen Ryan Gosling? Yeah, no, he's got a very symmetrical face. Yeah, I don't know how to solve that second problem. I only know how to solve the problem of making it normal to announce to someone that they look like a celebrity. I suppose if that celebrity is Ryan Gosling, it is a form of, it is weird to say

you look like Ryan Gosling, right? Because Ryan Gosling, it is a form of, it is weird to say you look like Ryan Gosling, right? Because Ryan Gosling is widely perceived to be the definition of hotness. So maybe you just say, hey, has anybody ever told you you look like Ryan Reynolds? No. No, you gotta go with that. Hey, has anyone ever told you you look like adult muckily-culking? Here's the thing that you should do, actually, Aaron, is you should just wait because eventually this person will start to look like themselves.

It's totally true. It'll, it'll, that is, that is my advice. Yes, in my experience, people start to become themselves and they start to become people and, and what they look like, fades a lot. There you go. That's our advice. Hank, we've got to get to the all-important news from like fades a lot. There you go. That's our advice. Hank, we've got to get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. But first, I just want to say a quick thank you to everybody who supports Dear Hank and

John on Patreon. You can get our weekly terrible podcast this weekend, Ryan's, where we've discussed, I believe, both Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds. But you can go to patreon.com slash Dear Hank and John and and get you don't have to actually sign up to see the content. But you can if you want donate and then the money goes to Complexly to support SciShow and Crash Course and the art assignment and the other shows that we make at Complexly. So thank you to everybody who supports on Patreon. You can listen to this week and Ryan's after you listen to this podcast over at patreon.com-deerthankinjohn. But Hank, what is the news from Mars this week?

In news from Mars this week, John, the Mars Curiosity rover, as we have discussed previously, has a drill on it that broke. So it's the only way we have to get samples from the interior of rocks on Mars, and that's a big deal, because the exterior of rocks on Mars has chemistry that happens to it

and is thus going to be different from the interior. So you can drill in there and then scoop a little bit of the sample up and then take it over to the on board science laboratories on the curiosity rover. But more than a year ago, that drill broke. One of the wheel motors that heaps it in place broke and we've been troubleshooting it to try and get it to collect dust, to figure out how to drill into rocks ever since then. And we've got like a earth bound one that we had been testing

to get it to figure out how to do this and it figured out how to do it. And then we sent all that software up at the Curiosity Rover and just this week, it made its first drill on the surface of Mars in over a year, successful test drill. The next step is to try and figure out how to actually

get that dust that it drilled up from the rock to the onboard laboratories. And that also, all the systems, that part of what broke is the systems that would get that there. So what they're thinking about doing is actually using the drill bit, moving the drill bit over to the laboratories

and basically tapping the drill bit to get the dust to just fall off of it. And that works with the one here on Earth, but obviously, the atmosphere and gravity are different on Earth. So hopefully it will work on Mars too, but we don't know. But it has done its first sample test drill since it broke

and it worked and everybody's very excited. And I basically, I could watch a documentary film on the year of work that these engineers have done to get that drill back up and running. You should have made that documentary. That sounds properly interesting, especially if you have the right soundtrack. I find that in general, it's totally true. Mostly need a good score. So speaking of scoring, we haven't been.

AFC Wiebelden, America's favorite third-tier English English soccer team lost their most recent game. Oh, no. Well, actually, their most recent game was canceled because of weather. I don't know if you heard about this, but there was this huge storm in England. They called it the beast from the east because it originated in Russia.

And it was very cold there. And there was a frozen pitch so they couldn't play. So there's that. There are now 11 games remaining in the league one season and AFC Wimbledon is clinging safe in 19th place on 38 points after 35 games. There are 11 games left to ensure safety. Wimbledon are going to need 52 points. So that's 14 points from their remaining 11 games. That's a lot. It's very, I don't want to minimize how nerve-wracking it is. I want to be hopeful and optimistic, but it is very scary. And obviously the stakes are extremely high. It's hard to get up to League One.

It took a Herculane effort and a little bit of luck for Wimbledon to get up to League One. And it would be pretty devastating to get relegated. So right now, one point clear. And also the franchise currently applying its trade in Milton Keynes is in the relegation zone 32 points after 35 games. So there is still the distinct possibility

that those two clubs are going to be vying for safety at the end of the season, which is terrifying. And yes, boy, I'm worried. So the game you lost was to the team that was going to beat you, probably no matter what, right? That is correct. And they did beat us no matter what. They beat us three-nail, and it was not close. But next we play Oxford United and then a huge game against,

we have actually three of our remaining games are against teams currently in the relegation zone. So those games are obviously all massive. So hey, we'll see. Yeah, okay, well, so that, yeah, that, yeah, that's really interesting. So that's coming up in the next weeks or the next week. No, the game, um, yeah, March 17th, same Patrick's day is, is a good game. That's a, you don't want to, you don't want to talk about must win games because I don't

really put pressure on the team. I don't want to put pressure on the team, but I don't think put pressure on the team, I don't want to put pressure on the team, but I don't think they listen to this, so I'll tell you the truth, it's a must-win game. All right, well, we're all rooting for you, John. Thanks, Hank. What did we learn today? Well, we learned that the inside of your shopping cart has diplomatic immunity from the rest of the shoppers.

We learned that the Yarmouth Harbor Yacht Club is your number one Yarmouth Yacht Club is your number one Yacht Club. Actually, probably not. I think it's the number one Yacht Club. I think there's just the one. It's really top five. It's top five. We learned that Baby Hamsters, we don't know what to do with them and I don't know why

you're asking us. And we learned that Space wars might kill us, but not if the flu does first. John, thanks for making a podcast with me. Always a pleasure. I don't remember how we end the podcast. Usually you read the credits. Oh, this podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins.

It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohas and shared in Gibson. Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjorno. This music that you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast and during this weekend, Ryan's is all by the great Gunnarola and, as they say, in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. you