Dear Hank & John - 169: A Perpetual Christmas Civilization That Orbits the Sun

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

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Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John, the special Christmas Eve edition. I prefer to think of it as the Christmas Eve edition of Dear John and Hank. We're going to have a comedy podcast about death and also Christmas in which two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John. Did you know that Santa Claus is from Poland? I didn't know that. Yeah, he's North Polish.

Oh God. Do you have good news for me? I mean, the best news is that part of the podcast is over. Wait, I got more if you want it. What happens to a cat when it eats a bunch of Christmas decorations? What happens? It gets tensilitis.

I don't even, that doesn't even make sense. Is tensilitis a cat disease I don't know about? Tonsilitis is a cat disease. Tensil is the stuff you put on trees. Oh, yeah, no, that's good. Do you have a third? Because they're getting worse by the joke. Yeah, sure. This one's even, this one's way worse.

Why did Santa's helper feel so sad? Because they were L. This was dead? He just had low alpha steam. Actually, that one is great. Okay, we run around everybody. How could you think that was your third best Christmas joke when that was overwhelmingly your best Christmas joke? All right. I think I do have some good news.

Okay. It's Christmas Eve as we're uploading this. And you know, of course, what that means aside from all of the religious and secular implications, the gift giving, the trees, the what not most importantly, it is the 476th anniversary of Sir Isaac Newton's birth. Ah, that is, I'm so happy. The game is gravity, Hank.

Can I send it? Can I send it? Thank you for creating gravity. Without you, none of this stuff on my desk would stay there. I'd have to have special bulbs to drink out of. Peeing would be a complete disaster every day. I think peeing would be hilarious actually. No, it'd be a disaster. You could pee in any direction that you wanted to

and it would just go forever. Speaking of which, Hank, we've got to get to our first question which comes to my son Henry. Okay. Henry has requested that we answer his question. Is it a Christmas question? Oh, I mean, I need a Christmas question.

Can you modify it to be Christmasy? Or Isaac Newtony, either of us. All right. Well, it's very Isaac Newtony, but I'm gonna make it Isaac Newtony and Christmasy. Are you ready? Absolutely. And, okay, Hank, this question is from Henry.

What would happen if Santa Claus fired a gun in space? Is it a Christmas gun? It's a Christmas gun. The answer, John, is that if space Santa fires a Christmas gun in space, it's just like the same as anything else, except that space Santa will be pushed backwards. In the same amount that space Santa would get pushed backwards by firing a gun on Earth, it's just that there would be nothing to stop. He wouldn't have any way of stopping himself.

So he would move backward as the bullet moved forward. But more than moving backward, wouldn't he sort of begin to like spin? He probably, yes. He began to kind of flips because it's happening toward the top of his body, which I would think would lead to some flips. So he'd be kind of flipping backwards in the reverse direction of the gunshot,

and then the bullet would be, I assume moving in the direction in which you fired it, either until it hit say Jupiter or the Sun or until the end of all time. No, I mean, if you fired it directly out away from planet Earth, it might not even escape the gravity of the planet. It would probably, so I mean orbital mechanics are really weird, John. So you think that if you're in space, like we're, I'm assuming that Santa is an orbit

around Earth, am I correct about that? No, no, no, that is incorrect. Santa is not in near Earth orbit. I will guide you the question again. I'm sorry that there seems to have been some confusion about this, but the question's like nine words long. What would happen if Santa fired a Christmas gun

in space, not in near-earth orbit, not from the international space station, in space, halfway to Mars, I think Santa is that done, okay. The bullet would go for a long time in the direction in which it was shot. Unless it ended up in like orbit of Earth, or orbit of the Sun, or orbit of Jupiter, or something in which case, like one of those gravity wells would eventually probably suck it in, or else it would just be in the Sun's orbit forever, in which case it would kind of be another planet?

Well, no, it would just be like one of a number of other little pieces of space dust out there. I would like to think of it as our smallest planet. That's a little civilization on it. It's got its own tiny... Chris, we have a tiny... I'm very fond of the idea that somewhere there might be a bullet orbiting the sun forever that's like an inch long and about half an inch in diameter that contains a tiny little

civilization. Right, and it's always Christmas because it was fired from a Christmas gun. That's right, and I probably, because of the weirdness of spacetime, the way that it's traveling through space makes it so that it's perpetually Christmas. And it's called Christmas land and it's a bullet in orbit around the sun. It's our fifth planet. It's between Mars and the next one. The big, I mean, I feel like the big question here is how, so like when we burn stuff on Earth, you need oxygen. But yeah, but for gunpowder to go off, you don't need that

because the oxygen is built in. That's what makes it gunpowder. Is that it has a lot of oxidizer inside. It's built in when we talk about these explosive compounds. They often have lots of oxygen in the compounds and that makes them able to self-oxidize. So we don't need atmosphere to shoot a gun. You can do it in space.

It's probably in general not recommended because you might hit a space station or something and that would be bad. But in a very particular circumstance, you can create a perpetual Christmas civilization that orbits the sun or possibly just shoots out forever For end-ever. Claratic, I think we've addressed that one. Let's move on. Okay, uh, this next question Comes from Leah who asks, Dear Anconjohn, it is December and I love my neighborhood during this time of the year

Most houses on my street put up pretty decorations for the holidays except that one that's two houses from the end Still has a scarecrow with a Joker mask that was awesome at Halloween, but one that's two houses from the end still has a scarecrow with a Joker mask that was awesome at Halloween, but now it's a week from Christmas. I walk past this thing every day on the way to school and I just want it to be gone. You see, this house even has Christmas decorations up, but they're refused to get rid of the Joker scarecrow. Wait, isn't that two different Batman villains I'm confused? What do I do?

Do I put on a note on their door? No. Do I move? Do I sneakily put a Santa hat on it at night? Yes. Please help. See you, Alia. Yeah, I think you just put a Santa hat on them, and then you call it Christmassy.

If it's still there in February, you have reason to be concerned. Right. My neighborhood is not into Christmas decorations, which really, I don't like. And I recently put the lights up on our house. And my across the street neighbor came up to me and she was like, I just wanted to say thank you so much

for putting Christmas lights on your house. We're kind of too old to do that now. It's a lot of work and it's cold out. But it's really nice to see somebody go through a little bit of effort. And I was like, well, it was a little bit, you know, like not a lot of effort was had. Yeah, so it was like, I appreciate it.

I personally don't set up Christmas lights because I'm not trying to call attention to myself, but you do you, Hank. It's like Christmas lights. That's like wearing Gucci slides to work. I'm not trying to call attention to myself. No need to brag. You can afford lights, fancy pants. You can just light up outside for no dang reason other than to make people happy.

I like Christmas lights so much. Oh well, I think that's great. I support you 100% I just don't want to do it myself Okay, this next question comes from Liz who writes dear green brothers if I die here in line for the Christmas Special edition of Pirates of the Caribbean and they prep my body for Davy Jones's locker Will they take my contacts out? Will they even check to see if I'm wearing contacts Liz? That's Liz I have a story to answer your question with. So, okay, there's this couple. They've gone to visit St. Petersburg in Russia on Christmas Eve.

And it starts to like, that way that it does when it like, it's raining, but is it snowing or is it raining and it's a little bit in betweeny and it's, yeah, it's a wintery mix. And the guy says, like, it's raining, but is it snowing or is it raining and it's a little bit in betweeny and the eggs? Yeah, it's a wintery mix. And the guy says, I think it's raining. And the woman says, no, I think this is snow. And, but they're not from there. So they decide to ask the communist officer

who's nearby, the guy who's, you know, sort of like on guard. And the guy says, hey, officer, what's your name? And the guy says, I'm Officer your name and the guy says I'm officer Rudolph and and then they say is this rain or is it snow and then officer Rudolph says it is definitely raining and then he just walks off and then the man turns to his wife and says see Rudolph the red nose rain dear oh there's so much that I don't like about that joke, but if you don't mind,

I'd like to highlight a few of my favorite parts. My favorite part of the joke that you just told is that it was extensively set in St. Petersburg during the, I guess during the, when the Communist Party led the USSR, sure, yeah, which time St. Petersburg was not known as St. Petersburg, it was known as Leningrad. Not my best work.

That's my favorite thing about. Thanks for the correction. That's the best part of the joke. The other part of the joke were all very unfunny. But the part where you didn't know the name of Leningrad was pretty good. So you're saying that they're not communist in Russia anymore? Oh no, no. What is it then?

It's totalitarian, egg-garkey. Good total? It's yeah. It's great, Hank. We should really adopt it here. And indeed, some would argue that we are in the process of adopting it. Liz, let me answer your question. If you get an autopsy, they definitely take out your contacts. That's part of the autopsy process.

If you don't, why do you know this? Oh, you know, Hank, I just, I know a lot about being dead. I spend a lot of time thinking about it. I don't understand why other people don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. I don't understand why other people don't spend a lot of time thinking about death. It's a big deal. You're right, John, it is a big deal, but I don't wear contacts. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha but I do know that if you put it in your will,

that you don't want your contacts taken out, they definitely will do that. So put it in your will. You can tell them what to do. So I do need a will so that I can tell them not to bury me without my glasses, because I want to see stuff. And I want to look normal.

I want you to put me in my normal clothes, and my jammy pants, and my hoodie, and my glasses. Please tell me that you're kidding and you have a will. I went to see them and I had a meeting and you'd be talking about it and then I'm working on it. It was like a year and a half ago. I'm not working on it. You're not working on it because if there's one thing

I know about Hank Green, it's that if you start something within a year and a half, it's finished. It's either finished or not going to get done. Yeah, Hank, you need a will. I mean, Liz needs a will, but you really need a will because... Thanks, John. ...not having a will is going to be a tremendous inconvenience to me if you die. Like, I am going to have a huge problem. Think about me.

The most important person in the problem. Think about me. The most important person in the universe. That's motivating. You know, like, I mean, honestly, I feel like most people I know could handle it, figure it out, but now that I'm thinking about you trying to handle it and figure it out, you're right. I do need to give you some guidance.

I don't want to cause you more stress than necessary. I would take that personally, but you're right. Okay, John, we have another question. This one comes from Blitzen, who asks, what do Christmas and a cat in the desert have in common? What? Sandy Clause. I mean, it's so much better than that Rudolph joke.

Yeah, it's... So you gotta bring it it down so you can bring it back up. It's hard to get mad at you. This next question comes from Kylie who writes, Dude, John and Hank, I met my best friend's new boyfriend recently. His name is Isaac Newton. She's crazy about him. And he seems like a good guy. But when my friend and I left the room and I came back to the living room first,

I saw him spitting in my friend's fish tank. What? I asked what he was doing and he said it was an accident, but I don't know how you can accidentally spit into a fish tank. Should I tell my friend it's been a week and I have no idea how to bring it up kindly. The amazing news is that at least he's a terrible liar.

Like, that's always a good thing to have in a boyfriend Like you you're like you're like what what were you doing? Oh? I don't know I was I was walking by the fish tank and I accidentally stopped and very deliberately dribbled my spit out into the fit no look Isaac was just trying to get the fish to eat his spit, which is the thing that you do when you're nine, and then Isaac grew up that hadn't done it in a while,

and was like, I should try that again. Yes, I got as exactly what happened. Like, Isaac probably fishes, and Isaac, when fishing, often like, spits into the lake, and notices that sometimes fish come up to the surface to try to eat what they initially think is food and then quickly realizes human spit. That is what was happening.

Isaac is not being like a complete weirdo. Like it's a little weird, but it's not cause for alarm. And Kylie, I think that you need to keep this one to yourself because if I'm being perfectly honest, I think I'm imagining that Kylie, look, Kylie, if you're 32 years old or 70, then yeah, maybe bring it up. But like if you're 15, I think that I might have done that when I was 15 and over it, over at someone's house, I was going to say over at my girlfriend's house, but I didn't have a girlfriend. Yeah, over at someone's house. I was gonna say over at my girlfriend's house,

but I didn't have a girlfriend. So over at a buddy's house. I think you've gotta just hold onto this one, and then maybe bring it out when they get married at the wedding just. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a good one for the back pocket, for just some casies.

But I don't know what that case is, but it might be out there somewhere. The other time that you might want to use it is when like Isaac completely breaks your best friend's heart and you're like, listen, yeah, I mean, I know it sucks that you broke up with Isaac. He's a good guy and everything and I'm sorry that he dumped you, but yeah.

Born on Christmas, calculus and all that. Yeah, discovered gravity, et cetera, but he spit in your fish tank. I thought, I thought it happened. And then he said it was an accident, which is just clearly untrue. Bad lie. It's such a 15 year old lie though,

like I feel myself being 15 and doing something really embarrassing and just being like, it was an accident. I don't know, how did I get here? What happened? What, who, I don't know? If I blacked out, I know. I have, this happened sometimes? What, who, I don't know. I blacked out. I know.

I have, this happens sometimes to be, I'm sorry. It's not embarrassing. It's an embarrassing thing to get caught for. It's not as embarrassing as like a lot of things that you could get caught for. You know? That's true. That's absolutely true. All right, John, this next question comes from Ash,

who asks, do you're hanging John? I'm testing for my driver's license fairly soon. And so, thank God does that mean that the Christmas jokes are over? I mean, who knows? I assume it. And as a Christmas gift from some relatives, I was given a copy of the official Florida driver's handbook. It's actually a birthday gift, but we're changing it.

This was very nice and all, but there's one problem. I don't live in Florida. I don't even live near Florida, and neither do the relatives that gave me that handbook. I really appreciate them thinking about me, but I don't know what to do with this driver's handbook that doesn't contain information that is relevant to the state in which I live. What do I do with it? Do be as advice as always, appreciate it not from a fireplace ash. I actually know the answer to this. Do you know this?

Oh, absolutely not. Okay, so the state of Florida's driver's manual is like the national driver's manual. Like it is the equivalent of passing the California bar. So if you study and memorize the state of Florida's rules, those rules apply in every other state. So that's why they gave you the Florida State one. Hmm, weird. I just made that up.

Oh God, I was so on board. You dang it. You're just speaking, you're so credible and, ah, God, I like pride myself on doing that to other people and then I hate it when people do it to me. Just remember, sounding credible is not the same thing as being credible. It's a lesson, Hank. It's a lesson. We have learned an important lesson and I don't think that I, at this point, care what

you do with your driver's license. Handbook. Let's just move on. A mad. Alright Hank, this next question comes from Mariah who asks, Dear John and Hank, as an avid fan of Timothy Shalamay, I take offense to the joke of breaking up with him. I do not know how anybody can even think about getting out of a relationship with Timothy

Shalamay because he is so precious and talented and amazing. I should add Hank that this was one of about 100 emails we received that were broadly on this topic, but this was the most impassioned one. As I am pondering over the brilliance of Timothy Chalamet, I cannot get over his astounding performance and call me by your name and Lady Bird. I thought about why humans have the tendency

to put people they admire on golden pedestals. Why do we do it? What do we get from it? Is it wrong or does it have its advantages? And if it is unhealthy, how do I stop doing it to people who clearly have flaws and make mistakes just like I do? People who aren't Timothy Shalame. All I want for Christmas is answers, Mariah. You really brought it around there, Riah, through your question, starting out at like, being pretty defensive of Timothy Chalamet, and then realizing maybe that there's some more complexity to it than that. I have myself never been in a romantic relationship with Timothy's Chalamet,

so I don't really know what it's like, and I probably won't ever, it's my guess. I mean, Hank, you know what, don't give up. Have you ever been in a relationship with Timothy Shalame? Well, no, not yet, but I'm not willing to close the door and it completely, he's incredibly handsome and talented. Like, who knows what the future holds for me or Timothy Shalame?

That's right, I mean, why close any door that doesn't need to be closed? No, I mean, there's a few people all close the door on. I'm not gonna have a relationship with Bob Barker. Good. You found one. That's good.

John, why do we put people on golden pedestals? And where do we get the golden pedestals? And why don't we melt them down for more useful uses? Yeah, so that rich people can collect them in bars. I think we put people on golden pedestals Yeah, so that rich people can collect them in bars. I think we put people on Golden Pedestals because there is this natural... I remember, I don't know the answer to your question Hank,

but I remember when I first started to feel like a lot of people, especially young people were looking up to me and when I started to get a lot of fan mail and stuff like that, right around the time paper towns came out in 2008. I remember trying desperately every where I went to say, we have to imagine other people complexly. And I was talking about the theme of paper towns, but I was really talking about me, right?

I was also talking about, like, I desperately wanted people to see me as a person and not to have like a set of expectations for me that were different from the set of expectations they might have for anyone else. You know, I didn't want them to see me as some larger than life figure. And I remember I was talking about that with my therapist, and my therapist was like, yeah, but they're gonna. Because you can't, you can't remain on that same person to person scale when a lot of people are paying attention to your work. And that's just reality. And denying that reality, which is what I tried to do for a long time, didn't do me any

favors. And I also think ultimately didn't do my audience, you know, any favors. So I don't know if it's natural, but it's definitely been part of the human story for a really long time. Like it's older than our ideas about celebrity. Like definitely the celebrity worship in contemporary culture is a fairly new phenomenon. But I think the underpinnings of it are not that new. It's been famous people and powerful people for a long time. It's tapping into something that is human, I think. I also think that it is sometimes tapping into it in very intentional ways and sometimes

in unintentional ways. Sometimes this happens as a side effect and sometimes it is done to us on purpose with the goal of exploiting that feeling. And I don't think that Timothy Shalom is doing that. I think that some people are. And I think that a lot of times people, obviously thought a lot about this because it's in many ways what the book I wrote is about.

Like how do you sort of decide what your, do you decide what your resonant attributes will be and put them out there over and over again into the world and be like, here is me, the simple version of me that is the thing that you can latch onto and understand as a person who is exposed to lots of different celebrities. Here is how I fit into the sort of celebrity pantheon. And here is the stories that I want to talk about me. And there are literally entire industries of professionals who help make that happen. And it's weird.

It is super weird. I have been fairly near the center of it at times in my professional life and the closer to the center of it, you are the weirder and on some level more sickening. It is. The other thing about it though is that it almost creates this dichotomy where people are either talked about as like gods or literal gods or whatever

or they're talked about as trash or literal trash or whatever. And so you make the journey from God to peace of trash so quickly that it's very dizzying when you're inside of it. And it's also like super, super hurtful because the more people build you up, the more you start to believe that and start to kind of depend on that for your self-esteem. And then when you turn out to be a complicated person or you make a lot of missteps or you make a lot of mistakes and maybe you aren't as worthy of the platform that you've been given as you wish you were or as you know as someone else might be, then people start to say, like, oh, that person is complete trash.

And I always feel bad for those people. I understand that there are much bigger problems in the world, but I always feel really bad for those people because even the people who, I do not think, have used their platform well, I don't think that they're trash. I think they're human and they're kind of inability to see

famous people or successful people as human is is kind of problematic, but on the other hand the famous people and the successful people and all of the people that feed off of them They depend upon that culture because being famous and successful allows you to generate lots of revenue for Yourself and for big corporations. John, you know that reminds me of like the fact that Christmas trees are actually really bad at knitting. Why are they bad at knitting, Hank? Because they always drop their needles.

They're all so much better than the reindeer and Lenin graduate. I'm enjoying all of them. This next question comes from Owen who asks, Dear Hank and John, mornings are hard. How can I get better at mornings? Like for example, Christmas morning is also a morning. Thanks Owen. Owen, you've got to treat every morning like it's Christmas morning.

Like it's real feel on Christmas morning. You're like, I can't wait to get out of bed and see what's in my stocking. I want you to bring that emotion to every morning and then but no stocking. Right, so what you got well or yes stocking. Yes stocking. Yes stocking.

Here's what you got to do. You got to sign up for Hank and John's new service. It's Christmas morning, every morning, where we deliver to you a package every day of the week except Sunday, because let's be honest, in which you can run down to the door of, and there is something that you can't wait to, and then by a week in, you're like,

this is terrible and I is not totally not worth it. But you can't cancel. It's a 365 days subscription, and there is no canceling, and we're gonna send you some trinket every, yeah. Six days a week for the next 52 weeks, whether you like it or not, Owen. Yeah, and you're just gonna be like,

wait, didn't we get scissors before? Is this like the second pair of scissors? What's happening? Sorry, we ran out of stuff. We just bought a thrift store and we're sending you everything inside of it. One day at a time. Yeah, just one day at a time.

It's extremely inefficient. We are keeping the postal service in business. All along. Yeah, I mean, what has a bigger carbon footprint than mailing O and T-shirt every day for 365 days? This is a terrible idea, I hated a lot. How do you, how do you get that spirit, John? How do you fill yourself with your stocking desire

every morning thinking, and it might be a huffy down there? So I used to be a morning person, I used to love waking up in the mornings, I used to get up before everyone else in the house and make coffee and breakfast, and then I started taking this new drug that makes me extremely tired in the morning.

It's not new anymore. I've been taking it for like five years. But it's just such a bummer to be tired in the morning and now I have to drink coffee. I used to wake up no coffee, no caffeine, just feeling like I have a million dollars. And now I wake up and I'm groggy and like it takes me a while to get it.

And so I feel like I can relate both to the morning people and to the not morning people. If you're not a morning person, I really think that the key to having a good morning is having a good evening. If you go to sleep at 3 o'clock in the morning with the TV on in the background, you're not going to have a good morning. And that's not the fault of the morning. I have to wake up early now.

And I don't, I just think that I'm not designed for it. I think I'm designed to wake up at 9 and waking up at, I just think that I'm not designed for it. I think I'm designed to wake up at 9 and waking up at 6.30 is always going to be hard for me and the thing that I have to do it and the reason I can do it is because like I have this responsibility that I feel very deeply that I need to take care of and if I don't get up that baby's gonna cry and he's gonna be sad and I don't want him to be sad. So that's the only thing that gets me in a bed in the morning and honestly like I don't like it and I don't get up, that baby's gonna cry, and he's gonna be sad, and I don't want him to be sad. So that's the only thing that gets me in a bed in the morning. And honestly, I don't like it,

and I don't think that I ever will. And I think it would be much easier for me if I could get up when I wanted to get up. But like, having, I would never have the willpower to do it if I didn't have this responsibility that I had to take care of. Well, that will pass at some point. Like, at this point, at least on the weekends,

my kids wake up at their own pace and I get to sleep in every weekend day and chill. Yeah, I can't frickin' wait. I mean, but they go to school. Like, doesn't school start really early? Yeah, definitely. I remember, like, before Orin was born, the rule was that I could not call you

before noon my time. And so anything that happened in the morning, I just couldn't tell you about because you had no interest in being awoken, no matter how good or big the news was. Like when I called you in 2007 to tell you that your video Axiodeathley Howellis had been featured on YouTube

and that our lives had changed dramatically and forever. Your response was, I'm just waking up. I love sleep. I really love it. Like, there was that article that was making the rounds on Twitter this week that everybody was all up in arms about that said like, all the most successful people get up at 4am and everybody was had different, different fun things to say about that. And I just thought to myself like, I don't, like if that's it, I don't want success.

Like to me, success is getting up at 10. That is success. That makes me not miss Twitter, by the way. Thank you. I bet. Yeah, a bunch of people do Twitter that will make me not miss Twitter, because I kind of miss it. But when you said that, I was like, oh, thank God I'm gone.

Everybody was mad today about Will Smith being, so this will date the recording of this podcast, what about Will Smith being the new Aladdin or the new genie in Aladdin? So everybody had an opinion about that. I didn't know that there was a live action Aladdin movie coming and because I don't plan to watch it, I will never know about it. And I, in fact, I will never have an opinion on Will Smith being the genie in Aladdin

because I mean already I've forgotten about it. I've moved on. What else can I not have an opinion about? John, Facebook has released people's private data in ways that they said that they wouldn't do and Twitter is mad about it. No, I did read about that. I read about it in the newspaper. It's interesting. The newspaper covered that in great detail but didn't even mention the whole Will Smith Genie thing. John, did you know which newspaper did you read about it? The New York Times.

Did you know that among the companies that had special access to Facebook user data without user's permission was The New York Times? Yes, they said so in the article. Ha, ha, ha, ha, that's good. They have to. Good job, New York Times. Yeah, they was nice of them to point that out about themselves.

Ha, ha, ha. Also, I follow an account called In Otter News, and there's some otters that are pretty good. I love the idea of getting a weekly update from you on the pod about what happened on the social internet while I was gone. Did I miss anything? Yeah, you could just listen to delete this. That's pretty much that part.

I do, but then I don't, I feel like I don't get, I don't get the full picture. Like I don't think you would have talked about the Will Smith thing. No, I probably wouldn't have. Nathan Peterman, who is a quarterback, has signed with the Oakland Raiders, John. Is that like the number one trending topic on? It's what it is.

A trending topic. I would've clicked that thinking, is Nathan Peterman a name related to the Russia investigation? And then like, oh no, Nathan Peterman's just an NFL player. Oh, well. But oh man, when when news is breaking like with but but I'll say but I will say this when news is breaking I Get that news in the past tense, right? Like I get that news. What happened earlier today or what happened yesterday? Right? Like I get that news. What happened earlier today or what happened yesterday?

When you're on Twitter or even read it, you get the news and it feels so present tense. It feels like it is unfolding before your eyes. Like when Michael Flynn was sentenced, uh, recent or not sentenced as it happened, that news as it was unfolding, it took like four hours. There were like multiple court sessions and everything. It must have been so exciting on Twitter, and like all I did was get a New York Times article about it,

and it felt so over, it felt so past tense, and that made me really miss Twitter, but like not in a healthy way. Which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by Christmas. It's a holiday that happens tomorrow, or today, or in the future, I don't know when you're listening to the podcast. And also today's podcast is brought to you by Sir Isaac Newton.

Sir Isaac Newton, today celebrating 468 years of magic, not magic science. This podcast is also brought to you by the scarecrow, Joker and the Santa hat. It's so many different things. And lastly, today's podcast is brought to you by PodCon. PodCon is coming soon. We're going to be in Seattle.

If you like the Anthropocene Reviewed or Dear Hank and John, we're going to be doing live versions of those podcasts, live in front of actual audiences at podcon It's gonna be really fun. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot This gonna be like dozens of different live podcasts that are going on. We've got together a bunch It's just like coolest weirdos we could find to like people who are legends of podcasting and people who have really smart and interesting Perspectives and I'm so excited about it. And if it's Christmas Eve right now and you're like, oh man, I didn't get anything and

I'm panicking, you could get a podcon ticket for your friend right now for whoever that person is. You can get one for both of you. It's available at podcon.com. It's going to be in Seattle, Washington, January 19th and 20th. Alright Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, let's answer one last question from Devon, who writes Dear John and Hank, I'm currently helping my parents replace the floors in their retirement house and I need to know, what should I hide

under the floorboards? My friends have suggested a piece of paper with random dates and numbers or a still beating human heart. I'd love to have your input. Thanks, Devon. Devon, I feel like you've got one great friend and one really troubled friend.

I really regret not having done this when my house was under construction. I'm like, yeah, I didn't I go to the thrift store and buy a creepy doll and put it in the walls. Yep, I agree. It's a great thing to do when my friends Laura and Ryan were redoing their house. They found an entire unpublished manuscript of a novel. Oh man. In the Four Boards of their House. And the interesting thing about that is that the novel was very bad. But because it was under the Four Boards of their House, they read the whole dang thing. So if you want to make sure that they- Wow. 80 years from now, at least two people read your novel stick it stick it in your house somewhere

Hided in the walls may did it just need like some editing maybe like like could you make it could you do a little Workshops. No, no, no, we read we read some paragraphs together and it was like epically bad But you know what Hank it's not about the quality of the novel that you hide under the floorboards Although maybe it is like if you hide a very good novel under the floorboards then like there's a pretty good chance that a hundred years after your death Somebody's gonna be like oh I could publish this under my name and make some money. Oh no It's gotta be the story the story is the Selfs the book

Yeah, that I would either do I would either do that. I would either do like a manuscript for something or I would, I love a good code. Yeah. Yeah. Don't make it random. I want a code that can actually be cracked. And when it's actually cracked, it leads to like a different part of the house.

That would be so cool. And then you dig up and you find like a bunch of old coins, like 50 bucks or something. Yeah. And like old pennies. Right. Keep it in the future. Those will be worth like 10 bucks. Ha ha ha.

Or, or, they'll be worth a ton of money because like there'll be a global shortage of zinc. Or, or, they'll be worth nothing because the monetary system will have collapsed. So, so what we're saying is berry beans, something that will actually be valuable. Cans of beans. 50 gallons of water and some canned vegetables. That's our recommendation.

Yeah. Thanks for listening to Preppers Weatheed with Hank and John. It's good to have a bunch of beans in the walls, John, because then if real doomsday really happens, you remember, like, actually, there's a bunch of beans in the walls. Okay, it's time to get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

Hank, I'll let you go first this week because I don't wanna to talk about it. So John, the Mars Insight Lander has used for the first time the robotic claw that comes down and grabs stuff off of the top of the lander and puts them on the surface of Mars because you need to get these things touch in the surface so that they can hammer their nail down into the thing and they can be sitting on the surface, feeling the vibrations of Mars. You need these things to get off the lander and so there's like this basically a claw game where the little claw comes down and it grabs this standard peg that comes out of the top of all the various equipment that need to get moved off of the lander. And in order to prep for that, it did a lot of like,

looking at the ground around the lander to find the correct place where they wanna put these things. And it has done it and it has operated and it did it and it worked. Great. Yeah, all right. So we're on track. We're on track, John.

It's gonna take a while for everything to get off onto the planet where it can start doing the science, but it looks like it's gonna work, which is nerve-racking. So many things have to go right. Like, first, yes, hard as part landing, but also something very small could go wrong, and then this mission becomes much less valuable, though it will still do some

science. Like if that process didn't work, then it would be a pretty big disaster. So very happy, very good news for all the scientists at NASA and elsewhere who are going to be relying on this data. That is great news. You know it's not great news. Yeah, I'm sorry. AFC Wimbledon lost 2-0 to Charlton athletic not an unexpected result given that Charlton are in fifth and Wimbledon are in last but a little bit of a disappointing result because Charlton got a red card 40 seconds into the game and so Wimbledon had an excellent

So Wimbledon had an excellent opportunity to play 11 people against 10 people for 89 minutes and 20 seconds. But instead, we only got to play 11 against 10 for 33 minutes before Mitch Pinnick received a red card. He received a second yellow for simulation. I'm not sure that it was a dive, but I'm also not sure that it wasn't a dive. Simulation, okay. Simulation. So Wimbledon got a red card, then it was 10 versus 10, and we aren't good enough to beat

Charlton, 10 versus 10. Most heart-breakingly Charlton's first goal was scored by none other than the Montserratty and Messi, Lyle Taylor. Lyle, why are you gonna do it? I will say, in Lyle Taylor's defense that he did not celebrate the goal, he obviously felt a little conflicted about it, but still it was absolutely wrenching

to see Lyle Taylor in a different shirt scoring a goal against AFC Wimbledon. Wimbledon went on to lose 2-0. I was going to say something hopeful here. We're six points away from safety at the moment. That's a long way. On the other hand, it's only two wins. So admittedly, we've only won three games so far this season.

But if we can somehow bring ourselves to win more than, I don't know. It was always going to be hard to stay in league one, and it's proving to be very hard. So does that mean Lyle Taylor is going to move up next year? Lyle Taylor has a pretty good chance of moving up next year. Right now he wouldn't, or right now they would go to the playoffs and then they have a 25% chance to move up.

But I wish the best for Lyle Taylor. But it's disappointing to see him in the same league as Wimbledon and not playing for Wimbledon. It's just a bummer. Well, it's football, man. Maybe we should have the, you should change. You should just be the news from Wild Taylor. No, no. That's not really the thing.

No person is bigger than the football club. And like that's kind of the, you know, that's the underlying lesson of Wimbledon is that no individual even a wealthy owner gets to determine the future of something. And you got to go through, I mean, it sounds so cliche, but it's true. You have to go through hard times together and prove that you can stick together in those hard times in order to come out on the other side. The only way out is through as Robert Frost put it. And that reminds us all, John, of what happens when Santa accidentally goes down a chimney

while the fire is lit. Which is? You get a crisp cringle. Again, a terrible joke, but much better than the earlier Rudolph joke. I am so here for our new Christmas tradition, John. I can't wait until... I, every Christmas, it's going to be a Christmas joke, tackler. I can't wait for our next year Christmas when I just like have to go even further into

the dregs of this barrel that is not super full of great content. Well, we're counting on our listeners to send in high quality Christmas jokes for next year. In the meantime, thanks to everybody for listening and Hank, thank you for potting with me. John, thank you for potting with me as well. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. Our producers are Roe Zeana Halls-Roe Hassan-Shared in Gibson.

Our head of community and communications is Victoria von Zorner. You can email us your questions, please! Email us your questions, we love them, and we love answering them at Hank and John at gmail.com. The music you're hearing right now is from the great Gunnarola, and as they say, in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. you