Dear Hank & John - 134: The Millennial Avocadome

Episode Date: April 2, 2018

Are rocks actually soft? What are Pop-Tarts? My boyfriend's ex is dating my ex??? And more!

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or is that for thinking of Dear John and Hank? It's a comedy podcast in which two brothers answer your questions, give you a debuse advice on when you all the week's news from both Mars and AOC Wimbledon, John! How are you feeling? Oh fuck, I mean, I'm very sad, but I'm also extremely put off by your way of talking right now. It should be noted that this is our third attempt to record the intro and we keep having to abandon it because Hank is using his spooky voice and then he'll keep saying.

No, we're not like spooky voice. I changed it from spooky to more like, to more like announcer of Spooky, Timor like a announcer of like a 1990s children television show. It wasn't, it just came across as spooky again, just a different kind of spooky. Definitely, maybe creepy. Yeah, but I'm sad because my dog has died and it's very sad. Oh, I'm so glad I went so hard in the beginning, John. Yeah. So it would take you so long to get to where we're at now. I'm just very sorry. Yeah, Willie. Well, thank you. I am very sad. Sarah and I are really sad. The kids are sad and we miss Willie and he was a very good dog and and it's tough. I mean, we only had him

for 10 years. He didn't have as long a life as we would have liked, but hopefully he had a good dog life. It was just a very hard day saying goodbye to him. One of the hardest, so much harder than I thought it was going to be, to be honest with you. And I have to say that I'm very grateful. A number of people have made donations to the Indianapolis Humane Society in his memory, which is so kind and thoughtful of them and not even something

that even crossed our mind that might happen. And so I want to say thank you to those people. And one of those people, Charlotte from England, sent in an Ogden Nash poem along with her donation. And so I thought I might read to you that short poem by Ogden Nash about dogs. There's a lot of great poems about dogs, but this one is short and sweet. It goes like this.

The truth, I do not stretch or shove when I state that the dog is full of love. I've also found by actual test, a wet dog is the lovingest. It's very true. It makes me very true too. We have had cameo for so, so long and she has always been such a healthy, healthy animal that I am terrified of her ever getting sick and need her in my life.

Yeah, no, pets become part of the family and it's very hard to imagine the world without them. I mean, the house feels so quiet and empty now. It really is something. But let's move on, Hank. We have a very important question that we have to answer before all the other questions. It's the last question in the roundup that Rosiana sent you, but by far the most important,

so if you could just scroll down Hank, it's question number 27, do you see it? Oh, yes. It's from Rosa. Rosa asks, dear Hank and John, what are Pop Tarts think? It's just all caps. There's one piece of punctuation to period at the end. We got several versions of this question,

but this was by far my favorite version. What are Pop Tarts think? A lot of people out there don't know what Pop Tarts are. It turns out Hank and I of course thought that Pop Tarts were different taxes, you know? Right. So the third unavoidable institution of humanity, they were invented along with fire. Death Tarts. Pop Tarts and fire.

Yeah, it's just the first they made the pop tart and they were like, we need to toast this, she's. The thing I love the most about this question is that immediately upon being asked it, I realized that I have no real answer. Like, I cannot describe for you what a pop tart is exactly. Well, I mean, okay, so Rosa, imagine if you will, a ravioli that's made of bread, but very thin and very like oily bread.

And instead of cheese, it's strawberry jam. Right, that's one way of approaching it. I was also thinking it's kind of like a cream filled donut, only extremely flattened, and whereas donuts are sort of like soft dough, this is very hard dough, and instead of cream, there's fake strawberries inside. Well, to be clear, there are jelly-filled donuts as well.

Oh, great point, Hank. I just ate them, so that's probably why they didn't cross my mind. And the jam is very dry. It's very dry, paste of strawberry. Or, and they also have other things. And oftentimes, they're drizzled with like a icing, a hard, like a hardened icing. And then there's like the apple cinnamon kind that's, I don't know if there's actually

any apple in it, but it's definitely sugar cinnamon. And then on the top, there's a further sugary cinnamon drizzle on top. And they are they are mass produced pastries that are meant to be put into a bread toaster. If you have those, I don't know if that's sort of a uniquely American thing. I don't know that I've seen a lot of bread toasters in other parts of the world, or you stick them in and you push the little button

and then I pop up. And I guess that's why they're called pop tarts because they're tarts that pop, I never put that together until just now. Do you know what they originally called? No. Country squares. Country squares.

Yep. Can I, oh, they, hmm, in country squares. Oh yes. Quite, quite, oh, and maybe were country squares a thing before they were, before that, like something that people made?

No. This was the answer is that, no. That was the brand that Kellogg's created, was country squares and they were like, no, no, no, no, no, pop tarts. And I guess the idea is just like a pastry that you can fit in a toaster, is kind of the whole purpose.

Right. That's exactly right. As of 2014, sales of pop tarts have increased for 32 consecutive years. Wow. Oh. The economy gets bigger, the economy gets smaller, we go through the greatest recession since the Great Depression,

and the one thing that doesn't stop growing is the overall market for pop tarts. Is there a cryptocurrency based on pop tarts? Yes, starting today. Yes, what a, Hank, that is a great idea. Pop Tartcoin, pop coin or pop tartcoin? I think pop coin, I like Tartcoin. Tartcoin, better.

Tartcoin, country squads. Yes, that's a good one too, because it sounds reliable, Tartcoin. Tartcoin. Tartcoin. Country Square. Yes. That's a good one too, because it sounds reliable, because it's got the word country in it and square. And I feel like square is a shape that you can count on. It's not one of the stronger shapes actually. You build things out of squares. You find pretty quick that you prefer, you might prefer an arch.

Well, Hank, I mean, we're talking about cryptocurrencies. So I think it's country square coin is a fantastic cryptocurrency name. And we've just copyrighted it and trademarked it. And I've got country square coin dot com taken plus country square coin dot biz. That's the one that we're going to actually use to run the cryptocurrency. Got to use a dot biz for your seventh rate cryptocurrency. So excited. And basically, the only thing you can purchase with our cryptocurrency is poptarts,

but the good news is that poptarts only increase in value. Right, they are tied to the value of a poptart. That's right. So, like, yeah, the idea is whether the poptart value goes up or down, the coin is tied directly to that, which removes the volatility of cryptocurrency we've revolutionized the whole world. Yes.

Yes, Hank, you've done it. I've done it. Oh, finally, a proper million dollar idea. Million, huh? I said, for not less than trillion dollar idea. Million. I settled for not not less than trillion dollar ideas. Speaking of trillion dollar ideas right before we started this podcast, Hank told me the best idea he's ever had and I really want to pitch it to you guys. It's not dumb. It's really good, Hank. And as you know, I think a lot of your ideas are done. Are you gonna tell people about it?

Do you mind? Because it's such a good idea and I know that a lot of your ideas are dumb and you pitch them to me and you think they're such good ideas and I'm like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. This is a properly great million dollar idea. It's funny because I just tell people. Because I came at it from the perspective of it being a dumb idea that I love that way. Oh, it's brilliant.

I love everything about this idea. Here's the idea. Hank and I do a 260 video series in which each video is devoted entirely to one second of the music video for the song Despacito. So every episode, we look at one second of Despacito's video and we analyze it in excruciating detail. And that's the video. So I don't know if everybody is aware, but Despocito is about to hit five billion views

on YouTube, but it's the most viewed YouTube video of all time by kind of a fairly wide margin at this point. And I feel like it deserves more cultural commentary and criticism, and I will be totally frank with you. I watched this music video over the course of two hours, probably a total of six times, so I got pretty into it.

I went pretty deep into my curiosity about the craft of this really, now that I've spent some time with it, amazing music like creation, like both in terms of the song, but in terms of the video as well, I found a number of surprising things that I wanted to share with the world. John has modified my idea slightly. I wanted to just do it in a sort of marathon live stream where I went, but then John was like, there are 364,000 frames, so that might take more time than you expect.

Yeah, I think I wanted to go frame by frame. I just think that's too extreme. I think the right amount of critical attention to pay to the Despacita music video is 260 videos. LAUGHTER Yeah, I think that you could say a lot about... I think you just say a lot about society through this project, John. Of course you could.

Anything that's as close to the center of pop culture as this music video is if you pay the proper amount of attention to it, which is way too much, it gets really interesting. So I love this idea. I think it's the best idea you've ever had. Let's move on to another question from our listeners. All right. Well, everybody has any thoughts on this idea, I think it's the best idea you've ever had. Let's move on to another question from our listeners. Right, well, everybody has any thoughts on this idea. Let me know, and I'm looking forward to that.

This question comes from anonymous, dear Hank and John. I was raised in a religious family where we prayed before every meal. I'm no longer religious, but it feels weird to not do something to signify the beginning of a meal, especially when there are other people over. Could you please help me come up with a non-religious beginning of a meal, especially when there are other people over. Could you please help me come up with a non-religious beginning of the meal tradition?

Thank you, anonymous. We have something like this in our family. Yeah, well, I mean, in our extended family, like dad still does the grace. I keep... Yeah, I still... I actually still see the grace the dad says. Yeah. Because whatever, if it ain't still say the grace the dad says yeah because whatever if it ain't broke What's the dad grace?

Bless us all over in these I guess true about to receive from the bounty to Christ our Lord. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah That's the one but the the thing that we do in our family in addition to Running through that sentence as quickly as is humanly possible The other thing that we do is we have a tradition where we say what we're grateful for. We just go around the table and say what we're grateful for that day and nobody is allowed to copy anybody else and only Alice is allowed to say the same thing over and over again. And eventually that tradition, I assume, will be broken. We tried hard to make it so that everybody has to say something different every day,

but Alice is only grateful for one thing, which is mommy. Well, it's hard to take that away. If Aaron would ever, ever say that, as soon as the moment when Orin says, like, I love you or thank you, or just any kind of recognition, beyond, you know, sort of like physical cues that he likes us. I have a really hard time imagining that I will ever ask anything of him ever again. Well, let me tell you, you will. Yeah, that's really good.

There was a fun time when our two families were hanging out, and Katherine and I do a sort of, not all the time, but I'll often do a similar thing where we take a moment to recognize the people and animals that were involved in the creation of our food, to at least recognize, thanks to the people who created this and the animals who died for it. And we did that once when we were with your family and DeSera Green,

kind of cheekily said, I see you fish, which is what the Avatar people say after they kill people and kill animals and eat them in the movie Avatar. Yeah, I remember. Yeah. And we were like, hey. Yeah, but I think greatfulness is something that I am super in favor of like bringing, like intentionally bringing into my life more.

Not just because like I think that it's accurate, like that there are lots of like reasons to be thankful to lots of people and things all the time, but also there's been research done that people who keep gratefulness journals, like who are required by researchers to like write down things that they're grateful for are happier, like have more positive emotions.

So yeah, well, I definitely am a big believer in intentionalizing things like gratefulness. So that is our advice. That's all a little bit of proper advice in this advice podcast. This next question comes from Eleanor, who writes, dear John and Hank, on the internet, I once came across an article that claimed

that millennials can't afford housing because they spend too much on avocado toast. My siblings and I thought this was crazy because avocados and bread just aren't that expensive. We then got to thinking, would it be more expensive to buy a house or to build a house made out of avocado toast? Sincerely, the toast is with the mostest Eleanor. Good. John, first piece of commentary. You can tell that avocados happened after we stopped living in the same house because we say that word differently.

Yeah, actually, even as I was saying it, I kept thinking I'm saying this word weird. So it's possible that I just say it weird. Or that this was just the one time and you usually say avocado. But in any case, it's fine to say avocado or avocado or however you wanna say it weird. Or that this was just the one time and you usually say avocado, but in any case, it's fine to say avocado or avocado or however you wanna say it because it's, we understand you.

And it's a wonderful, delicious food. My first comment on this article is that there are so many articles on the internet right now that are designed to make people angry and make people click on them because they are angry and then in exchange for turning your non-mood into a mood of anger, you have given the writer of that article money.

Yeah, basically. Though to be clear, the writer of the article most likely isn't receiving the money. Those receiving a piece of it. And it's being, yes, great point. Being thanked by... Their labor is also being exploited. Yeah.

And our avocados inexpensive, John, because I feel like they're not. I feel like they are a expensive food. You know that moment in 30 rock where Jack Donagee is trying to negotiate the price of something and he says, say you're buying a gallon of milk, which costs $12. I think if you and I get into the business of trying to debate

whether avocados are expensive, we're going to be in a Jack Donagee milk cost $12 situation. Fortunately for you, I've already calculated about how much money one slice of avocado toast costs. It's around $1.65. That seems cheap to me. Well, remember, you don't use a whole avocado to make avocado toast. Oh, so- At the place where I go, they do. They give you two pieces of bread. And I'm pretty sure I'm eating a whole avocado when I get avocado toast.

And it's real good. They put like cracked pepper and salt and they butter the bread before they put the avocado on. And I'm, Oh my God, that seems unnecessary. A living for it. I'm so into it. And then I feed a little bit to Orin

and then I feel like I didn't eat the whole thing. So the answer to your question is that it would cost around $6 per square foot to cover your house and avocado toast, but that's just the flooring. Yeah, that's not tremendously expensive flooring. You could find cheaper flooring. I think it's gonna be way more than that. I also think to, I have a couple of problems

and a couple of ideas here. First, avocado is one of the fastest grossifying vegetables that exists. You mean it gets big fast? It gets, no. Nope. I mean, it gets gross fast. You just mean it gets gross fast.

You mean, because it goes from green to that brownish black. Yeah, and then I assume after the brownish black stage, which I don't tend to experience, it gets worse than that, slimy and covered and things that are eating it that are single cellular. I would like to propose that on the inside of an avocado, there's this the pit, and if you could maybe of an avocado, there's this pit. And if you could maybe take an avocado,

grow it really big, and then sort of like mine your way inside, remove the pit, you could just live inside of an avocado. Oh, that's a great idea, Hank. What a solution. And then just, if you're hungry, you just get a little salt out. You eat your home. Yeah, and then it gets bigger as you eat.

That's a great idea. And then you can just bring your bread and your toaster into the inside of the avocado and just kinda, yeah. Just make your home bigger as you consume your avocado toast. And when you have friends over, you can say, hello, welcome to the avocado. Oh God, I mean it's good till then. It was good till then and then you had to go and ruin it

like you always do. Because it's a dome. I mean we get it Hank, we get it. And it's a home, it's also a home. Okay, we've got it. I think we've got the full breadth of the pun. I'm sleepy, I got home from Amsterdam two days ago, and this is usually the worst day of my jet lag.

And right before starting the podcast, Katherine was like, how are you doing? And I was like, I feel real bad. I don't know what's going on. And she's like, you have like tremendous jet lag. You are eight hours off from where you were two days ago. And I was like, right, yeah, that makes a huge amount of sense. Thank you for making me feel better about how dysfunctional I feel.

Yeah. Yeah, jet lag is such a new human concept, you know? Right, yeah. Jets are a fairly new human concept. Yeah, human bodies definitely were not made to transition time zones. I'm not convinced that human bodies were made for time zones, but the part where I yell at the people who were defending daylight savings time is later in the podcast. So let's move on to another question from our listeners. This question comes from Max who asks, dear green brothers, my seven-year-old daughter and I really enjoy the podcast who listen on the ride

home from school when I pick her up. Here is her question. Seven-year-old daughter question, is there any spice that is smaller than a grain of salt? No D, a B, Aubrey. Thanks again, Max. Well, Aubrey and also Max. Yeah, definitely, right? I don't know, is there? Well, I'm thinking about like... Pepper corn is bigger.

Well, oh, yeah, but they're like, I'm thinking like cinnamon. Cinnamon's just like dust. No, cinnamon is a big stick. Well, no, now it is. Like at the beginning, but salt is also not grains when you mine it or evaporate it out of the water. It's big hunks.

Is it, isn't it grains when you evaporate it out of the water? I don't know. Don't, not like that. It's like hunks. Isn't it grains when you evaporated out of the water? I don't know. Don't, not like that. It's like hunks, like we're, they have to grind it up. They do post-processing of some kind. Post-production. I don't think salt, post-production. I think Aubrey might know more about this

than you do Hank. I think that a grain of salt is a post-production of salt. I think that a grain of salt is a post-production of salt. And I think that cinnamon is a post-production of cinnamon sticks. And I think that nutmeg is a post-production of nutmeg, megs. And I also feel the same way about paprika, which is also very small. I do, I would like Aubrey and Max to invest in like a cheap Amazon USB telescope by which I mean microscope,

and I want you guys to measure some grains of spices for me and tell me what the smallest one you find is. Okay, just for the record, you know what, I'm just gonna let it slide and move on. And we'll just issue a correction next episode. I think I'm still right. Oh, you're definitely not right. This next question comes. All right, this next question comes from Kevin who writes, your John and Hank, the other day my boyfriend got a text from his ex boyfriend, it turns out that my boyfriend's ex is dating my ex. I'm not exactly sure how they found this out, but they invited us

out to dinner and we, and we accepted. Oh, I'm torn between, I mean, I'm torn between intense curiosity and totally freaking out. What can we talk about? How can we avoid dragging out old drama? Why did they invite us out in the first place? Kevin, why did you accept? Well, because they asked! It's very weird to say no!

When someone says do you want to go out to dinner saying no? Is it like not the normal thing to do? The normal thing to do is to not ask. I would say that the normal thing to do is to say, oh, I'm sorry, we have plans that night. And then when they propose a different night, you say, oh, I'm sorry, we also have plans that night because we are a couple.

Is this any sort of, is this all some sort of ploy? Do we need an escape plan if things get awkward? Any dubious advice on how to plan for this meeting of the X's would be appreciated? A Montess, Sunt, A Montess, Kevin. Yeah, definitely have an escape plan. I, you know, those are pretty easy to come by these days. You just pick up your phone and you say, oh gosh,

we have to go. Yeah, or alternately, what I like to do is I like to schedule a call. Like I like to say to my friend, like, hey, make sure to call me right at 815. And then I can either like say, like, oh, it's my buddy. I'll talk to him later. Or I can say, like, uh-oh, when this person calls, I have to go immediately. Or I like, or you could be like, I have to go to the bathroom and then just never come back. Oh yeah, I think that might be a little transparent for the

vibe you're going for, but it's a strategy. Yeah, you also have to bring your boyfriend with you. We have to go to the bathroom. And we won't be coming back just as FYI, that's why we're taking all of our stuff. Um, I, yeah, I, I feel like this is, this is a weird situation to have your ex dating your current boyfriend's ex. It's, it seems very fraught to me. It could be a kind of fun. So like maybe you're, maybe you're going to find out that this actually was a great idea. But you're into it now. So just prepare and have some good topics ready.

Be like, you know, go to some websites for some good conversation topics when it gets weird. And do your best to not be like, remember that time that we did that thing and then you're talking about your old relationship and front of your new relationship which is never, it's always, either it's a good story and people are like, oh, we don't have stories that good or it's a bad story and then you're talking about the badness. I would focus almost exclusively on the present

and the future and then on topics like, how are AFC Wimbledon doing this season? Is probably a topic that I would bring up at such a dinner. Right, talk about, talk about. That's actually the only thing I talk about when I'm uncomfortable. And a lot of times I've got to get people up to speed. So the first 15 minutes is just me trying to explain to you why you should care about

this third tier English soccer team. And then I'm like, and here's how it's going. And that's, it's great because then people just walk away. Yeah, I think that is good advice, John. I think, and I do want an update for how this went because I don't know that there are a lot of times in the history of humanity where this particular thing has happened. That's a good point, Hank.

It's more like a premise for a short story than it is, a likely occurrence in real human lives. So I'm interested to know how it goes. This next question comes from Claudette, dear Hank and John. Prom is approaching at my school. I recently had a conversation with my friend who was a boy about it, and he said that he thinks that girls can ask guys to prom.

I said otherwise, but kept quiet about the fact that I really wanted to ask him to home coming before, but literally everyone said for me not to do it. Is there an unspoken rule that a guy has to ask a girl to prom, or is that just an old fashion idea? Any debuse advice appreciated Claude? Spaghetti. Claude, I'm pretty sure that guy was trying to ask you to prom and just couldn't figure out how to do it and handled it the whole situation really poorly by saying,

oh, Claude, I believe that girls should ask boys to prom. Paws, paws, paws, paws. No, just ask if you want to ask. But the answer to your question is, in my opinion, that girls should feel free to ask boys to prom or girls to prom and that people should ask people and that we need to get rid of what you call all these old-fashioned ideas. Yeah, I mean, is there something to the division of labor in that at least people kind of know what's supposed to happen? Not really though, because shouldn't you just be able to try to have these conversations

instead of, you know, creating all of this false weirdness around it? Shouldn't you be able to... I mean, it's a difficult thing to ask. Like, I remember asking, we didn't have a prom, but I remember asking someone to see in your banquet. I also remember getting asked to a prom that I ended up going to. And I understand that it's a difficult like moment

because you don't know if the person's gonna say no and you don't wanna mess up a friendship. There's all kinds of reasons why it's complicated and fraught and difficult. But basing it on gender seems to me really like a really bad idea. And I don't like the way that this boy handled it, because I'm almost positive that he is trying to get Claudette to ask him to prom. But I get why it's complicated, but I think Claudette, I think you should totally feel

free to ask this guy to prom, because I'm 99% certain he's on board with the idea. Now, if I'm wrong about that, I will send you, I don't know, like, three bucks. Yeah. Right, yeah. John was totally sending you three bucks or at least something that's worth three bucks. And just a bunch of La Croix. Just like a, like, two 12-backs of La Croix.

Yeah. You have just no idea how much consumer goods cost. That's how much a gallon of milk is, right? A dollar, $3? I don't actually, that is what a gallon of, again, anyway. How do you not know what a 12-pack of La Croix costs? Like, I mean, there's a lot of things that I've lost touch with in terms of price sensitivity, for sure, but I damn well know what a gallon of Acroicoists.

Like the idea that you could get a gallon jug of lacroy. I wish. Oh, the world would be a better place and they would be less of a minute. Oh, they could go flat so fast. Here, Claudette, I'm curious if you're in a, like, if you're in a, like, if you feel like you're in a place with this guy that maybe he doesn't want, like you feel weird about asking him, maybe ask him to ask you, is that a thing?

Oh, just ask him. Just get, just end the misery. That's it. It's so, the tension is so overwhelming. And then when you finally do it, it's like, oh, thank God that's over. Even if it's like, oh, thank God that's over. Even if it doesn't work out, at least it's over. So I mean, I don't know.

John is coming from this as a person who, and to be clear, this is an anxiety-provoking experience. But from a perspective of a person who experiences anxiety, it may be more intensely than the average person. Maybe. I think that there is a pretty close connection between anxiety and excitement and that anxiety

experienced in a certain way can not be pleasant in the moment, but can lead to pleasant experiences. Can lead to pleasant sensations. We have different, we see the world in slightly different ways. Yeah, I mean, my official, that's my official comment on your comment. Uh-huh. No, I feel you.

Let's move on to another question. I am very curious about how people feel about the connection between anxiety and excitement, because they seem to me to be pretty related emotions. I mean, there's definitely a connection. Yeah, but I think it's complicated. This next question comes from Gemma, Hank, who writes, do you try to and Hank,

is it possible that rocks are actually soft, but they just tense up when we touch them? This has been bothering me for a long time. Do you have any questions? Are needed, Gemma. I told Gather About This Question, and she almost fell over. So here's my question in response

to Gemma's question Hank, and I want you to answer it seriously. Isn't it possible? I don't know. Like it can't just be when we touch them because also rocks tense up when other things touch them. Like if you throw a rock at a rock, they both tense up.

That's a good point. Or if a rock is just like in the middle of the earth and it's grinding up against other rocks, it's still hard. So the question is, if a rock is being untouched and it's in the vacuum of space, and it's just hanging around, it's like just a meteor or an asteroid, is it maybe soft until something touches it?

And the answer is maybe, who knows? Maybe it's really cuddly and it likes to sort of like cuddle around with itself and feels all soft until something comes in as like, puk puk puk. But according to our understanding of how atoms and molecules work now. Right, I think the underlying problem is that we know a lot about life and matter at the molecular level that tells us that probably things like rocks don't dramatically change how they act when they're alone versus when they're being touched, which makes them different from us.

But there is this weird thing where I'm thinking about, like I'm just thinking about a rock as being squishy and my brain accepts that. My brain isn't like, no, never. It's like, oh, I can see that, like Riverstone being kind of, like, putty and like a little bit like squish, squish. Right, no, I totally agree. And this was actually a really big question in philosophy for a really long time.

Does matter change because humans are observing it? And is the world different when we are looking at it versus when we are not? And which of those realities is real? And that's a complicated question. I think the this particular instance of it, I think we can deal with knowing what we know about how molecules behave and how rocks behave when they're not near us and when they don't know that we're looking at them. But then again, it could be that the rock

is so much smarter than us, that it's figured out a way to behave precisely as it would behave if it were always not squishy, but it sometimes can be squishy if it wants to. Yeah, well, it also is possible that the moment you look away from the rocket stops existing and that everything you aren't perceiving at any given moment doesn't exist unless you are attempting to perceive it. And that the entire universe is just sort of a blank blackness, except for how it's being projected into your head, including any perception of the past

and the perception of the future. And that like right now is just a very vivid hallucination. Right. And in fact, the more you think about how we understand self and reality and perception, the more you realize that beneath that turtle lies yet one more turtle and beneath that one is another turtle until it's today's podcast is brought to you by the new book,

Turtles All the Way Down. Turtles All the Way Down, a novel about the shifting sands of self and available at bookstores now. Just got a really nice review from Bill Gates and his daughter Phoebe. It did. It did.

I had a feeling that that's where we were headed. SpotGas is also brought to you by gratitude. The feeling of feeling like thanks for stuff, y'all. And of course, this podcast is brought to you by Avocadoome. Avocadoome, the home that gets larger as you eat it. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by Country Squares. Country Squares, they're a pastry that fits in the toaster slot,

the revolutionizing breakfast forever. And also making children all across America just a little bit less healthy. Also, we want to thank one of our project for awesome donors who paid to have a message shared today. That person is John Morris, who has a message for Steve Morris. John writes, I've asked Hank and John to say a word. This word through our seven-year relationship

has remained hours and has kept us strong. I want you to hear it from those you trust and admire. I hope you continue to draw courage and joy from this dumb, confusing, courageous little word as I will for the rest of your life. Thank you and I love you. Gar. I think that's the word. Gar. Gar. Gar. Gar. It's a kind of fish. I don't know if that's exactly what they're referring to. It's a kind of fish. I don't know if that's exactly what they're referring to. I used to catch garfish when we lived in Florida. So there you go. The word is gar. Steve, and I hope that it brings you comfort and joy to hear it.

Good tidings. Really quickly Hank, I want to know a couple other sponsors. First, my podcast, the Anthropocene Reviewed, which is available three episodes now available at iTunes or SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can just type in Anthropa, because nobody can spell Anthropocene. Ashley Ford just reviewed the Anthropocene Reviewed, which she said this podcast is soothing and informative and somehow perfect to listen to while you're doing something creative

or doing a task by hand. Oh, that's very kind of Ashley to say. And I also want to highlight your new podcast, Hank, which is so, so good to leave this with your wife, Catherine. Thank you. We just recorded last night our fourth episode. And boy, John, I had quite a week last week as I was going through my Twitter feed. I had a car accident and I went to Amsterdam and I released my governor interview video. I just had a lot of things happen to me and it was a good all time. So, we got to go through that. Do you ever think Hank that if you didn't share all the things that happened to you on the social

internet that they wouldn't be really real. No, in fact, John, when I said no, I meant yes because I wrote a keynote talk that I gave a Patreon about that phenomenon where I feel like if I, like sometimes it's not like the things that happened to me, but it's the emotions that I experience. And if I feel like I'm an experiencing an emotion that I don't, that I don't want to or don't feel like I can share with the social internet that that somehow invalidates that particular emotion. Oh, man, that's dark.

That's deep. Yeah. That goes to it. That goes to a deep dark true place. But the great news is that during the last episode of Delete This, Catherine accidentally referred to Fox and Friends as the Fox Friends, and that turned into a really sort of great experience. Oh, the Fox Friends.

Yeah, so Delete This is very fun, and it's just great to have a reason to talk to Catherine for an hour and a half every week. All right, so everybody listened to Deletha's and the Anthropocene reviewed. Before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, we need to go through some corrections. First, from Molly, Molly writes, dear John and Hank, just a quick correction on the most recent episode of the pod.

You read a poem from, I'm going to say his name right now. Kava Akbar. I happened to go to grad school with Kava and was in a few classes with him. His name you have been pronouncing it wrong. John you have been pronouncing it wrong this whole time. Even though you are a big fan of his best wishes Molly. She didn't say all of that. Some of that is from me. So anyway. Kava Akbar is a really wonderful poet and I apologize for this pronouncing his name this whole time and I'm super embarrassed and a little bit more defined. Then we got several thousand defenses of daylight savings time, all of which were idiotic. Every single one is wrong. I'm just kidding. That's a little bit of an oversimplification, but I'm going to read one of my favorites. It's from Crystal and she writes, this is, I thought, one of the

more compelling defenses of daylight savings time, even though I'm about to read one of my favorites, it's from Crystal, and she writes, this is I thought one of the more compelling defenses of daylight saving time, even though I'm about to try to destroy it. Dear John and Hank, in defensive daylight savings time, look, I used to be like you. I thought daylight savings time was inconvenient and stupid, but then I moved to Japan, which doesn't do daylight savings time, during the sunny month of June, and the obnoxious sun was invading my bedroom and rudely awaking me at 4.30 in the morning, but still setting by 7 pm. I suddenly realized that the extra hour of darkness in the morning was right and good for my soul and the extra hour of light in the evening was right and good for my

social life. I longed to live in a time zone with daylight savings. I also learned the value of blackout curtains, crystal. Here's the thing, Crystal. All that you're telling me is that Japan is in the wrong time zone. I am not at all convinced that Japan needs daylight savings time. I think it's just in the wrong time zone. The sun should rise at 5.30 a.m. and the sun should set at 8 p.m. I don't think there's a daylight savings time problem. I think it's a time zone problem.

We have a similar time zone problem here in Indiana where we should be central time, but we're eastern time because of the stupidest possible reasons that you could ever imagine. Anyway, all of your defenses of daylight savings time are wrong, daylight savings time sucks. I mean, that's a create, like the idea is that noon is the middle of the day. So the sun should come up and go down at the same time. That is a very off time zone. Yeah. That is a very off time zone. Yeah, it's a very off time zone.

A time zone is very off. I agree. Anyway, I have another question. This is from Ms. Hyde who asks, dear Hank and John, or responds. On your podcast a few weeks ago, a person named Anna asked if there could be infinite sand on Earth and you instantly replied, no, because there's a finite amount of rock on Earth. My question is, is there a set size for a grain of sand to be a grain of sand?

Because if not, couldn't the sand just keep getting smaller? In which case, we could have an infinite supply of grains of sand on Earth, right? Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. Two problems with that one. There is a size at which sand isn't sand anymore. I don't know what it is, but you just have a size where like... I was so excited for a second. I thought I was gonna learn something,

but no, all I learned is that sand does a size, not what that size is. Well, I mean, you know, it's like sand size, but yeah, there's a point at which it isn't sand anymore and I don't know what they call it after. I think it becomes clay after that, because if you saturated with water, it holds onto the water in molecularly different ways. But yeah.

But the other problem with it. The other problem with it is that even if it was sand all the way down eventually, as we have learned, you can't divide a thing any further. And so if just a single molecule of silicon dioxide still counted as a grain of sand, there couldn't be infinite numbers of molecules of silicon dioxide because there's a finite number of silicon atoms on Earth, a finite number of oxygen atoms.

All right, there we go. You can't quite have infinite sand. Hank, I'm going to let you get to the news from Mars in a second, but first, let me bring you up to data on the news from AFC Wimbledon. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Gosh, we lost to Shrewsbury 1-0. Um, it was a pretty close game, all things.

Like, I watched the whole game and I thought it looked pretty close most of the game. Shrewsbury definitely looked them more likely team to score, but they are second and lead one, actually first and lead one now since they won that game So it makes sense that they were probably going to win. However We are now on 42 points after 38 games. There are eight games remaining in our league two season And Wimbledon are in 19th place on 42 points. They are now just three points There are only two points clear of the relegation zone and only three points separate AFC Wimbledon from 22nd place Milton Keynes. So the nightmare

scenario that this comes down to the final week and either the franchise currently playing its trade Milton Keynes or AFC Wimbledon are facing the drop is looking possible and terrifying. Wimbledon probably need to win two games and draw one or two in order to stay up. I think at this point, but that means getting results, some kind of results from almost half of our remaining games, which is possible, but challenging. So please keep Wimbledon in your thoughts. Sorry, John. I was just looking through the Despacito Music video, and I'm a little worried about the

amount of time we will spend looking at Side Boob. I'm not as concerned about that as I'm about the amount of time that we're going to be looking at, like like Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber is not in this music video. I've never seen the video. Again, I don't think that the video itself is at all important to the project. It's all about the level of attention you pay to something. What is the news from Mars? In the news from Mars, John, the Curiosity Rover has spent its 2000th day

on the surface of Mars, it landed in 2012, and I cannot believe that, 2000 days, man. So it turns out that time continues to pass and Curiosity continues to be able to do its job remarkably well. I feel as if it just landed yesterday. I was over in my friend's house getting really excited about it slamming down on the surface of Mars.

2000 Earth days on Mars to be clear. I don't think that it is hit 2000 Mars days yet because Mars days are slightly longer than Earth days. But yeah, thanks to curiosity for roving around Mars for a very long time. It is an old rover now, and it's showing its age in some ways, particularly on its tires and certain instruments aren't working quite as well as they once were, but it's still powered, still moving around, still doing its job, and it is a good rover. And it looks like by the time we get another rover on the surface of Mars, we will be able to kind of have

it like a continuous transition. It seems like your ass is going to make it until the 2020 rover arrives. And that's really exciting. That is really cool. It's good to always have at least one functioning rover on Mars that brings me a lot of hope and joy to think that something human-made is rolling around

down there. Or it's working at all. That's right. That's right. Alright, Hank, what did we learn today? We learned that John, for once, thinks that one of my dumb ideas is a good idea. Oh God, it's such a good idea. It's incredible.

I've got to watch the Despacito music video to fully understand just how good of an idea it is, but I'm sure that it's excellent. We also learned that it's not a great idea to tile your home with avocado toast. And we learned that John would like La Croix to come in milk jugs and that I have no idea how much that would cost. And lastly, we learned that rocks probably aren't squishy until you touch them, but who

knows? I mean, who knows anything really? They might not even exist. Thank you for listening. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. It's produced by Rosiana Halsey Rojas and shared in Gibson our head of community and communications, is Victoria von Jornno, who also runs our Patreon at patreon.com slash deer hankin' john.

If you wanna go give us some money there, you can get our after the fact podcast, this week in Ryan's, it's a very bad podcast, but not maybe not as bad as analyzing second by second, every moment of Despocito. So thank you to everybody who supports us there, that money goes to support Crash Course in SciShow and some of the other things that we do it

complexly. The music that you're hearing right now and that you've heard at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ you