Dear Hank & John - 160: You Are Not My Bus

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

Where should I look when I'm talking to someone? Will aliens ride our roller coasters when we're all dead? Should guests help do the dishes? And more! Email us: [e-mail] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or is I worthy to go to Dear John and Hank? It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your questions. Give you the reason for advising, bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, what did the doctors say to the patient who wanted an appointment because they had become invisible? What? I'm sorry, I can't see you right now. That's terrible, I'm sorry, that is the worst one yet.

I don't love this bit, but I was willing to accept it until that one. Well look, look, look, we did this on tour. And every dad joke got a huge, a huge round of applause from the minority of the audience, but those people. Well, Hank, I have a bit of good news for you. I have a bit of good news. Robert Mueller is ready to deliver key findings in his Trump probe, say, sources after the midterm elections.

That's still ha- Oh! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha Probe, whatever it's called. I'd forgotten about it. It's just, it's too many other things happening. One of the great narratives of 2017 and 2018 life is that nobody knows how to pronounce Robert Muller's last name. And this person who may or may not end up playing a pretty significant role in American history has an unpronounceable last name. He's like the guy who discovered Haley's comment or who discovered that Haley's comment was repeating comment. Nobody knows how to say his name, which is why lots of people call Haley's comment, Haley's comment. It's true.

It's true. Except that I feel like we could just ask Robert and Mjellr. No, we can't. Unfortunately, he never responds to press inquiries. He's like the JD Salinger of independent investigators. People have met him, though. He's introduced himself to people. Hi, I'm Robert Mollier. It reminds me that since I do know James Comey, I could perhaps use my connection to ask James Comey how Robert Mueller pronounces his last name.

I have and do you are you on email basis with James Comey? I thought you were about to say are you on email and I was going to be like, yeah, I mean, I've abandoned a lot of social media, but I have kept up with the email. I'm still on email, John. Yeah, do you do email regularly with James Comey? No, no, of course not. I asked that question just so I can tell you

that I do email somewhat semi-regularily with the governor of my state now. Do you really? I do, and he responds to me, and I'm just like, hey, I have this thought. I thought that it might be interesting for you. And he's like, yeah, I was talking about my daughter about that recently.

Wow. I'm just chatting with the gov. I yeah, I was talking to my daughter about that recently. Wow. And I'm like, I'm just chatting with the gov. I mean, I guess that is the benefit of living in a state with 800 residents. Ha, ha, ha. A man, you gotta try it out. By the way, if you go to YouTube and you search Robert Mueller, sss, it auto fills saying his own name.

So we're not the first person, we're not the first person to have this question. What does it say? You know, there's a bunch of links that don't include Robert Mueller saying his own name. So pretty difficult YouTube search results. Ah. Okay, Hank, let's go ahead and move on

to some questions from our listeners. All right, this one comes from Lisa who asks, dear Hank and John, my roommate just caught a cold from me as I am recovering from that cold. And I would like to provide care for her in any way I can. That's very sweet. Unfortunately, the only thing I can think to do is cook.

And I am not a very good cook. She does a lot of the cooking. You have a roommate that does a lot of the cooking. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's amazing. Wow. And she is very good at making soups. And I am not. Do you have any dubious advice for how to care for a sick roommate, guilty, and terrible at cooking? Lisa. Lisa, you don't have to be good at cooking to be able to cook soup. You need to be good at can opening. Yeah, it's, I mean, yeah. So, so a chicken noodle soup is so easy. So the, here's the main thing that I learned about how to make a chicken noodle soup, John. This is, this is an innovation that somebody should have told me that I had to learn on my own.

Okay. You don't buy raw chicken, you buy a rotisserie chicken, and you take the cooked juicy, amazing chicken that an expert chicken, and you take the cooked, juicy, amazing chicken that an expert made, and you cut it off of the chicken and you put that in the soup. And then the chicken is good. Everything else is just like the stuff you put in the soup. It's just boiled noodles and stuff, and like chicken stock, and like opening cans,

and opening cardboard thingies, because now that's when they put the chair in stock. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty straightforward, these little, but I'm gonna make it even a little easier and recommend that you purchase canned Campbell's soup. You open the can. Oh, no.

You put it in a bowl. You put the bowl in a microwave. You microwave it until it's an appropriate heat and then you hand it to your roommate, and your roommate is sick, all right? Their taste buds are all jacked up. They can't smell anything. They're not gonna know that it's not homemade soup,

and they're not gonna care because in this situation, it actually is the thought that counts because homemade chicken noodle soup does not make you well any faster than delicious Campbell's. Is it too early to have a sponsor? Campbell's new chicken noodle soup does not make you well any faster than delicious Campbell's. Is it too early to have a sponsor? Campbell's new chicken noodle soup. The best soup that you can buy in a can. You just said that it's not the thought,

it's the thought that counts. And I just think that there's more thought that goes into like, you know, ripping some flesh off of a pre-cooked bread. Yeah, no, no, no. Their thought comes when you tell InstaCart to bring you canned chicken noodle soup as soon as possible for the lowest delivery fee

that they can achieve. I don't know even know what InstaCart is. They all you big city folks and your services, service apps. Okay. Do you guys have Uber or is Uber not come to Montana yet? We do. We got Uber last year and we also have Lyft.

And yeah, it's great. I'm very glad. I just used it just the other day because we took the bus to the mall and then the bus stopped running while we were in the mall and we had to take an Uber home. Welcome to Montana. This next question comes from Katie who writes, dear John and Hank, I took a midterm this morning

and the last question was extra credit. The professor posed the following riddle, a man walks past a hotel and laughs. Why? I was completely stumped. Google doesn't seem to have the answer either. Can either of you think of anything? It's driving me insane.

I.I. made it, Katie. I think it was just a funny hotel. Oh no, I think that it's a riddle. Right, it's a riddle about how how different architecture like so the guy is an expert in architecture and he noticed that the hotel was built in the 1990s but attempted to be in an art deco style, but got a lot of the fundamentals of art deco wrong and he thought that was funny. I don't think that's it. They're playing monopoly.

He's playing monopoly. He went past the hotel and he was like, ha ha, I don't have to pay. That's what it's like. He's playing monopoly. He's playing Monopoly. He went past the hotel and he was like, ha, ha, I don't have to pay. That's what it is. He's playing Monopoly. He's playing Monopoly. He's playing Monopoly. I've heard a version of that riddle before.

One that makes much more sense. The version I've heard is... The version I've heard is... A man pushes a wheelbarrow past the hotel. He pushes a wheelbarrow past the hotel and laughs. And that makes sense. That is a good riddle because it's like, oh, the whole thing came together. Right, but there is no monopoly piece that's a man walking.

No, no, no. That is it. First off, you need to go back and you need to criticize the riddle. That'll get you extra credit. I am a riddle expert. Hello. In addition to being very good at taking your test, I am also a riddle expert.

And that is what I've been studying. It's my side study hustle. Did people have those? That's a good idea. We should have those. We should have side studies. Yeah, no, they're called miners. No, so that's, yeah, minoring and riddle expertise.

Right. This was bad. You did this incorrectly, Professor, and I judge you. It's more like a man pushes a top at past a hotel and exhales with relief. I don't feel like you laugh. Like when you're playing monopoly and you don't land on a hotel, you're not like, ha ha. You're like, whoa, I need to pass that hotel. It's very close to the end of the game. Like you roll and it's like, oh ha, you're like, whoa, I need to pass that hotel. If it's very close to the end of the game,

like you roll and it's like, oh god, that was an 11, that's hard to do the math. Let's see where I'm gonna end up and then you get one pass the hotel and that's the whole thing that makes that turns the game and you're like, ha ha ha ha. No, I don't know, only terrible people laugh in that situation.

I think you laugh in that situation. No, it's not like a Mr. Burns moment where you're like, oh, I don't have to pay you off. Like you're just, you're relieved and you've won this awful board game. Maybe the worst board game of all time. A man walks a dog past a hotel and then makes the noise of,

I can't believe I'm still playing this game in an era of so many actually good board games. Yeah, it's like... Why is this happening? Why did I go to visit my in-laws? And why are we doing this? Also, the other thing that you're probably thinking is, oh my god, I can't believe I'm playing the Mizzula Montana version of Monopoly. We're all of the streets are named after streets in my hometown of 1100 people.

Oh my God, how did my life come to this? That is the noise that you're making. Not laughter. There are 60,000 people in this town, John. It's the big city. There's no way that there are 60,000 people in Mizzula. You guys are counting the cows. During a good John, I have just watched

Hank's most recent Instagram story in which he is showing, quote, real-time fall as some leaves fall from some trees. It was really weird. It's like, I woke up that morning and it was just like a cascade. Every tree was like, I'm done with this. These are terrible.

However, Natalie says, it appears that he is in a car and I wanted to send him a snappy to T-Rex to remind him that snapping and driving is dangerous, but then I realized that it wasn't technically a Snapchat. Does snappy to T-Rex apply to Instagram stories too? Or is there another lovable dinosaur who wants to keep you off of social media while driving dates and dinosaurs Natalie Dinosaur is Natalie.

Natalie, I apologize, you're right. I should not have been doing that. Distracted driving is a huge cause of injury and death, and it is not just the person who is doing it. It is also the people that they hit with their cars. And even if I'm stopped at a stoplight, I still am in charge of this very powerful machine and need to be concentrating on that.

And so you are right, and you should send me some kind of dinosaur. Obviously not snappy the T-Rex. John, do you have, like, so Instagram, E, no. Grammy, is it Grammy? Is that what we're gonna go with? God, Instagram is a terrible name for a platform. Oh, I think that they've been doing all right.

It's true, but I think it's despite the name. There are some dinosaurs that start with a G. Yeah. So like Grammy, the gargolio-saurus. A pretty cool name for a dinosaur. Hey, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you call a professional Instagram user a grammar? Or do you call them a Grammy? I'm not sure. No sure because it's snappy. I'm going off snappy. Oh, I guess that's my first confusion. I thought people who are professional snapchatters are called snappies. Are they not? They of course they are, John. You are correct. Well, I think it's great that so many young people out there are making a living as snappies.

I am not at all freaked out by this world in which I find myself, where people are professional snappies and Grammys and Grammers and... It's great. Yeah, Kelsey Grammer. Kelsey Grammer is a professional. He was the first grammar. He was the first grammar, but now there are thousands of them. There's Van Life Grammers. There's Grammers who pretend that they're in romantic relationships, that they're not actually in.

There's, oh, there's so many different kinds of Grammers out there. It's wonderful. I love it. I'm not at all freaked out. I'm gonna propose Grammy the Gorgosaurus. Mmm, Grammy the Gorgosaurus. What about Grammy the Gobi-Saurus? I mean, a Gobi-Saurus is a pretty good dinosaur,

but as I recall, don't, don't Gobi-Saurus look like squat and unintimidating whereas a Gorgosaurus is basically like a miniature T-Rex. Yeah, yeah, that's a pretty, that's pretty serious looking, looking a little guy. I don't know how big they are, but I wouldn't want to mess with one. What about Grammy the Gwan long? What about Grammy the Gwan long? I mean, that's good. It's just not as good as Gorgosaurus. I already found the best one. We just need to accept it and move on. It's Grammy the Gorgasaurus, your professional Instagram dinosaur that is here to remind you

that it is not a good idea to use Instagram stories while you are driving. And arguably not a good idea to use Instagram stories. I'm looking at how big a Gorgasaurus is and it could definitely eat at least my top half in one bite. My only concern is that is a Gorgasaurus the exact same as a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or are they just very similar? That is very similar. Okay. All right, Hank, we have another question,

and it's of great interest to me. It's from Allison. She writes, dear John and Hank, recently I have found myself wondering where I should look when I'm talking to someone. I know people always say that you should look into the other person's eyes, but I always feel like after a few seconds

of doing that, it's pretty weird, and I have to look away. Also, I feel that the eyes aren't doing that much while a person is talking as compared to the other parts of their face. So my eyes naturally want to drift to where there is more movement.

You can call me Al. Listen. It's good. It's a Paul Simon joke. Yeah. I think that this is an example of a thing that as soon as you think about it, it is impossible. If I'm thinking about where to look while I'm talking to someone, I immediately cannot tell what they are saying. I have no idea what's happening. I lose it all and I become a bit of non-un-human, basically. I lose the ability to communicate. Hey, I think you're actually pretty good at looking in appropriate places

when you're in conversations with people with something that has always impressed me because I am really bad at it. I really struggle with eye contact. It feels super weird and intimate to me to engage in any kind of eye contact. Like, I'm discussing the budget for a home renovation or something and the way that I am being looked at and the way that like social norms are telling me to look back is to me equivalent to like the way you look at someone while you are making

your wedding vows. Like the only time I have engaged in what I consider, like the only time in my life I have chosen to engage in the eye contact that society seems to feel as totally normal as while I was getting married. I don't know. I definitely, there was a time in my life where when I actually had a tutor who helped me with that

because I was not good at eye contact and was, yeah, and sort of was like, this is maybe gonna be a thing that takes practice for you. But now it's not a thing that I, unless I'm thinking about it, it's not a problem. And I think I do look around. I look around people's faces. Like when they do eye tracking studies, your eyes spend time on eyes, but like a lot of time is spent on lips.

And then there's also time spent not looking at the face at all, like especially when like considering a response or thinking of on your own. And so, like, your eyes do move around. I just think that that when it becomes very hard is when you're thinking about it at all. And that's, I think what I have a problem with in those moments when I'm like, oh, what am I, what should I, am I doing? Am I, wait, oh, oh, and then suddenly, I don't even know what's being said and also lose the ability to speak. Yeah, Allison, I would just say that you're not alone

in this and don't really worry about where you're looking at your phone. Yeah, yeah, try not to worry about it and try not to think about it. Of course, it is the hardest thing in the world to not think about something, especially when your favorite podcasters have spent a lot of time talking about it.

So we may have done more harm than good here, John. Probably so. As to be fair, we usually do. It does remind me, however, of a game that my daughter has been playing recently, where I will be in my little office in our house working, and Alice will open the door, just lean her head in, and then shout, Monkey, are you thinking about a monkey? Alice will open the door, just lean her head in, and then shout, monkey. Are you thinking about a monkey? Mm, it's her.

It's her attempt to like, control other people's thoughts. I like it. That is all, that's what we're all doing, John. It's very hard not to think about a monkey when somebody screams monkey at you. So now we have made a lot of people think about eye contact when that is the last thing that they should be doing. Okay, let's move on to another question.

This one comes from Karina who asks, you're Hank and John, after war, disease, solar, fires, and climate change have killed us all. Do you think aliens will visit Earth and write our roller coasters? I hope they do. A thing with feathers, Karina. Karina, are you a bird? No, she's hope. She's hope. Hank, hope is the thing with feathers that purchase in the soul, etc. But also birds have feathers. Indeed, that is, I think, the comparison that Emily Dickinson was attempting to make. Anyway, yeah, I hope so.

I just wanted to read that question because it sounds like fun I imagine that a lot of the roller coasters won't make it through but they are built Sturdily like for obvious reasons so maybe they will I went to an abandoned theme park outside of Berlin once for a TV show shoot in which like a German TV show was making You know a piece about me in which I was supposed to be the kind of person who goes to abandoned theme parks. There were many things that were extremely weird about this abandoned theme park and beautiful in their way.

By far the weirdest thing, I actually made a vlog about this video about this, was this ferris wheel that spun on its own in the wind. Oh yeah, I remember that. And anyway, I then later learned that people get on this ferris wheel that does not work and has not worked in decades, and then they count on the wind to blow them all the way around. Mm-hmm. Which to me is way scarier than like getting on a spaceship and going to Mars. Because there is a very good chance that you will be blown

into a place that you are then stuck there for hours or days or weeks or the... Wow, what are you thinking? Did cell phones work? Was it a cell phoney place? Because if it's a cell phone's work, I think I'm fine with that. First off, I don't know if cell phones worked because, you know, I'm not going to pay ten bucks a day for an international plan.

Hahaha. This is in 2008, Hank, okay? Pre-fault in our stars. It was a different person. So who knows? Secondly, it's more depending upon equipment that has not been maintained in decades. And being like, oh no, this will be fine.

The wind will blow us in a circle. I don't know. So far so good. I love the idea of aliens finding earth like long after we're gone and trying to piece together what the heck we were up to. Mm-hmm. You know, like if they see a roller coaster

and they're like, were these people trying to be afraid? A roller coaster is a really interesting example of, like, an amusement. Because most amusement are, like, digital or a femoral or, like, based in media, like, music, and, and, like, even if you're going to see live music, like, that's something that only exists in that moment. Whereas a roller coaster is a structure of amusement.

And, and so, like, it's a thing that lasts and is there as a... Yeah, and even if it gets buried in the sands of time, it'll still be there unless the whole Earth turns to magma. So there's this record of our fun. And here's what fun was like for at least some of us, though to be clear, not all of us. But who knows if they would even know that it is a record of fun?

Like maybe they would look at it and be like, well, that is a skeleton of a weird creature. Or look at it and be like, wow, they must have had made babies in a really weird way. Because that's what we always think, what scientists always think when they find some weird structure on an old animal, it's like, well, I guess that's just sexual dimorphism,

then it's weird, because that's just sexual selection. Yeah, they're like, wow, I guess they needed that for some reason. Or they'll think it was like religious or some kind of ritual thing, like we do with Stonehenge, where they'll be like, woof, I mean, I guess their gods were all twisty and turny. Some upside down gods, they had everything.

And then if they like refurbish it and like figure it all out, one science would be like, no, no, no, it was just for being like weird and like getting looped, looped on and because they liked it. And all the other science would be like, you crazy man, that is not a thing.

That's what I love about True Crime Podcast. They always imagine these like immensely complicated theories and conspiracies and then it turns out that it was just some Yahoo who's still sitting there in town like on his front porch the cops come over and they're like hey did you kill that person and he's like yeah turns out we just like to be upside down some. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Sometimes the weirdest answer is, in fact, the answer.

All right, I think this expression comes from Maud, who writes, dear John and Hank, I take the bus to work every day, and I was wondering what the proper etiquette is when you are alone at a bus stop and a bus drives by that you do not want to take. Should I look away and act like I'm not there or should I shake my head at the driver to tell them I don't want to get in? Please help make my commute a little less awkward at the bus stop. I don't want to stand out mod

I love the idea that you could just be like no don't look at me. Don't I'm not here. I'm not I won't make eye contact I Becoming visible right like the ostrich sticking their head in the sand. Yeah, that's what you got to do, mod. Just dig a hole. Yeah. Get your whole body in the hole and then come out when your bus is there. Mod, I think you're missing the obvious answer here,

which is to have a sandwich board that has on one side, you are not my bus and on the other side, you are my bus. And so the other side, you are my bus, and so you just turn your back to the bus and show them the, you are not my bus sign when they are not your bus. Or that's your shirt. Hank, that is so much better.

You've solved the problem, mod, you're gonna wear one shirt for the rest of your life. On one side, it says, you are my bus. And then on the back side, it says, you are not my bus. And you just turn around when you see the bus that is not yours and you watch it, drive past you. And you'll probably even get a wave in the rear view mirror because the driver will be so delighted.

And then when it is your bus, you could just stare at the bus as it comes and wave, hello. And they'll know because it's right there on your shirt, you are my bus. You are my bus. You are my bus. I mean, yeah, you just, I just wave the bus along. I'm like, you're not my bus. You are my bus. You are my bus. I, I mean, yeah, you just, I just waved the bus along. I'm like, you're not my bus.

Go along. That is actually what I do too. And it is super embarrassing now that I think about it. That like, I base, you know, the like, traffic cop, move along, symbol. That's the thing that I do. But I do it oftentimes like with the traffic cop we have a lot of drama Where I'm like keep it going keep it going. It's not me. Don't slow down. Don't touch those breaks

You need to go go go. I know you got people to pick up and I am not one of them you go you go you And I'm and then the bus driver it's only just occurred to me that the bus driver must be like, yeah, no, I got it. Yeah, I am a bus driver. I understand it took minimal input for me to understand that you're not my guy. Which provides me that this podcast is brought to you by John's overabundance of enthusiasm at only one particular moment of his public life. Cat bus stops. Today's podcast is also brought to you by delicious Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.

It's in a can. It's done. It's ready. This podcast is also brought to you by Bad Riddles. Bad Riddles. All you had to do was add a wheelbarrow to that thing. And also this podcast is sponsored by Grammy the Gorgasaurus. Grammy the Gorgasaurus. Just don't use your phone while you're driving. I'm sorry. And also this podcast is sponsored by Grammy the Gorgasaurus. Grammy the Gorgasaurus. Just don't use your phone while you're driving. I'm sorry.

I appreciate your apology, but the apology that I want is changed behavior. This next question comes from Cyrus, John. And Cyrus asks, dear, hang up, John. Recently, I went to a friend's house and she started emptying her dishwasher, so I offered to help,

but she said that it was fine, so I didn't help her, and instead just stood there awkwardly in her living room and watched her for a few minutes. Oh man. Should I have helped her anyway? When I have people over, is it okay to enlist guests to help if they offer pumpkins in Penguin Cyrus? Oh, Cyrus. Cyrus, I think you missed a cue.

Yeah. You were supposed to leave. When somebody opens their dishwasher and starts emptying the dishwasher or doing the dishes, unless there is like a firm commitment, like when I'm done with this, we're going to watch the Grammys or something, that's when you have to leave. Talk about the Grammy the Gorgasaurus, or? Yeah, no, Grammy the Gorgasaurus is exciting new special on Netflix. It's all about why do we even use Instagram stories? Can't we just experience, I'm old, I'm sorry Hank, I will stop being anti-social media

when social media stops sucking. Cyrus, I think it was a cute leave. That's my guess. It may have been. Usually when I see like a, like a, I'm it was a cute-alive. That's my guess. Usually when I see like a, I'm over at somebody's place and they start doing chores. I'm like, unless, and less, yes. And in the case where there's like something else that's going to happen,

then if they say they don't wanna help on order to dishwasher, I assume that they have a system for that. And that is when I don't just stand there awkwardly, I get my phone out and I look at Instagram stories. Oh, God. Because like that's what we have phones for. The whole point is that in any awkward situation,

I can always be like, oh, I will just look at my phone. That is no, that is exactly what they do, Hank, they distract you so that you don't have to feel bored so that for the rest of your life, you can feel instead of having to feel various feelings, you can just feel distraction. Yeah. As for whether it's okay to enlist people

to do chores at your house, I totally think it is, although it can't be like just chores, like it can't be like, why don't you come over and do the dishes with me? Yeah, no it has to be like one thing among several things like why don't we do the dishes and then watch the Grammys? Why am I so interested in the Grammys? I actually I Haven't even seen the Grammys in at least 20 years. I Had to think pretty hard to figure out what the Grammys in at least 20 years. I had to think pretty hard to figure out what the Grammys were. Right, like I often mix up the Grammys and the Tonys,

even though they're about very different things. I mean, I guess they both involve songs sometimes. I actually, I get mixed up between the Grammys and the Emmys because they sound very similar. And I'm like, why can't- What, the big difference is that you have an Emmy. Yeah, you'd think that I would have some more understanding of it. And yet, all right, this next portion comes from Carly,

who asked Dear John and Hank, I have an older brother, and we get along quite well. We send each other memes, watch YouTube together, we even occasionally carpool to work when our schedules line up. As much as I love this, I wish there was something we could do together to bring our sibling bonding time to the next level.

Huh. Hank and John have what seems like a great sibling connection. Yeah, it's all for the show. And spend quality time together by having a YouTube channel together and a podcast. Any advice on some good activities my brother and I could do together to bring us closer together, pumpkins and penguins, Carly. You gotta make a shelf.

That's actually not a bad idea. Make a shelf together, like learn some basic carpentry together. That's actually not a bad idea. Make a shelf together. Like learn some basic carpentry together. Here's the secret. And I think you'll agree with me about this Hank. It doesn't matter what the quest is. You just have to go on a quest together. Like Hank and I were not that close when in 2006 we decided that we were going to do Brotherhood 2.0.

And we are close now because we went on this quest together. Ultimately, like the fact that it ended up becoming a job and led to all kinds of opportunities we never could have imagined is wonderful, but it worked because Hank and I accomplished what we wanted to accomplish, which is that we became closer together. Like I don't think it matters if you build a car together or if you build a shelf together or if you, I don't know why I can only think of, if you record an album together that goes on to win a Grammy, I don't think it matters what the quest is.

You just go on a quest, go on a road trip, hitchhike around the circumference of Ireland with a refrigerator, which is one of my favorite books, is called Round Ireland with a fridge. It's about a person who hitchhikes around the circumference of Ireland with a refrigerator. It's very funny. I think the trick is that the hard part of this is trying to find something that is a shared project

that feels valuable. And it's very hard to just have the relationship without having, and this is dumb, it shouldn't be. It's a rational and it's not how it should be, but if you can't instill the value and believe in the importance of the thing that you're doing, like we're making something that's beautiful, or that's functional, or we are,

it almost has to be about more than just the relationship. The good news is that there's lots of valuable things that can be created, and that value can take lots of different forms. So it has to be something that you both agree is valuable, and that can be hard to find sometimes, but it's worth searching for. Make a shelf.

Make a shelf, shelves have value. What are those, Hank, what are those cars that are also pickup trucks? You live in Montana? Yeah, well, we don't actually have one. Are they El Camino? Yes. Rebuild an El Camino together.

Just get a rundown El Camino and then turn it into a sparkling, beautiful El Camino together. Just get a rundown El Camino and then turn it into a sparkling, beautiful El Camino. Yeah, search the transcripts of old, old space missions to find the best quotes. It's something that I've been doing lately. It's really fun. Oh, and then turn them into an animated YouTube series. Sure, actually, that's ours. You can't have that. You can't have that idea, that is our idea and it is really, really good. Okay, actually that's really good. That's a pretty good idea, Hank. You're f***ing welcome.

Yeah, do something that won't in any way compete with any of the things that we do because we can't have any competition. This next question comes from Kyla who asks, dear Hank and John, I was last year fortunate enough to buy the last signed copies of Turtle's All the Way Down from my local bookstore.

However, to this day, my mom still does not believe that John actually signed the book and says that there was no way a person could or would sign that many individual books, help me convince her it's real pumpkins and penguins, Kyla. I got it. I don't know how to explain this. John, if you are okay with me taking this one. Yeah, you can take it. I'll probably want to add something at the end, but yeah, how did I do it? Two things. John Green likes repetitive tasks. It is a form of therapy for him,

and that is why he has signed more books than maybe anybody. Two, John Green did not sign each individual book. He signed pieces of paper, and then they bound those pieces of paper into the book. There is no way we would tell you that that's how it worked, because it actually lessens the impact if we were lying about the fact that he signed them at all. So if we were gonna lie, we'd say that he signed each individual book, but that's not practical.

And so that's not what he did. He signed lots of individual pieces, and I did this too. And then they put the pieces of paper into the book. And like if we were gonna lie, why would we tell that more complicated version of the story? Yeah, I've been thinking about this

because I've been reading Marcusus X book, Bridge of Clay, which is really, really good. It's his first book since the book thief, and obviously a tremendous amount of work went into it over the last 13 years, and you can tell it is a special book. But he signed, I think, 120 or 130,000 tip-in sheets, which is almost as many as I signed for the Fault in Our Stars.

I think that what interested me about it and what still kind of interests me about it is that it is an attempt to physicalize in some small way this big thing that as the thing got bigger, it in some ways felt less intimate and it felt less like I was able to Tell individual readers how grateful I was and this was a small way that I could do that and So it didn't really feel like work to me also, I mean it isn't work like you spend 10 weeks Sitting in your basement watching Netflix 40 hours a week. It was lovely sitting in your basement watching Netflix 40 hours a week, it was lovely.

I couldn't do it while watching much TV. I did listen to a lot of podcasts, but I felt like I found that. I mean, I listened to all of, yeah, I listened to all of Moby Dick. Oh wow. It's perfect. Yeah, I found that watching TV slowed me down,

and that was the one thing that I could not let happen. Yeah, well, but I mean, you had to do it while you were doing all of your other jobs. Like you had to do it on the weekends. Like I fully, like I put in my calendar six hours a day, sit in your basement, signing your name. It was lovely. I had a great time.

Oh, okay, Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I just wanna read a few responses that we received, this first one from Annie and many other people who let us know that there are corn mazes outside of the United States. For instance, Annie is in New Zealand where there is a corn maize in the United Kingdom, they have them. But what I've found fascinating is that almost everywhere outside of the United States seems to call corn mazes, maize mazes, which is, of course, much better.

Yeah. Why not do that? Why not? How did we lose that opportunity? I don't know. Secondly, we have a response from Kelsey who wrote in on the subject of raisins to say, my great Aunt Dorothy, which sounds like a made up thing,

but I'm going to assume that Kelsey's being honest. My great Aunt Dorothy says that raisins should never be added to a baked good because they shouldn't have to give their life twice. What? Which I just thought was great. What? What? What? I don't understand. That. Because they died to become raisins. They were grapes and then they were shriveled and then

now they have to die again, getting baked into some baked good. I love it, great antorthy. I don't need you to explain yourself. I'm in. Yeah. I'm in great antorthy. I'm never putting a raisin in a baked good again.

Lastly, Hank, from Taren, Taren wrote in to say, I have owned and competitively shown mini horses since I was seven. Mini, not many. Not many, Mini, small. Yeah, miniature horses, Hank. Pros call them mini horses. And we are now pros because we mentioned mini

chor horses in a podcast, and now I've read 400 emails about them. I've loved listening to y'all discover how adorable they are. I definitely agree myself. In fact, I keep meaning to write in and suggest them as a topic for the Anthropocene Reviewed because of their awesomeness. But now I'm afraid it'll be weird. Anyway, I have now renamed two of my horses, John and Hank, in honor of y'all. They're retired and they ignore me when I say their old names anyway. They're actually

brothers. The older one is brown and black, and here is a picture of them. I thought y'all might like to know minis all day every day, Taren, and there are, I mean, Taren, this is the best photograph. We'll put it on the Patreon at patreon.com slash deerhankinjon, you don't have to pay to see it or anything. But it is the best picture of mini horses I've ever seen,

and I have to say, I assume that I am the older horse that brown one. I mean, I assume that I am the older horse the brown one. I mean, I look almost exactly like that horse and you look almost exactly like your horse. Yeah, I mean, I do look, I was gonna say, which one was me, I would definitely be Hank. I agree. And I also feel like, Hank's a little more carefree.

He's having a bit more fun, his hair, has a lot going on. And yeah, I would say that John's deeper. Yeah, maybe a little more concerned about everything. Thawful, I would say more careful. You only attach negative adjectives to me. I would say thoughtful, introspective, cautious, caring. Oh, okay.

I would say that John looks to me the more empathetic horse. Yeah, okay, sure. Whereas I would say that Hank looks a little reckless. Fumpian Frank. Hank looks like he likes to take all kinds of chances. Hank looks like the kind of mini horse who will start any business. Whereas John looks like a mini horse

who needs to be convinced that something is a good idea and go about it in a careful and systematic way. He looks like that horse maybe started one too many businesses. That's not a feel about that horse. That looks like a horse that struggles to get eight hours of sleep every night, whereas my horse, I'm good man. All right, John, well in news from Mars, I got a little bit of an update on opportunity. Nobody's giving up yet. Okay.

So this has been a bad couple of weeks in space, John unrelated to Mars and opportunity. We had a Soyuz mission that was taken to astronauts, up to, or an astronaut, a cosmonaut up to the ISS. The rocket failed and they had to re-enter. They were safe, but like we don't know exactly what the problem was. So they did not make it to the space station, which is bad. We also had two malfunctions on space telescopes, both Hubble and Chandra, which looks like we have fixed both of those things, but it's never good when you have malfunctions on space telescopes, post-Hubble and Chandra, which looks like we have fixed both of those things,

but it's never good when you have malfunctions and things that you cannot fix because they're in space. And then, of course, we have opportunity, which has been very quiet. So one thing that we actually, one of the reasons why we thought that opportunity might have a really short mission on Mars, and one of the reasons why this 14-year mission has been so exceptional and like so long

is because we thought that dust would accumulate on the solar panels and that would block out the ability of the rover to get light, and it would just, like as soon as the dust accumulated, it would be all over. But it turns out that the Martian Dust doesn't stick well to the solar panels, which is great. So when there is a dust storm, when a lot of dust falls, it does indeed cover the solar panels. But then later, when there's wind without dust, which also happens, it blows all the dust off. So the good news is that there is a like a wind without dust event on its way and from our understanding of Martian

weather. So this is sort of the last hope that like maybe opportunity hasn't checked in because it's covered in dust and it needs to get its panels blown off and it wants that happens. There will be enough light to restart the operating system to restart the software and recharge the batteries. So this dust clearing season occurs in the November to January timeframe and it's helped clean rovers panels in the past. And so hoping that that's what's going to happen and maybe that sort of like the last chance that there's a problem that is to do with the dust rather than a problem

to do with the rover. So you're saying there's a chance. I'm saying there's a chance. I love it. How amazing would it be in a rover's life that has already been marked by so many moments of joy and celebration for everyone, including definitely me, to have written that thing off and boom, it comes back online. That's right. It would be amazing. It would probably not going to happen, but it'd be a great story.

It'd be like a weird movie, like a really weird movie, but it would have a great ending. It just ends with a beep, and then everybody going bonkers. You know, like they're in like a mission control somewhere, and it's just total silence. They're just working, and there's like a beep, and then everybody's just like, oh my God, it's back. End of movie. End of movie. I mean, that's why Mahalo would produce her, Hank. The news from AFC Wimbledon is not great.

Not great. Played Port Smith over the weekend. Port Smith's one of the best teams in League 1. They're fan-owned, which is great. Actually, they used AFC Wimbledon as a model for saving their club when they went bankrupt. They were in the Premier League. They went completely bankrupt.

They fell all the way down to League 2. It was a disaster. But they're a really big club. I think they have like 15,000 season ticket holders. They have a big stadium. And they used kind of the Wimbledon model, as many clubs have in England to figure out how they were gonna be able to hold onto their team

and keep a football club in their community. And so that's great that Wimbledon have been helpful to them in that way. It's always good to see clubs owned by their fans. Unfortunately, Portsmouth, big club, big stadium, lots of fans, lots of money relative to us. zone by their fans. Unfortunately, Port Smith, big club, big stadium, lots of fans, lots of money relative to us. And they beat us. They beat us two one. I will say I watched the first half of the game and I was completely despairing, looked absolutely hopeless.

And then Neil hardly did a fascinating thing, Hank. He made all three substitutions all at once at half time, which is very rare. I do it all the time in FIFA, but it's very rare and proper football. Very rare. And I will say Wimbledon played much, much better in the second half. James Hansen scored a goal in the 63rd minute to make it to one. We're never able to get back on level terms, but you know, by the stats, it was a pretty close game. And it actually made me much more hopeful than any of our previous games or our last like four or five games have when we've just looked clueless and without any ideas and without any quality to finish off goals in the final third. So in that sense, I feel a little bit better than I did last week, but Wimbledon are still just one place out

of the relegation zone. We've only won three of our first 13 games this season. That is not great. So hopefully we will remember this as an inflection point when you know the young, it was two products of AFC Wimbledon's Academy, like of the youth squad that came into the game and did really light it up. Anthony Hardigan, especially, who's a central midfielder with a ton of potential.

He was great. And I really hope we see more of him in the future. But yeah, the news is not good at the moment, but we are only, you know, one-s fifth of the way into the seasonth-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th positive. Well Hank, thank you for podding with me and thanks to everybody for listening. We're now off to record our Patreon only podcast this week in Ryan's. It is the worst podcast you can possibly pay for. It's true.

It's true. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. It's produced by Rosiana Halsey Rojas and Sheridan Gibson. Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjorno, the music you're listening to now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.