Dear Hank & John - 163: A Man's Man's Guide to Potassium

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

How do I convince my boyfriend not to grow a mullet? What do I do with this small, hot towel? Should I destroy my sad friend in Words with Friends? John and Hank have answers to this and more! Check out our other podcasts in the WNYC Studios network, SciShow Tangents and The Anthropocene Reviewed. Email us: [e-mail] Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Nor is I for the Think of Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where these two brothers answer your questions, give you a devious advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John. Yes, Hank. Why does the Swedish Navy have barcodes on all its ships? Why does the Swedish Navy have barcodes on all its ships.

Why does the Swedish Navy have barcodes on all its ships? So that when they return to port, they can scan the Navy in. That was good, right? No, it's terrible. No, no, that was really good. That was like the best one we've ever had. Well, Hank, this week in good news, Dear Hank and John is officially a co-production of Complexly

and WNYC Studios. Woo-hoo! We have finally joined the WNYC Studios family. What does that mean for you podcast listeners? Well, it means that you might get a slightly higher quality ad read and slightly higher quality ads, but other than that, I don't think it means much. The Anthropocene review is gonna be a lot better. It's got some really cool

sound design and sound sound composition from the brilliant Hannes Brown who works a lot on Radio Lab and other WNYC Studios podcasts. Anyway, we're really excited to be part of the WNYC Studios family. And yeah, it's good news. And I'm also excited that SciShow Tangents is gonna be in the world also.

Yeah. Go produce between Complexly and WNYC Studios. SciShow Tangents is a weird, slightly competitive fact showcase show off between me and my friends who work on SciShow. So we have a very good time recording that. We've done a few episodes already and I can't wait for them to be out in the world. So check it out. I think you can search for SciShowTanjans wherever you get your podcasts and I can't wait for them to be out in the world. So check it out. I think you can search for SciShow Tangents wherever you get your podcasts

and you can subscribe now. Also while you're there, subscribe to the Anthropocene Reviewed and every WNWICY Studios podcast. That's the big change. We're just going to be really all in on every WNWICY Studios podcast. I mean, I do like them. This is going to sound like a bit much, but I actually got a radio lab tattoo. Oh. Is it, does it have ink in it this time, or is it like all your other tattoos? I do love a good, inkless tattoo. The great thing about the bank is that you get to have a tattoo for like a week, and then it's gone. You could just draw on yourself, but what's the fun in that?

That costs like no money. John, do you want to answer some questions from our listeners? Very much so. This first question comes from Natalia, who asks, dear Hank and John, do you want to answer some questions from our listeners? Very much so. This first question comes from Natalia who asks, dear Hank and John, I work in a retail shoe store that offers a 10% military discount every day. Hank, can I just stop you right there? You know, I don't like to do this, but there is one question that is clearly overwhelmingly the most important question to answer first.

All right, well, we'll get back to Natalia's question later. I think you know what I'm referring to and I don't think we can wait. Is it about peeing? No. And I have no idea. Hank, our first question comes from Allison who writes, dear John and Hank, I need help. My boyfriend wants to grow a mullet.

Oh, yeah, that is an important one. I love and support him very much in everything he does. Everything. But a mullet, you don't have to, we know what the butt is, Allison. Yeah, actually, the butt is extraordinarily generous in this sentence.

It makes me think that Allison and her boyfriend have a truly wonderful relationship. Here's the butt, but a mullet is a hairstyle that takes a very long time to grow out and isn't very flattering. And I don't want mullet prom photos. How do I convince my sweet, sweet boyfriend not to try to rock out one of the worst hairstyles

ever to come about? Do I sneak into his house and give him haircuts while he sleeps? Haircuts and headaches, Allison. Allison, you were on a good roll and then you had a really bad idea. Uh, he's just like, I don't know, man, I'm gonna try and grow a mullet for two years. There just doesn't happen.

It's the weirdest thing. The hair in the back of my head just won't grow like every three weeks. I keep thinking it's growing and then it gets short again. That reminds me of this thing that Sarah's parents did for two years where she had a Valentine's day heart full of chocolates in it and they just kept replacing one of the chocolates with a Milky Way and Sarah never picked up on it and she just as a child genuinely believed that there was some kind of magical rejuvenation chocolate machine.

Well, I mean it's good to keep our sense of wonder, John. I have a friend who's very good looking. He's a young man. He's quite hip and he recently went full-mullet. He has actually since transitioned back, so he's no longer full-mullet. He has actually since transitioned back, so he's no longer full-mullet. But during that period of time, the thing that I noticed most about

my friend Nick having a mullet was that everybody kept, this is not Nick who edits the podcast, is that everybody kept saying, wow, you sure have a mullet. Like that was, like it did come up a lot. People did talk about it.

It was a feature of, like, it was a thing that was recognized. Allison, I think the thing you have to do here is, obviously it's an uncomfortable conversation to tell your boyfriend that he is forbidden to have a moment. Just a certain hairstyle. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, John, John, John, John. Before you keep going Allison is your boyfriend to semi professional hockey player?

Great question Hank because semi professional hockey players look phenomenally good with mullets. I don't know what it is. It's possible Allison that you haven't considered how awesome your boyfriend is gonna look with a mullet. I think the more likely possibility is that you've considered exactly how awesome your boyfriend is gonna look with a bullet. I think the more likely possibility is that you've considered exactly how awesome your boyfriend is gonna look with a bullet.

Yeah, so what you're gonna do is you're gonna sit him down and you're gonna say, hey, Jacques, I imagine he's French Canadian. Okay. Jacques, I love you and I wanna have a great prom picture and he's gonna be like, wait, you love me? We've only been dating for a month, okay? So you're just gonna sit him down and you're gonna be like, wait, you love me? We've only been dating for a month. Okay? So you're just gonna sit him down

and you're gonna say, listen man, there's two ways forward here. And one way is where you have a mullet and the other way is where I'm your girlfriend. Okay. I mean, does Jacques just want people to say, hey, mullet? Cause I think that's the only purpose of a Mullet.

In modern society, the only reason to have a Mullet is to have a hairstyle that people will point at. No, not if you're a semi-professional hockey player. There are a lot of different professions that lend themselves to Mullets, but it seems like Alison's boyfriend is a high school student. Mm-hmm. And I remember, like, I definitely experimented with my hair a lot when I was in high school, like, for a while I had fuchsia plum hair, which is a sort of purplish pink color. I remember like, I definitely experimented with my hair a lot when I was in high school. Like, for a while, I had fuchsia plum hair, which is a sort of purplish pink color. I remember that.

Boy, my grandmother did not like that. I showed up at her doorstep in Birmingham, Alabama. She opened the door. She said, no. And told me to go back to school and that I was welcome in that house once the situation had been resolved. I have an extremely similar story, John. I once dyed my hair on upset in color of red. And I went in to see my chemistry advisor in college. And he sat down, he was a very sturdy man, big mustache,

got a lot of books with guys with muscles saying inspirational things on the cover, well that sort of look out at you from the chair that you have to sit in. And he looks me straight in the eyes and like furls this mustache a little bit and he says, my son is starting to do things like that. Can I just ask you to back up for a second?

You sat down on your chemistry professor's office, and he had a lot of books on which the covers were muscular people who would, what? I don't know. There was like a series of books by this guy who was probably like a Navy seal or something and he wore really tight t-shirts and he had a big beard.

And the titles were like, like it was about like how to live a powerful life. Like that kind of book. And he had like four of them and like they were turned out and sat on the shelf like cover out and when you sat down, they looked at you. So just for like a little bit of compare and contrast, when I was in college and I went to see one of my professors,

I would be in a room full of like, like books, you know, like literature. Yeah, I mean, he had chemistry books in there too. Okay, I mean, that was a weird detail. I mean, I remember it very specifically. I could tell. I could tell. I could tell.

It's like you're describing a traumatic memory with all of the sensory input that goes into it. Allison, you just need to be like, listen, don't do this as a gag. I love you, and more importantly, after we break up, I want to have fond memories of my prom when I'm an adult, and I don't want to have to look back at my prom pictures and see a guy who had an ironic haircut. Agreed, John.

I want to go under the next question, but first, I really want to know what these books were. So if anybody knows that I'm talking about, I'm Hank Green on Twitter. I want to find them, and I want to know what these books were. So if anybody knows that I'm talking about, I'm Hank Green on Twitter. I want to find them and I want to read one now. Because I know that it's a thing. I know it's a thing. He probably had a knife on one of the covers.

Yeah, it's probably like, I can imagine the titles. It's like, how to live a powerful life while working 36 seconds per week. Are you able to sing the song of the alpha while having the perfect amount of potassium question mark and then a colon into the subtitle, a man's man's God to living life. A man's man's God to potassium. It's a, it's, it's, I mean, he is a chemistry professor. This next question, John, it comes from Natalia. Do you remember when we were answering Natalia's question,

well, let's actually do it now, Natalia. Okay. Works in a retail shoe store that offers a 10% military discount every day of the week. Sometimes when people are paying for their shoes, I see their military ID in their wallet as they grab their credit card. Should I tell them that we offer a military discount

or should I keep quiet and continue with the sale as is? I feel bad when they miss out on the discount, but they didn't bring it up to me in the first place or look at the sign that says we offer the discount. Any Dubu's advice, welcome. Musically, Natalia. Here's the thing, Natalia. You don't really work for the shoe company, right? Like, you don't work for the man, you work for the people. And you're trying to make sure that the man gets his little money as possible. That is the shareholders of the corporation that you work for. You want to minimize their returns and maximize the discounts that real regular people, including the people who serve our country, get in exchange for that sacrifice. So yeah, 100%. You say, hey, do you know we get a 10% military discount?

I mean, is it a little weird though, John, to be like, oh, we offer a military discount and then they look at you and they're like, how did you know I was in the military? Because everybody else in this joint has a mullet. You got a nice clean, clean cut. I can just tell from the cut of your jib. Yeah, and also the military ID in your wallet that I scoped a peek at. Yeah, of course I looked at your wallet.

Yeah, I'm fascinated by what's inside of people's wallets. I always want to know. Oh, can I tell you that was this inside of my wallet right now, Hank? I got, while we were on tour for an absolutely remarkable thing, someone handed me, you know, st. cards. You probably don't. I do, you know, st. cards. You probably don't. I do. I know of st. cards. Yeah, so somebody handed me the Buddhist version of a

st. card because I think they knew I was into st. cards. Uh-huh. And it's the most amazing thing. You know what it says? What does it say? Hold on, I can't find it. I got all, I can't find it amid all my st. cards. There it is. It says,

work smoothly, lifetime peace. Work smoothly. Yeah. What great advice for Natalia? Natalia, work smoothly, lifetime peace. You know, we offer a 10% military discount, man? Yeah. Work smoothly, lifetime peace, 10% off.

Here at the shoes. Yeah, work smoothly, Natalia. Look at him move out of the next question before John Fightclubs the whole thing. Sorry, sorry, just a little post-election malaise, Hank. This next question comes from May who writes, Dear John and Hank, my name is May. Don't try to be a Ryan May. And recently, I was in a long car drive

when a flock of geese migrating south for the winter past by. My mom pointed out the fact that they were actually going east instead of south, and my dad then rolled down his window, stuck his head out and shouted, oh yeah. You're going the wrong way. I love your dad, May.

Not only do I love your dad, and I can relate. Boy, May, that is the kind of joke that my brother would love. My question is how do birds know where they're going when they migrate? Not the month, May. Hank, I am something of an expert in geese, at least Canada geese, because I reviewed them for the Anthropocene Review. And the number one issue with Canada geese in the 21st century, there are a lot of issues, but the biggest one is that more and more, they are not migrating at all. Yeah. They are becoming year round birds in one place. So they may have just been flying east because they were moving from one public park that we have perfectly manicured for the use of geese to a different public park that we have perfectly manicured for the use of geese.

Right, or a golf course, which is just like goose heaven. But the answer to the question is lots of different things, actually. It turns out we've been studying how birds find their way around for a while now, and also other organisms because lots of animals migrate, and it does seem like a pretty complicated thing for something to be able to do, but we know that animals use geographically on marks, like they know where they're going. They also sometimes use internal sensing,

like they can actually sense the magnetic field of the earth, and so are able to navigate by that. They can also navigate using stars, the star field, which is crazy, like they're freaking explorers from the, you know, 12th century or something. And I love it. Hey, that's very interesting, but I wonder if we can just roll back to when you said

that golf courses are heaven for geese. I wonder how geese explain to themselves that in this heaven, there is the occasional like white spherical object that hits them in the head and kills them. I mean, I think what they're probably thinking is humans have worked very hard to create the perfect world for geese.

But occasionally, they whack one of those little balls into us and this is the price we have to pay. But Aussie, what I want to know is the goose mythology, like the ancestral tale that they tell about why humans have been working so hard on their behalf for so long. This huge shift that has occurred and allowed for so many grassy areas for them to chew up and poop upon." Oh, they're poopers. They are poopers. This next question comes from James, who asks Steerhankajan, I'm on my first ever business trip, traveling on a train in the rolling Irish countryside. The train has so far been rather nice, However, I just encountered a quandary. I have just been handed a small hot towel and a chocolate.

I know what to do with a chocolate. But what about the hot towel? The other passengers seem to know what they do and we're confident in their doing. However, everyone was doing different things. What shall I do confused by trains, James? I remember the first thing. What were they all doing? What was the different thing. What shall I do, confused by trains, James? I remember the first... What were they all doing?

What was the different thing that they were all doing to the towel? I remember the first time I encountered a hot towel situation. I was upgraded on a flight to Australia. Thank God. Ooh, wow. Want to say airlines, I will never forget that generosity.

But I was upgraded on a flight to Australia. And suddenly, here's this person handing out really flaming hot towels to each person. And so I look around and I'm like, okay, what do I do with this thing? And I noticed that everyone's unrolling it. So I enroll mine and I'm like, okay, yeah, no, I'm falling along. And then like a third of the people just begin to like use the towel on their hands. A third of the people take off their glasses or whatever and put the towel on their faces. And then a third of the people use the towel to like clean the area around their seat.

And I was like, what am I supposed to do? It was like, put it in your armpits, be like, ah, that's refreshing. I'll tell you what I do. I've tried all three ways. It's like put it in your armpits, be like, ah, that's refreshing. I'll tell you what I do. I've tried all three ways. I find the cleaning the surfaces way to be the least effective because it's not, you need Purell for that business. I like to put it on my face, James.

I like to take off my glasses and just put it on my face and feel that warmth. I mean, what I'm picturing now is John gets a hot towel. He pours a bunch of Purell onto it and then wipes down all the surfaces on the chair and the seat in front of him. It's probably not a terrible idea. I can see it's like, hey, can you get me some wipes? Can I get some wipes up in here?

Well, I mean, I don't want to get too deep into it, but Hank, as you know, there are very few places on Earth, Phil Theer, than an airplane seat. Like, they never get cleaned. Those, oh, the scariest place on Earth to me is that, like, that pocket in the back of the seat that has the magazines in it. Like the thought that someone would touch that pocket, reach in and touch one of those magazines, when exactly, that magazine is 27 days old, this plane flies nine times a day. Like how many people have touched that magazine?

What did they have? I'm not worried about it. I mean, well, you know what Hank, when the movie Contagion happens in real life, and I still die because of my week immune system, in heaven we'll have a discussion about this. I'm much more concerned when I pick that magazine out of the pocket and somebody has touched

the whole crossword with their pen already. That's what I'm talking about. Those are always the stupidest crosswords, too. They're like blank aniston, comma, star of friends. And I'm like, no, I mean, I got there. I didn't need, okay, I'll take it. All right, Hank, this next question comes from Avery, who writes, do your John and Hank,

I'm currently in a prolonged game of words with friends, with a friend of mine who's going through some really intense life stuff. We often text each other for support and have a game going simultaneously. She's having a particularly bad time right now, and I'm trying to comfort her. My problem is that it's my turn in words with friends, and I have the word gazed. The G is on a double letter, the Z is on a triple letter and the whole thing is on a triple word. So that's like 120 points. What do I do?

Alright, Avery, you just gotta destroy your friend. Yeah, no. Destroy, it's over. Just blah. Sometimes you have to tear it all down to build it back up. It's not just that. When someone is suffering and they're in a bad place, the last thing they want is words with friends pity.

You know, like, I know that my life sucks. I know that like right now in my life is exactly the kind when I don't get the words like gazed. And so I already know that I'm in a bad space and just pile it on. Or maybe it's like you text your friend and you're like, I know you're strong enough to handle it. I know you're strong enough to handle all the difficulties in your life

and I know you're strong enough to handle this next move in words with friends. Boom! You can handle all of this. I would not play gazed on a triple word score right now if I didn't believe that you were strong enough to handle this. Yes. Yes. Use it as a way to build them up while still getting the unbelievable satisfaction of playing

120 point word in words with friends. That's the kind of friends I want, John. No, no, me too. Hank, while we're answering sad questions, I wanted to ask this one from Mary who writes, Dear John and Hank, will there be a funeral for the opportunity rover? Should we have one?

Could the curiosity rover go over to it and bury it? This is not nice. I mean, when you're one of only two rovers on a planet, I guess. I guess you got it. Yeah, I mean, hey, it's okay to just be memorialized in the place where you're at. You don't have to get buried. It just becomes, we decide that the opportunity rover is never gonna like move again.

And it will eventually won't. And this has happened to rovers on the point Mars before a number of times. The moment when they stop moving, they just stop being science experiments and they become monuments to human exploration and creativity and engineering. And then someday we'll go visit them and we'll be like, hey, look at it, neat. And there'll be a visitor center and you can get ice cream and Mars ice cream, too, both

kinds. Is there any way I can win a second bet by betting against Mars ice cream existing in my lifetime? And your lifetime? I know Mars ice cream will eventually exist, but there's no way anyone's gonna eat ice cream on Mars in my lifetime. You'd eat Mars cows. You wouldn't eat Mars cows. We can make ice cream on Earth without cows already. Mm, strongly disagree. We can make ice cream like treats, but we can't make ice cream.

Marry, what I love about your question is that it leads to another question. At what point will we accept that the curiosity rover is the first life form from Earth to reach Mars? And I think the answer is when by itself, regardless of its programming, it drives over to the opportunity rover and buries it. Okay.

If that happens, the podcast is staying named Giorhanka John, because at that point, there will officially be a person on Mars. Exactly. I mean, that's when we know it's when the robots start to bury their dead. That's when we know that we are no longer relevant. So what did we say? We said a person on Mars, right? That's what we're angling for.

The bet. So for new listeners, Hank and I have a long standing bet that if a person lands on Mars before 2028, the podcast will continue to be named Dear Hank and John. Otherwise, no person on Mars by 2028, the podcast is officially renamed Dear John and Hank. So the question I have, and this is very unlikely to come into play. A person, to me, a person is, like, you can be a person and not be human.

Sure, like Chubaka. Yes, a perfect example. So if aliens land on Mars before 2028, does that count? I think that depends on the alien. Like, rookies are definitely people. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. On the other hand, like, if a dog goes to Mars, obviously it's impressive. It's

a surprise. I don't think any of us anticipated it, but I would argue it's not a person on Mars. So if a space alien sends their equivalent of a dog to Mars, that doesn't count. You have to be able to like hold a conversation with it. If aliens send their pets to Mars, first off, we are living in such a different timeline, right? How do we know the podcast are still going to be a big deal in this wildly new world? People are still going to want distractions and they're definitely going to want Mars news. Establishing ourselves as like the most important Mars news podcast will have turned out to be this brilliant marketing trick. Meanwhile, AFC Wimbledon will be like winning the Champions League every year.

And somebody will be like, man, I wish there was more. Oh, there is more AFC Wimbledon news. I love this future. Hank, what do we need to do to make it happen? Alien pets on Mars and AFC Wimbledon winning the Champions League. 2028 all the way. It's happening. It's coming.

We made the prediction here. Don't worry. It's going to happen. Because we're really good at predictions here at Dearing and John. So good. You should listen to some of our stuff before the 2016 election. Oh, God.

Just that sentence felt like a bandaid coming off Hey Like are you eating something? No, sorry, I was just fidgeting What did you do? What did what what were you just crinkles? I was at this very very small Previously eaten package of Reese's peanut butter cup I I I don't know what I don't know what this is about me exactly, but I knew by the sound of that crinkle that it was Halloween candy. I didn't know, I wasn't able to identify Reese's peanut butter cup, although it is by far the best Halloween candy,

and I don't know about you, but it's certainly the first one I steal from my kids. But I knew it was Halloween candy. I don't know if we're just on the same vibe, or if I just know a lot about how it sounds when you open Halloween candy somewhat shamefully. I think it's probably number two which reminds me that this podcast is brought to you by shameful Halloween candy. Look, it's November 10th. It's too late to still be eating Halloween candy and yet there you are doing it. Oh no, that's not why I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed because my children walked for miles and miles to get this candy.

That I'm now like, oh no, I'll save you the trouble of eating it. I can, I know somebody who can take care of that for you. Today's podcast is also brought to you by DSW Shoeware House. DSW Shoeware House, don't work for the shareholders. Work for the people. And this podcast is also brought to you by Goose Heaven Golf Club.

It's made of grass and poop. And lastly, this podcast is brought to you by the business class Hot Towel. The business class Hot Towel. And then, you know, nobody knows really. It's just like, we had to figure out something special to do for you. And here it is.

We put towels in the warm place. It is weird how they create these like experiences of luxury that are at their core really low quality, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Like here, I'm gonna feed you $12 of microwaved food. All right, John. Let's hit a couple more questions before we get to some comments. And then the news from Marzen A. Mars and AFC Wimbledon. This is from Kat who asks,

Dear Hank and John, so I'm currently job searching and I've arrived at an interview early and I find that I really have to pee. Is it appropriate to ask the place I'm interviewing out if I can use their bathroom before the interview starts? Should I just hold it and hope to find a bathroom afterwards and nearby place?

Thoughts, Kit Kat. Yeah, Kit Kat, it's fine to go to the bathroom. If you're interviewing for a job and they don't expect that you're the kind of person who uses the bathroom, who's concerned about the job. Yeah, they're like, oh, aren't, oh, I'm sorry. I thought that you were a Mars rover.

Yeah, no, this is our mistake. This job has already been automated. Ha ha ha ha ha. I think that it's weird. I always feel like a weird sense of like, this is how I am telling myself that I am comfortable and confident in this situation. I can walk up to the receptionist and say,

do you have a bathroom? I always say that too. I always say, do you have a bathroom? I always say that too. I always say, do you have a bathroom, which is ludicrous because of course they do. Like, that's, no, no, no, we all go down to the Starbucks downstairs. Right. It's a real pain in the butt. Yeah.

So you say, where is the bathroom, or may I use the bathroom or something like that? Here's, when I'm in a new office, I like to ask to use the bathroom or something like that. I, here's, when I'm in a new office, I like to ask to use the bathroom because it gives me a chance to check out what bathrooms are like in other places of work. And Kat, if you're gonna be working at this place, it's probably best to scope out the bathrooms in advance

because if the bathrooms are weird or filthy, you know, you're gonna have to hang out there a bunch. So maybe take a pass on the job. Yeah, and when they ask, That's how you know it's a good job market, Hank. It's yeah, it's a solid market. You don't have to, you don't have to work a place with a bad bathroom.

And when they ask you in the interview, like, why did you apply here? Why are you looking forward to working here? You can say, well, I just used your PP hole and I loved it. It was great. It was a high quality bathroom. Man, you got those warm toilet seats. It was great. It was a high quality bathroom. Man, you got those warm toilet seats.

It's incredible. Which just goes to show you it is always good, even if you don't have to, to ask to use the restroom at a place where you might be working. All right, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I just want to read a couple emails that we received. You can email us by the way at Hank and John

at gmail.com. This first one comes from Travis. Hank, you might remember that a few episodes ago we talked about whether it's appropriate to read a recommendation letter that somebody wrote for you. And Travis wrote, I'm so grateful I read an absolutely lovely letter of recommendation that someone wrote for me because it was actually written

for someone named Veronica. They'd sent me the wrong letter. And so yeah, maybe you should do it just on the off chance that it's like, oh yeah, no Veronica will do great at West Point. Simone sent us this one. She says, dear Hankajan, I'm a few episodes behind in the pod, so I'm not sure if anyone else has written in about this. I emailed smuckers yesterday to ask what they do with the leftover crust from the uncrustables. And I mean, my assumption is that that email would go into the void and never be seen again,

but they emailed Simone back, and apparently the crusts are put into animal feed. I have attached a screenshot of the email below, pumpkins and penguins Simone. We'll put that on the Patreon for all of you to see. Yeah, I want to say a quick thanks to Susan Smucker's for replying so promptly to the question. It's almost like they get that question a lot. Yeah, probably that there's a macro for that one. So in Susan's response, she wrote,

in response to your inquiry, the bread crusts are provided as an ingredient for farm animal feed, which makes it seem like an act of generosity. But I'm almost positive they sell the crops. They're provided as just, there's hungry pigs out there, John, they have to feed them. But Hank, John. Oh, God. I mean, at least you scored a lot of goals in a game that wasn't important. Yeah, we did score four goals against

Stephen Edge's B-Team, which... Why did they have their B-Team out? They just didn't care? Yeah, nobody cares about this trophy, the Czechotrade trophy competition. It was a great performance from what was essentially AFC Wimbledon's B team, but maybe we should start those guys. Who knows? Things are dark. Things are very, very dark for America's favorite third tier English soccer team. AFC Wimbledon are in the midst of an absolutely horrible,

horrible period of play. This is the worst, in the years that I've been sponsoring AFC Wimbledon, this is definitely the lowest I've seen the spirits of the club. It's the most frustrated I've seen. Everybody associated with the club. We played the most frustrated I've seen everybody associated with the club. We played a game on November 3rd against Shrewsbury, another one of the worst teams in League 1. They in fact had in one in 12 games. We went one nil up in that game. It was really

exciting. The players all ran to Neil Ardley, the manager of the club to celebrate with him to show their support for him. I will say, at least from watching it on my phone, it seemed like the crowd was really being supportive. Nobody knows the right way forward. Nobody knows if Neil is going to be the manager of the club, you know, through the rest of the season or what. But it just felt so hopeful in that moment and then Wimbledon gave up two really bad goals

and ended up losing that game two-one, which is, I don't know, our seventh consecutive loss. It looks at the moment like we're headed back down to league two. That's certainly, yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't, I don't want to sound despondent 17 games into a 46 game season, but it does definitely look at the moment like we are headed back toward being a fourth tier English football club. 17 games, games 11 points, not good. I don't know how to help you with that, John, except to say that Mars is looking good, is still a big old good juicy planet. And in the next, not cut, juicy. It's got, you know, as juicy as we expected, honestly, we found some like significant juice deposits, not like ones you'd want to drink because of the percorates, but like, you

know, more, more gushier than you'd expect. Mars. Juicier than we expected. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's good. So, so I'm going to be talking for the foreseeable future here on Deerhank and John about the insight lander, which will be landing on November 26th if all goes according to plan.

John, of the missions that have been sent to Mars, only 40% of them sent by any space agency have been successful. So there is always a chance that it's just going to get to Mars and then we'll never hear from it again. So there is always a chance that it's just gonna It's gonna get to Mars and then we'll never hear from it again And then later take a picture of where it was supposed to land and see a big smear across the landscape Which has happened before So we've got you know, we've got got a couple weeks before insight lands So I want to talk a little bit about it as that starting to happen I want to talk a little bit about it as that starting to happen. Insightlander is using technology that we've used before, and that's worked before to land

craft on Mars, so that's exciting. It's also more likely to be successful because it's landing in a very uniform area of Mars, because it doesn't need to be anywhere particularly interesting to do its science. It's basically going to drill into the surface a little bit and learn more about the interior of Mars and do planetary science in terms of geology and stuff. And that mission could be done anywhere. So they're basically landing on the flattest part of Mars that has the most space open for, you know,

if they miss the landing site by like two miles, it's still gonna be just as good. So that, that's good. And also, the thing that I was fascinated to read about recently is that because Mars has weather, you have to, and like, it's not like you can turn around if you wanna avoid the weather. You can't like land somewhere else.

You land where you're going to land and you arrive when you're going to arrive. So if insight arrived on Mars at a time when there was a planet-wide dust storm, it would have to land through the planet-wide dust storm. Instead of saying, okay, well, we're going to roll the dice on that NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory actually designed insight

to like land in a dust storm and be okay. That like the extra wind, the uncertainty and landing where you would actually end up landing. And also of course the act like the parachute and the heat shield itself are all designed to be sandblasted and be just fine. So they have brought of pretty much everything, it feels like, so we're feeling really, I'm very excited about insight,

and I think that the, I think that since we've done this before, that we've used the same landing protocols before, that we should not have a huge problem, but of course, I'm nervous and excited. And next week, we're going to talk a little bit about what insight is going to do once it gets there. So Hank, let me ask you a question. You may remember that back when the internet was capable of experiencing kind of collective joy.

There was this amazing moment where some rover landed on Mars and it was like a mini-cooper landed on a planet very far away from Earth and we saw the live footage of the people who'd been working on this for years jumping up and celebrating and I cried and I showed the footage to my kids and I told them like This is what humans can accomplish together Am I gonna have another one of those moments like are and you're gonna be like one One big moment where it lands and we know that it landed and we hear it beat back and it's like, yeah.

I mean, it depends on, I don't know, I don't know. I mean, that was curiosity, that one when you're remembering. Yeah, and I won that again. And I, like the Mars 2020 rover, I, like there's a little bit of a sense of like, it's kind of we're doing it again. Like we've done this once. We're gonna do it again.

No, no, no, no, no. I cannot wait until 2020. I am asking the insight, is it gonna give me a little bit of that feeling? Oh, yeah. I need that feeling, man. I need it. Oh, I see.

Is insight gonna give you that feeling? I mean, if you pay attention, I don't think it's gonna happen for the whole, the whole internet at the same time like it did for curiosity, but hey, who knows? Let's make it happen. Let's be excited about insight. It's a great mission, and I'm very excited for it to go well and my fingers are very crossed and I'm gonna be biting my fingernails as I watch the news feeds come in. Here we go. We're gonna watch a live stream of NASA headquarters or whatever, where Insight lands. It's gonna feel amazing. AFC Wilden are gonna go on a six game winning streak. The Chicago Cubs are gonna win the World Series.

I believe that ship has sailed, and everything is gonna be golden. Yeah, absolutely. I feel it, John. It's gonna happen, Hank. Things are gonna change, I can feel it. What's that from? Beck Song loser.

Yeah. Hank, thank you for making me feel hopeful in these dark and difficult times, by which I mostly mean AFC Wimbledon's terrible, terrible run of form. And thank you for bonding with me. It is always a pleasure. Thanks to everybody for listening. And thanks to WNYC for welcoming us so generously into their family. Dear Hank and John, it's a co-production of Complexly and WNYC Studios. It's produced by Rosiana Halsey-Rohas and Sheridan Gibson. Our editor is Nicholas Jenkins, Victoria Bungiorno

is our head of community and communications. The musing that you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. You can email us at Hank and John at gmail.com and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUT