Dear Hank & John - 198: No Ticket Out

Episode Date: July 15, 2019

What's with birthday cake flavor? How do we know where we are in space? Are we the last generation of humans? Is it safe to shower when the power is out? Can I be a dyslexic nerdfighter? What do I wear to a pirate-themed wedding? What is the physics of window air conditioners? How do I stop talking about things my friends don’t care about? John and Hank have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]. Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to the year Hank and John! Those are the ones I'm gonna think of at Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you a DBS advice and bring you all the week's views from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John. Hank, instead of starting the podcast with one of your bad jokes, can we start the podcast with a bad joke that my father-in-law told me last week? Oh, absolutely John, Give me a load off. Hank, where did Noah store the bees?

Where did Noah store the bees? Yeah, on the boat, John? No, it was in the archive. The archive... Vah... All right, now you have to tell me what I would have tweeted this week. Oh, you would have tweeted my goodness. My brother's video about the ocean sunfish is really good.

You should check it out at youtube.com slash lots of letters and numbers. In fact, I would have tweeted, the United States of America is the greatest country in the history of Earth. Oh, because that women's soccer. All right, I thought it was a joy of fourth thing. It was a women's soccer thing. It was a women's soccer thing. We celebrated our independence

with a phenomenal, phenomenal world cup victory, although my son was a little bit tortured about it because as he pointed out to me, you know, Dad, the Netherlands, who were our opponent in the final of the World Cup, and the United States are the only two countries in which I have ever lived. And I said, that's true.

And then Alice said, well, I've only lived in America. 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 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 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 spending your day growing actual food. This first question comes from Amanda who writes, dear John and Hank, is it safe to shower in your apartment when the power is out? I just got home from work and would like to shower before I go to the Hugh Jackman concert tonight? Wait, whoa Amanda. Hey now. Yeah, it got to be clean for you.

First off, you buried the lead, Amanda. Let me rewrite your email for you. Dear John and Hank, I am attending a Hugh Jackman concert tonight. Is it safe to shower in my apartment when the power is out? Please help. It doesn't matter if it's safe. You've got to be clean for Hugh. Well, it does matter if it's safe.

That's really bad advice to be like, risk your life so that you smell good for Hugh Jackman who will not smell you. Who will be many meters away. And who himself will probably smell terrible because he's gonna have all those hot lights on him and I assume he's gonna be dancing and like throwing his body around like he did in Wolverine 3.

Yeah, and in general, it's the tour life, you know. You don't have all this extra time to do things like spritz yourself. Hank, I know that we've already started answering a man's question, but I need to let you know what her name specific sign off was because it's magical. It is Hughes Jacked Man, a man. 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 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 ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha not by electricity, though, that might be different for you, so you might run out of hot water. And then the water is powered by the city water people.

That's their job. Unless you got a pump on site, I don't know. How does your water work? The answer, Amanda, is that if water comes out of your shower, it is safe, probably, to shower. Yeah, there's nothing like that happens in your house that makes the water safe, but I'm worried about you falling over. So as long as it's still light out,

then you should be fine. I almost always take beds in the dark. So it's weird that you would like, get obsessed about that. I have it. Oh my God. I love to take a bath in the dark. I am just picturing a single candle.

That, yep, that's what I was picturing. Maybe 16 total candles and rose petals sprinkled over your fizzing bath bomb. No, no, no, no, those rose petals, they ruin it. They don't go down the drain. I just like some nice bath salts, a single candle, darkness, and just absolute relaxation. Do you turn on like a noise of some kind?

Do you listen to like anya? No, I just close my eyes and I just, what I picture in my eyelids is just two huge actments, just standing before me. Huge and jacked. I think you'll be fine. I am worried about you slipping, though, John. Be very careful. The bath is a very dangerous place.

I mean, I never like to say this because I always worry that I'm inviting my own death. Like, I never like to say, oh, if I die in an airport, please know that I died, you know, doing what I hated. If I die in a airport, please know that I died, you know, doing what I hated. If I die in a bath, please know that I died doing what I loved most in the world other than hanging out with my family.

This next question comes from all this, I ask, dear Hank and John, I recently moved into a studio apartment that has a window air conditioner unit. This is fine, but because of how it's installed in the window, I cannot clean the section where the window is overlapped, and it's very dirty. While living in these miserable conditions, I started to wonder why AC units are positioned half out of the window, half indoors. Why do we need to chill outside air and bring it inside? Why can't my AC unit just chill the air that's already in here? My initials are AC and I am an absolute unit, Alissa.

John, what does it mean when you say you're an absolute unit? That's one of those phrases that became popular after my deep engagement with popular culture ended. Yep. But I believe that it means that you're a total hottie built. According to Urban Nictionary, John, an absolute unit is a person or object or animal who is large in the sense that nothing can get in their way. So that's not what I thought. So a honey badger is an absolute unit. Yeah, there's such a honking mass of objects that nobody's gonna mess with them. That's right.

That's right, you're an absolute unit. Jupiter is an absolute unit. A Jupiter. Yeah, Jupiter is an absolute unit. I think that's going on the t-shirt. So this is a physics question, and I, therefore, should be totally unqualified to answer it. Except, Hank, I'm reviewing air conditioning in the next episode of the Anthropocene Review.

So I have spent the last month learning a lot about it. And the short answer, correct me if I'm wrong here, is that one of the things you need to do to make air conditioning work is you need to be able to cool the air by pushing it through these cooling coils, but you also kind of need to be able to get rid of hot wet air. Yeah, yeah, kind of the thing about coolness,

just wait a year, my Anthroposene Review. Yeah, I can't wait. Maybe I'll do a fact check on it. Think about coolness is that it's just less heat. So we have a very nice chili 68 degree room, has a lot of heat in it, in terms of like energy. But you cannot create coolness. Coolness is just having less heat. So you have to move the heat out of the room. And the part of the air conditioner that's outside of the room, that's where the heat is going. It has to leave through somewhere. So you need to have part of your conditioner outside. It's ideal for it to actually be physically outside. If you want to

watch a technology connections video about this, it's really great. But yeah, it's best for it to for the part that is getting rid of the heat to actually be outside. There is one other element to this without getting too deep, which is that it is not just a question of heat, it is also a question of moisture. Yeah, there is a moisture thing. It can also be helpful on that front to have a way of getting outside. All right, let's move on. Before I ruin the thrilling episode of the Anthropocene Review that's coming up very soon. I can't wait. This next question comes from Cara who writes, Dear John and Hank, why are birthday cake flavored things always vanilla-based?

Who just came in and decided that vanilla is the default flavor for birthday cakes? What if I like chocolate or strawberry or literally anything else. Why is some fascist limiting my birthday cake? Wow. Geez. I think we're my little be a little definitely confused there but keep going. Why is some fascist going to make my birthday cake selections? I was like the big criticisms of Mussolini. Chocolate and strawberries, Kara or possibly Kara. I'm not here to prescribe your pronunciations. So there's this like thing that happened. Birthday cake flavored things happened.

Where now you got birthday cake ice cream and you got birthday cake Oreos, which I know because I got some and they were so perfumey that I felt like I smelled that way for the rest of the day. And it's not just vanilla, there's something else to it where they way for the rest of the day. And it's not just vanilla. There's something else to it where they've captured the essence of the vanilla along with the wheat, like the cake part of the cake.

Somehow they got that flavor in there. I don't know how it works, but it is weird. But I think the reason is if you got a chocolate or a strawberry cake, it doesn't taste like strawberry cake. It's just like strawberries. And so if you had like strawberry cake, flavored ice cream, it would just be strawberry ice cream. I have this very strong suspicion about this

that is completely unproven, which is as follows. Oh good, I'm so glad. Someone somewhere in some laboratory was trying to design delicious new tastes, which is a big job for chemists in the food processed food world. Yep. And they invented a taste.

And they tasted it. They were like, this is a taste. And they said, this is delicious. It's really good. And then they shared it with other people. And everyone was like, this is great. What flavor is this? And they were like, we call it.

I don't know. I don't really, I don't really know. Dr. Pepper is taken. Yeah, it's not like it's 1890 and you can just name your flavor. Dr. Pepper. Right, exactly. Like you've got to, you've got to have

some kind of real world analog these days. Right. Like even if it's blue raspberry, which makes no sense, it makes a kind of sense in our minds. Right. And so I think a bunch of people tasted out, probably out of like an eyedropper tasted, you know, the raw essence of birthday cake flavor. And I think they all had a conversation.

And then eventually somebody was like, you know what it tastes exactly like birthday cake. And everyone else was like, oh man, yeah, it does. And now, cars calling those nice people fascists. And now, cars calling those nice people fascists. Yeah. Ha, ha, ha. I mean, I've really deeply, suddenly interested in the origins of birthday cake flavor. And- Coming soon to an Anthropocene Reviewed episode.

This all happened very recently. So somebody knows. Right. There are living people on this planet who know the entire history of birthday cake flavor. I mean, I don't know that there's one person who knows the entire history. Like, I don't know that there's a historian of birthday cake flavor. No, no, no. Yeah, all the people.

You'd have to talk to several different people. You would have to become the historian of birthday cake flavor. Which, John, is a job that you are well qualified for? I'm reading about birthday cake flavor right now, and one of the bakers who was an early user of birthday cake flavor is writing about cupcakes and says the following, the top is the aspirational part of the cupcake.

Hahaha. What? That's good that you think that makes sense, man. Okay, so here's the answer. I have an answer. You figured it out. John figured it out. Birthday cake flavor tastes like a particular

Pillsbury birthday cake flavor called funfetti cake mix. It's kind of like sprinkles are inside the dough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably seen a funfetti cake in your life. And that's the essence of how it got started. 1989 funfetti Pills berry cakes, that became the flavor that we now know as birthday flavor. Birthday flavor?

Whatever, I'm sticking with it. Yeah, this is the flavor of your birthday. We captured this memory and we put it in your mouth. Enjoy. We've done all the hard work for you. Now your job is to just sit there and be pleased. Yeah, totally. This next question comes from David who asked,

dear Hank and John, how do we know where we are in space? I mean, that's a great question. Oh, God, yeah, just generally, I don't even need to read the rest of the question. I just just like, how do I know where anything is? How do I know where I am not just in space, but like conceptually? Where am I in my sort of life span? I mean, you don't know, but you do kind of know that you're not in the first quarter. Yeah, like if this is a soccer game, like you're warmed up. All right, to continue. On Earth, here on Earth, we have all kinds of location systems

like longitude and latitude, military grid reference system, universal polar teriographic. I don't know what two of those are, but I'm glad that David does. I assume we create something similar for determining location on other planets, but how do we know where we are in space without any reference point?

The Earth moves around the Sun so using Earth as a reference point is narcissistic and variable. Hey now, do we use our solar system's Sun? But that's moving too, David. First of all, it's not narcissistic if it's useful. So like, where do we start the temperature scale? Not like we're not able to say like,

oh, it's 4,000 degrees in this room. You could, like everything's arbitrary. You could say that and then like just sort of move around from there. So like if we need to know where the earth is, if we got a satellite that's interacting with Earth or if we have a mission that's leaving Earth, it's good to use a reference point that is valuable.

For example, if something's headed to Mars, Mars is the reference point that is valuable. For example, if something's headed to Mars, Mars is the reference point that we use. But we do have a system, John. Do you want to know about it? A little bit. Yeah, I know. But I don't want to know a lot about it. Right, exactly.

That's the thing. You really don't want to know a lot about it because some people do know a lot about it. Yeah, and I want to trust those people because I believe in something called expertise, which has been radically devalued over the last 20 years. How do we know where we are in space, Hank? Largely, we have several different systems, just like apparently do we do for the Earth,

but we mostly use the international celestial reference system. And that's when we're looking at stuff that's outside of, I think, mostly when we're looking at stuff that's outside of our solar system. And the location of things is determined from a central point that is the Barry Center of the Solar System, John. Do you want to know about what a Barry Center is? Yes. If you take all of the mass in our solar system and you find it's like the place where you could balance it on a fingertip and it wouldn't fall in any particular direction. That's the Barry Center. That's kind of great. So from that Barry Center, we then do up and down and sideways and distances.

And that's how we do the international celestial reference system and I have dramatically oversimplified it. And yet still it seems very complicated. Yeah, that's, well, to be clear, that's exactly as much as I understand about it. So there you have it. We know approximately where we are in space, but we do not know where we are within the context of our own existence.

This next question comes from anonymous. Hank, this question might cause me to go on a rant, and I want to apologize in advance because I don't like to rant. But sometimes it's important. Dear John and Hank, I have a question that I'm aware is kind of grim, but I don't ever see it disgust. This past year reading about the climate crisis

has been super scary for obvious reasons. It's also sorely affected my creative drive because I didn't realize how important it was to me that my art, however insignificant its impact might be, live on without me. How do you cope with the idea that we might be the last generation and therefore the art we make might only live for as long as we do? I completely understand this isn't a conversation you guys want to have on a light-hearted show. I'm happy to have the conversation on a light-hearted show because it's not that light-hearted.

Hank just talked for like 17 minutes about the Barry Center of the Solar System. Here's the thing anonymous. We are not going to be the last generation of humans. Catastrophizing the effects of climate change doesn't do anyone any good. Because what all it does is it makes us feel apathetic. It makes our obsolescence feel inevitable, which it isn't, and it puts us in a place of inertia rather than in a place

of we have an opportunity here to limit the effects of climate change and to ensure not only that the effects of climate change are limited in terms of how they affect human beings, but also in terms of how they affect the biodiversity of the planet. So that's the first thing that I feel very strongly about, like going into a place of just absolute despair would be fine with me if it made people productive, but it doesn't. And the kind of like response that like, oh, this is a big, terrifying, overwhelming problem. Let's give up is exactly the wrong response. Yeah. It's also not supported by the data.

Yeah, that's the important part that I'm glad you got to. There are real significant consequences we are dealing with right now already. And there will be real significant consequences 20 years from now and 200 years from now. And we are going to have to figure out ways to deal with that. But like, no, we will not be the last generation of humans. There will be suffering that like that is a direct result of the stuff that we're doing right now. Yeah, and many people will die.

And if we don't dramatically reduce carbon emissions over the next 30 years, many, many, many people will die. But to me, the reaction shouldn't be hopelessness. Instead, it should be, we need to get to work. We need to hold our leaders accountable. We need to ask our leaders to think internationally about this international problem. The other thing is that art does not exist to make the people who make art immortal. I just don't believe that. Everything ends. Art is here to be useful and beautiful

for the people who encounter it. And maybe those people will encounter it today and maybe those people, it will encounter it today, and maybe they will encounter it in 100 years or 500 years. But art isn't good if it lasts longer, and it isn't bad if it only matters to a certain number of people in a certain moment. I just don't buy that argument. Like, obviously, everything in the universe

that we can observe ends. So like trying to somehow buy a ticket out of that reality by creating art is to me pretty ludicrous. We don't make art to live forever. We make art to help ourselves and to help the people we're here with. Yeah, it's remarkable to, you know, I think that we all, to some extent, wanna buy a ticket out, maybe not everybody, but I think that like lots of people think about that and they want to confront that

and wanna figure out, is there a way out? And I understand that, and I'm all for like prolonging human lives, obviously, and like hope that I have a very long and healthy life, and that my son's life is longer than my life. And I think that we all should hope for and expect that of the world. But there's no ticket out.

No ticket out. And if we are making decisions based on a ticket out, then we're not making good decisions. So we need to be making decisions that are based on like happiness and health and helping each other and doing things that are useful and beautiful. I agree.

Don't give up. I wanted to take it out for a long time, John. I thought for a long time when I was a younger man. Oh, I desperately wanted to take it out and I really thought that writing was my ticket out. But what I've come around to is the notion that I'm not making stuff forever. I'm making stuff for people.

This next question comes from Faye who writes, Dear John and Hank, I became a Nerdfighter in 2012. And it was a brilliant time and I love the feeling of community and support. Nerdfighter is very accepting from what I've seen. But I've also found that the core of the community is about the love of books to an extent.

But I have severe dyslexia. I can still read and write perfectly, but I make a lot of spelling mistakes and during reading and writing, I find I'm only able to do it for a short amount of time because I get bad headaches. I feel bad to call myself a nerd fighter when I haven't read a lot of books.

I do read books, but they take a long time to read, resulting in me not having a brilliant bookshelf. Should I just give up on reading? Also, can I be a dyslexic nerd fighter? I mean, first of all, yeah, of course. I'd never even really occurred to me that our community was centered around books,

though it does make sense to me having heard that. And I think that there is a general thing about book readers and about books and how society sees them that this is a worthwhile pursuit for your free times, not like television or like movies or like music. And I feel this, like I never feel like I'm wasting time when I'm reading a book. I always sort of feel like I'm doing this thing that's almost societally praised because it's a smart person activity or something.

But all that you in on a secret, everybody who's listening. I haven't read a book for like at least a year, but I have read probably 30 books in the last year because of audio books. Yeah, I remember when Hank was a kid, he really struggled with reading. Yeah. And I'm still a very slow reader. But I also think that being a slow reader can in some ways make you a better reader. Like it can make you a more attentive reader. You notice things that other people might not notice. You see word play that other people might not see. Yeah, and you also get to spend more time not reading. That's an important part of reading is not reading.

So like, if I can only read a chapter at a time, I then put down the book and I think about that chapter, whereas if, you know, one of my friends reads like five chapters at a time, they put down the book and they spend the same amount of not reading time thinking about five chapters. Yeah, I definitely used to have this idea in my head that certain kinds of learning were like capital B better than other kinds of learning. And the older I get, the more cringy and embarrassing that belief feels. And the times in my life when I have made people feel on the outside because of the way that they learn

or because of the way that they process information are some of the biggest regrets I have about, you know, my public life. So I would absolutely say that you can be a dyslexic nerd fighter. In fact, there are lots of nerd fighters with dyslexia. And also, I mean, I know I'm sure you hear this all the time, but, you know, lots of people who struggle with reading also have wonderful lives as writers. Like, one of my favorite writers is Dave Pilke, the guy who writes Captain Underpants and Dogman. He's dyslexic, Henry Winkler, who's the Fonds,

who's also a wonderful children's book writer, is dyslexic. Yeah, so I think regardless of how your brain works, we're all trying to find ways to understand the world around us. And that's great. This next question comes from Sindra, who asks,

Steerhankajan, I've been invited to a wedding in about a month, which I'm very much looking forward to. However, this wedding will be pirate themed. And I have no idea what I should wear during these circumstances. Do I just wear a suit? Oh, God.

Should I dress up as a pirate? Oh, God. Any doobie's advice would be appreciate it best wishes, Sinjra. You got it. First of all, if you're having a pirate themed wedding out there just to shout out to all y'all pirates, you got to put dress code notes on the invitation. I mean, no matter what kind of wedding you're having, you have to put dress code notes on the invitation. I mean, no matter what kind of wedding you're having, you have to put dress code notes on the invitation.

But especially if you're having a pirate themed wedding. Yeah, what is expected of me here? Do I need to cosplay? How much money do I need to spend on Etsy before I am allowed to come to this wedding? Oh boy, there's two outcomes from this wedding. One is two outcomes from every wedding, John. Divorce and death. That's all that's the only ones.

The only ways out. Oh, God. Sorry. That's how it's like I suddenly inhabited you. I was speaking with your voice. No, the two outcomes I was thinking of, you're right, of course. But the two outcomes I was thinking of are that it's going to be a wonderful memory, or it's going to be a really good story. Yeah, there's no middle ground here. Yeah. Either way, you should

definitely go to the wedding. Here's the other thing. There are no dress code notes. It's definitely a pirate themed wedding. What do you have to lose? Pirate. Be a pirate. Get a parrot. Yeah. Get a monkey. And a parrot.

No, do not get a parrot. That is a bad idea. Don't get a monkey. As a monkey, go to the rear. Don't get a monkey. Do not acquire an illegal pet monkey for this wedding. But do you want to fake a fake monkey?

Do go hard, absolutely go full pirate. And if you're the only guest dressed up in full pirate costume, all the better. Like, wait, is it, but is it, is this like wearing white, like a white dress to a wedding? Is that's like what is happening here? It's like you can't be a better pirate than the bride and groom. Right.

Stole in their thunder. That is a concern. So maybe you've got to intentionally kind of dressed like you could go as a great pirate syndrome, like I have total confidence in you, but maybe you need to have like just wear an iPad, just say, maybe occasionally. Like every third time you say, yes, do you say eye, eye, baby? Oh, that is totally how they're going to say I do.

I, I, maybe. Hey, that is, you know, that is sort of the origin of mate, I suppose. I suppose so. What would your wedding theme have been? Like your actual, when I look back at your actual wedding, yeah, I think it did have a theme. You just didn't know it at the time. Oh.

What was the theme? Oh, we had a theme? Yeah. I don't know. I think it was good times good friends. Oh, okay, good. That would be my description of your wedding theme. Good times good friends. But if I was gonna have That would be my description of your wedding theme. Good times good

friends. But if I was going to have a theme, what theme would I have? This is I'm curious about with regard to you. I feel like you would have like a like a mark twain wedding. Like very Mississippi river. Nope. Everybody's an overalls and no shirt. Did you attend my wedding? No, not that wedding, but if you were going to like do a theme wedding. Yeah. Not in a church. You can't have a theme wedding in a Catholic church. Well, I wanted to get married in a church.

But I'm just saying, it's, I play my game. Okay, if you were gonna have a theme wedding, what would your theme wedding be? If you were forced to have some ostentatious, unpleasant theme wedding. Yeah. What would you be? If you were forced to have some ostentatious unpleasant theme wedding, what would you do? Do you want the truth? I think it would be called the lap of luxury. Oh my God. How are we brothers? I probably would go with something something literary. Like at our reception, each table featured some kind of like Alabama artist or writer, to celebrate the alabamaness of Sarah and I's growing up years.

So maybe it would be like a Udora wealthy, Flannery O'Connor, kind of vibe. That's good. It's pretty pretentious, but it's good. I mean, I could have gone more pretentious, but I was trying to think of writers you would have heard. A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. What would your theme have been?

I'm saying the things that Catherine and I are both into. Yeah. So like at different stages of a relationship, like probably like scop punk. Oh yeah. We're a good one. That would have been really embarrassing and like we'd have those pictures forever

that we'd have to live with. Oh yeah, gosh. Star Trek's the next generation. That would be fun actually. I would have liked to go to that wedding. Or sort of like kind of easier to sell the relatives on. I feel like would be pride and prejudice. That would have been fun.

At least people are dressed up for that. Instead of just like, and they're like, you know, dressed uniforms from Starfleet. People are a little more familiar with Regency attire. Yeah, I'm trying to think of what Sarah and I are into other than art and books. We really like the Americans, that television program. Yes, yes. The theme is, we are Americans, that television program. Yes, yes.

The theme is, we are Americans, but not really. We're spies, but we're very American. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Themed Weddings. Themed Weddings, the future, the future, the past, the present, the future. This podcast is also brought to you by the Barry Center of the Solar System. Just put your finger under there and wiggle it around. See if you can balance it like a broom handle. And today's podcast is brought to you by birthday cake Oreos. If you want them, don't let John near them. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by The Ticket Out. The Ticket Out.

It does not exist. We also have a project for awesome message from Rose from Golden Colorado to Mindy Tarkini. My mom writes with a poetic vigor that reminds me of both of you, John and Hank. She's smart and endlessly kind and encourages me to be both. Her books, Hindsight, The Infinite Now, and Deepest Blue are award-winning,

but because they're with a small press, not best selling. No matter your sales, you will always be my favorite author. Thank you for being the best mom I could have. Well, that's very sweet, Rose. And also, wait a sneak in some promo for your mom's books. I'll repeat the titles. Hindsight, the Infinite Now, which is a great title, and deepest blue. All right, John. We've got another question. This one's from Anonymous because you wouldn't want to be public with this question, I guess. Dear podcast people, tankin' John, I assume. I'm a huge hockey fan.

Did you send this as a form letter to a bunch of different podcasts? Dear podcast person. What's the question? The question is, I'm a huge hockey fan. My favorite team is the St. Louis Blues. Whenever there's a super important game, like a playoffs game, I always text my friend about it.

I know she doesn't care though, so how do I stop? I can't help it. I just have to tell someone that we just won the Stanley Cup. Do be as advice appreciated. You don't know me, I'm anonymous. So John, as a person who repeatedly tells people about sports when they didn't ask for it, I wanted to know what you thought about this question.

Well, first off, anonymous. Congratulations to your St. Louis Blues on their first ever Stanley Cup. I'm sure you're very excited. I do have this problem, and I don't really know how to solve it, except to try to also love the things my friends love. Like of course, I don't love them the way they do. Like Chris, for instance, loves golf. And when one of the major tournaments in golf is happening, like Chris's favorite thing to do is spend that whole

is happening like Chris's favorite thing to do is spend that whole Sunday watching the golf takes like eight hours and I don't love golf, you know, like it's just never going to be my thing but I am able over time to get into a place where I can see it through his eyes and I can think like oh my god Chris must be so excited right now. And so that, I think that's what you're trying to do is you're trying to like build up that relationship over time, but I think it has to be reciprocal. Like you can't just say like, I need you to care about the St. Louis Blues at least a little.

You have to be like, oh, I'm really excited that in competitive Pokemon, your favorite player was so successful at that tournament. Yeah. Also, I will say there might not really be a problem. I don't know if your friend has given you like gentle ribs about this or asked you to stop. I think if your friend asked you to stop, you would stop. But probably, it's just okay to be like, I'm excited and I want to do it now. And I don't, I love that one. My friends feel as if they would like to include me on their happiness. And as long as you're not being like, why aren't you happy for me? I think it's fine. Right. Like I sent Hank a bunch of Liverpool memes after Liverpool won the European

championship with like a lot of context where I was like, Hank, if you just understand the context, you'll really enjoy this eight-minute meme factory video that contains nothing but inside jokes about Devakareegi, a player you know nothing about. Yeah, and like I eventually realized like, Hank isn't gonna be able to fully enjoy this meme-tastic video. I'm just not gonna get there. But he is happy for me. I am. Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I just have to read one email we got from Vita

because I think it's a lie. I'm not positive. Dear John and Hank, I was just listening to the recent episode of Your Podcast where one listener asked why all the doorbells ring with a sound of ding dong. I do not know if ding dong is an American thing, but I live in Slovenia and then in parentheses Europe. Europe.

Thank you, Vita. Thank you for correctly assuming that Americans need that little hint. And all the bells for sure do not ring ding dong. For example, at home, we have a doorbell that does not do ding dong, but rather a sound similar to the sound of whales. Whales with an H for clarity, the animals. What other whales?

Like, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Oh, my head went to the area of Great Britain, the country. Yeah, I don't know. I was trying to stay out of that heck. I'm not trying to get involved in politics. You'd be terrible at Twitter. Yeah, and I was just thinking to myself, like, what sound does Wales make? Like I know Welsh is a language, but I don't think Wales itself makes that sound. At any rate, Viva, if your doorbell really makes the sound of Wales, that's lovely.

And it's just one of the things that we should import from Slovenia, the other being of course your beautiful mountains, your socialized health care, and your life expectancy of eight of one. Oh God. Wow. I think we need to move to Slovenia. Yeah, I hadn't thought about it until now, but Wales, I do love the sound of Wales. One of my relatives has a doorbell that makes a friarisciaca song as a doorbell, also says Vita, not a cheater or a cheetah Vita.

Man, we are living in the past, John. We could have whale doorbells. They could do anything. They could make any noise. It's 2019. I could they could just make the noise of like that nice pigeon noise that pigeons make. I like that noise. Oh God.

I do not like that noise. All right. We got to get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Oh, it's been a dramatic week in AFC Wimbledon's life. Oh my God. I believe it. Well, I mean, most importantly, most, most vitally, oh yeah, AFC Wimbledon have had to part with Toby Civic, a defender. He's 20 years old. He played really, really well last season scored a big goal against West Ham to ensure our stunning victory in the FA Cup, which in turn gave us enough money that probably allowed us to stay up, but he has been bought for an undisclosed

fee. I hope it was a lot by Barnes Lee. Barnes Lee. Barnes Lee play in the second tier of English football. You can never begrudge a player moving up a league. You know, I think for professional footballers, they have short careers. They don't get paid a lot of money. And moving up a league is a huge deal.

I think Toby has a really, really bright future. He was so nice to Henry when we came and visited together to see a game. He's a great guy. He's a wonderful player. I wish him well. I'm a little gutted that he is moving on. But it's always good when you are the kind of club that develops young players who become stars. In other news, the stadium is getting close to happening, but in order for the stadium to happen,

we're going to have to raise a lot of money from British people because only British people can be part of the crowdfunding campaign for interest finance reasons. But man, there are some amazing, amazing perks that are available, including having one of the stadium's urinals named after the person of your choice. Oh my. That's what I've always wanted. I mean, ah, God, never have I wanted to be British so much. I know I was thinking about having some kind of money laundering operation where I just

said money to Rosiana and then she turns it into British money and then it just works out. But apparently my accountant said that that was illegal. I'm so excited for this crowdfunding effort. I really, really want it to work because we need to raise a lot of money to build this stadium and this stadium is the future of AFC Wimbledon for the next 100 years or more. This is going to be where the football team happens. And there is no ticket out, Hank, you're right about that.

But you can be part of something that is much bigger than yourself. And AFC Wimbledon is one such community for me. What's the news from Mars? Well, is there any news on Joe Piggett? I'm very nervous about Joe Piggett. Oh, yeah. So, Wally Downs, our manager, says in answer to the question,

have there been any bids from championship sides for the services of Joe Piggett? Downs answer was no none. So... Yeah, okay. So on the same situation, are the papers lying about Joe Piggit leaving? I hope so,

because where are we gonna get the goals from? If we sell Joe Piggit, then all of our goals are gonna have to come from that guy who's never played a game of professional football, but is very handsome and has a master's degree. Well, John, in news from Mars, you, of course, I'm sure, remember, the heat flow and physical properties package. Of course, the HP3, better known as the mole, which is a part of the insight lander that was meant to dig quite deep into the surface of Mars,

5 meters deep, and that would allow it to learn a bunch about how heat moves around in the surface underneath Mars, and that would allow it to basically map the interior of Mars. Now, this was designed to have a little hammer, that sort of self-hammering nail that would drive itself down into the surface of the planet. And we found out very quickly after it was deployed that it got stuck at around 30 centimeters, which is very different from five meters. So about a foot down.

And it was going for about 16 feet. So it's been stuck there ever since, for months now, and they've been troubleshooting. They've been doing some work here on the planet Earth to try and figure out what the problem is. And they think these are the main things. One, it hits something really hard that it can't nail through. Or two, the sand is actually so loose

that instead of like sticking down when this thing, so it's basically like a nail and then a thing drops on it to drive it further down. Instead of getting driven down and sticking in its new spot because of the friction of the soil, it's bouncing back up because the sand is so loose. So it's either too hard or too soft and we're not sure which it is.

But we also wanted to not sure which it is. But we also wanted to make sure that it wasn't something that was broken with the instrument, that there wasn't like something physically wrong. But we couldn't observe it very easily because there's like some stuff in the way basically. So we did a bunch of testing here on Earth to try and move the stuff out of the way so that we could actually take good pictures of it. And this is like not really what the robotic armist design to do. So it was concerning as we were doing it,

but we have successfully moved this stuff out of the way, taken a picture of the HP3 experiment and insured that the problem isn't that it's broken, it's that something is happening when it is nailing and it's not going any further down. And we're fairly sure we think that it's the friction problem, not the rock problem. The rock problem would be fairly unsolvable, but to maybe solve the friction problem, they're going to try and push on the soil

to actually create some extra push there, some more density to the soil. So basically like push some soil together so that the nail will stick better into the surface of Mars. So that's the plan right now to fix this. It's a delicate process. They've been working really hard

to try and get this mission operational, but so far we haven't been able to, but they are still working on it. So let me ask you a question. And you may have answered this before, and I'm sorry if you have, but if that doesn't work, can we just pull this mofo up, move forward like four feet and try again? I'm pretty sure we can't do that. Okay.

I don't know exactly why we can't do that, but I don't think we can. Okay, well, then let's get it to work right where it is. That's right, exactly. Do what we can do. Alright, that's encouraging news that at least it's working. Yeah, that is doing the thing. Well Hank, we are now off to record our Patreon Only Podcast this weekend, Ryan's, which you can find over at patreon.com slash dear Hank and John.

But it's been a pleasure to pause with you. Thanks to everybody for listening. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Metish. It's produced by Rosie on a Halsey Roll Haas and Sheridan Gibson. Our head of community and communications is Victoria von Jornow. You can email us with your questions. Please and thank you at Hank and John at gmail.com. Thanks to everybody who's done that in the past. The music that you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great

Gunnar Rova and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.