Dear Hank & John - 219: How to Become Part Crow

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

What is the proper reaction to a canceled Shawn Mendes concert? When should I wear my fancy diamond gold pretzel necklace? What am I supposed to do with the urn my dog's ashes were in? Why do hamsters like wheels? Why are there so few new Christmas songs? Could I get a blood transplant from a crow? Why don't we talk about the moon during the day? John Green and Hank Green have answers. Tour info: https://www.hankandjohn.com/appearances 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 Subscribe to the Nerdfighteria newsletter! https://nerdfighteria.com/nerdfighteria-newsletter

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Yours, I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. A podcast where two brothers, one of them very ill, answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring them all the week's news from both Mars and FC Wimbledon John. Very sorry that you're sick. I also am in a bit of a state right now because I've made a huge mistake. A huge mistake? What happened? Well, I gave Mariah Carey a piece of vacant land for Christmas.

And she is very mad at me. Why, why is she mad, Hank? Because she explicitly said that she does not want a lot for Christmas. It's an all I want for Christmas is you, joke. Just the joke that I needed to cheer me up. I have been very unwell, and I feel like even that verb tense situates it too far in the past. I have been and continue to be very unwell.

I'm not feeling it my best. Do you know what you got? Well, I have flu-like symptoms, and so I talked to my doctor today, and they said that it could very well be the flu because it's now widespread in Indiana, but the last thing they want to do when you have the flu is see you. They're not trying to get the flu. John, if you have bird flu or swine flu, there are two very different treatments. Bird flu, you have to get a special treatment and swine flu, you just need a little bit of

oink mint. Okay, yeah, that's exactly what I'm in the mood for. I can't answer some questions from our listeners. Not my best work. Be getting with this one, which is about illness from Beatriz. Dear John and Hank, my friend and I were going to a Shawn Mendes concert and after an hour in line for the show, it was canceled because he's sick. The saddest part is that we've been fans of him for three years and we bought these tickets

almost one year ago and it's the first time he's come to Brazil. That's not a festival. Should we look at this on the bright side because we have the opportunity to go to a different concert and we weren't the ones that traveled the most to see him or should we just cry ourselves to sleep? be a trist. What I'm getting from this is that you didn't get a refund. You got a ticket to a different concert at that venue or something, which seems like you can't see Sean Mendes who you're a huge fan of, but good news.

You do get to see Mariah Carey. Yeah. I mean, enjoy that Barbara Streisand show. It's going to be fantastic. She really is a great performer. Actually, that would be amazing. To be fair, so is Mariah Carey. Here's the situation, John.

I once went to a concert and the show started to very late because the performer was ill. And then they came on stage and three songs in, vomited on their keyboard, and that was worse. I felt very bad. It's so hard when you're a performer because you know that these people really want to go to your show. Yeah.

But you can't do anything about it. It's just such an unfortunate situation. So I feel really bad for Beatriz, but I also feel really bad for Sean Mendes because like yeah, I've been in that situation before and thus far, I've always been able to drag myself onto the stage, but I'm not singing or even doing a dance. You know, I'm usually just sitting there and reading episodes of the Anthropocene Reuter, whatever. By the way, come see us on tour in St. Petersburg, Atlanta and Rollie tickets at Hank and John.com. But yeah, and I swear we will not, we will not get sick. I don't swear that. That's

exactly the kind of thing you can't swear. Yeah, that's true. John will leave all the singing and dancing to me and to Steve the Minotaur and we'll have a great all time. Oh, is the Minotaur coming back on tour? I think so. I haven't asked him, but he seems really into it. Oh, boy. Oh, great. Can't wait. He's going to be from a different country this time. Oh, oh, good. A different accent. I can't wait. I'm sorry, Beatriz. I don't think that you can do anything other than feel sad. And sometimes, sometimes life is like that. But I will say this one day, you will see Sean Mendez in concert.

And it will be all the more special for all the times it didn't happen. Take it for me, a Liverpool fan who watched my team lose so many cup finals before they won the Champions League final last May. Woo! I'm looking at a picture of Shawn Mendes. I'm not super familiar with this Canadian singer-songwriter's work, but he is also a model and that makes sense because he is handsome. You know, it's funny because I also just Googled Sean Mendez

and I can report a huge surprise, which is that he is not Ed Sheeran, which is who I was thinking he was. It's totally different. He looks very different from Ed Sheeran. I met Ed Sheeran once, he was so nice. I really enjoyed spending three minutes with him. What a weird time of my life

in 2014 and 2015 were. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I've ever met Sean Mendes, but I have, it's possible. I can't rule it out. And if I have, and he's listening, and I've heard your feelings, Sean, because I don't remember you. Yeah. I don't remember most of 2014 if that makes you feel any better. Well, the most likely time for you to meet Shawn Mendes was probably like 2004 when he was a baby. And you didn't know because he was a baby at the time. How exactly would I have come across baby Shawn Mendes? I don't know.

In Canada? In my many trips to British Columbia. Maybe he was on vacation in New York and you went to a store and he was in the store. This, I think about this all the time. How like, we might be in a space with someone who we will later to be excited to be in a space with, but at that moment we weren't excited. Oh yeah, that happens to me all the time.

Oh yeah? Yeah, I mean, the classic example of that in my own life is that there have been many occasions when I've been talking to someone at a party and I've really enjoyed the conversation. And then afterwards, someone I'm with explains to me who that was and I'm like, oh, wow, that's cool. If I had known that, I would have been way worse. Yeah, totally. The only reason Bella had deed liked me

is because I had no idea who she was. Oh, God. Johnny of a weird life. Well, to be fair, I haven't gone to those parties in a long time and in one of my great ambitions in life is never to go to another one. This next question comes from Anne, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I recently inherited a necklace from my late grandmother. It looks very formal and expensive, but it is shaped like a bunch of mini pretzels strung together.

It's not just me, everybody agrees that this looks like pretzels, but fancy gold pretzels encrusted with possibly real diamonds. And you should probably figure out if those are real diamonds. When would be an appropriate occasion to wear my fancy gold diamond pretzel necklace? I have no guidance from my grandmother because I never saw her wear it, and I'm struggling to think of formal events where pretzel theme would be on point, pumpkins, penguins, and pretzels, and... I know what I would do in this situation

But Anne's not gonna like it which is that I would go to an appraiser And I would find out if those are real diamonds and if they are I would have them pride out of the ugly necklace and put into a nice necklace Wow, and I would then melt down the pretzel gold into a bar And I would just hold on to it, you know, as insurance for when the apocalypse comes because everyone knows in an apocalyptic situation the only thing of value is gold. Everybody will be like, oh, you got gold.

All right, yeah, no, come on. Yeah, no, I need that. You can definitely eat that. Get on the boat, I don't mind. Before you do that, you do have to find a fancy October fest to go to to wear it, or maybe just like you go to Antiannis and the mall and you're like, hi.

And you just like a, something that very much shows off and you're just like, I want to buy all of your pretzels. I am pretzel madame and then you pass pretzels out throughout the mall and everybody calls you pretzel madame from now on. Yeah, I guess one option would just be to go to Bavaria. And then the moment you land in Bavaria,

like when you're going through customs, they'll see your pretzel necklace and they'll be like, oh God, it's the pretzel queen. No need to stamp your passport, my grace. And you'll just like walk on in and everyone will be like, the pretzel queen has arrived. The pretzel queen of Bavaria is back. And you'll just be the queen of Bavaria. You get a house, obviously,- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu immediately pry all the diamonds out and melt it down because what if some famous pretzel Smith made this and it's like a big deal.

Yeah. Because you never know. It might be a big deal. And the only person who's going to know is going to be a person who specializes in big deal necklaces. Right. But to be clear, once you find out that it's not a big deal, you should pry out all the diamonds and melt down the gold.

Yeah. Yeah. John is pretty sure that it's not a big deal. I've searched for gold pretzel necklace and John, let me tell you that a surprising number of gold pretzel necklaces, I guess there are people who are like, well, my wife, she really likes pretzels and I love her very much.

So I guess I'll get her a gold pretzel necklace. I actually do really like pretzels and I'm looking at some of these gold pretzel necklaces and let me just say, I would be delighted if Sarah got me a gold pretzel necklace. I actually do really like pretzels, and I'm looking at some of these gold pretzel necklaces, and let me just say, I would be delighted if Sarah got me a gold pretzel necklace for Christmas. Like, that's the only chain I would wear. This next question comes from Allison. Oh, there's Kerry Underwood from Sex and the Citywearing one.

Now, maybe it's, is she married to Shawn Mendes? I don't think so. Kerry Bradshaw, Kerry Bradshaw, not Kerryfff. I don't think so. Carrie Bradshaw. Carrie Bradshaw, not Carrie Underwood. That's a different person. Carrie Underwood is a musician. Carrie Bradshaw is from a sex in the city. Am I correct?

Okay, yes, that is correct, but let me revise. Is Shawn Mendes married to Carrie Bradshaw? That's definitely not married to a fictional 58 year old, Shawn Mendes, who as far as I can tell is a teen. Oh, I just looked it up and Shawn Mendes is dating Camilla Cabello, who I have also met. Oh, right, of course. I actually think I knew that.

I did not know that, but again, it seems like a very nice person. Have I met her? Or am I thinking of Charlie XCX? Let's move on. This next question goes from Allison, who writes, dear John, I hate my brother. John. Never trust him. Never trust my brother. Never trust his stories. They're very good and usually not true. I've seen her in concert several times,

but it occurs to me that that's not the same thing as knowing something. No, no, he is not. All right. This next question comes from Allison. She's a great performer, by the way. Deer John and Hank, my beloved pet dog died sadly six and a half years ago. And I have had her ashes sitting in an urn ever since. I've moved and I'm planting some nice flowers in my garden this afternoon and will be sprinkling her ashes as I plant them. That's a great call, Allison. What am I supposed to do with the urn pictures attached? It's pretty, but not quite to my decorating tastes. And it's very clearly an urn for ashes.

Yours earnestly, Alice. Oh, nice. That guaranteed your question, got answered on the podcast. It's a good one. I will say if you knocked the top off of that urn and just turned it into a wall hanging maybe, that urn looks like a pot.

That looks like something you could put a plant in. Now you want some drainage in a pot and I don't think that that has that because of how it's an earn and probably doesn't have holes in the bottom. I think it could work as a vase though. Yeah, it could work as a vase. But that's not what you should do with it, Allison.

Okay. So I actually recently acquired an earn. I bought one for Sarah for Christmas last year. Okay, that's it. I guess the traditional way of acquiring something. It was the only thing I could find that could hold our phones and close and like had fairly clean lines. Oh wow. I bought it for Sarah as a place for us to put our phones when we come home from work. So as to say, like, no more phone usage. Okay.

It has not worked, but it was a great idea. I like it. Good impulse. Just didn't happen for us. What if you put some different ashes in it? If you got like some shoes that you really like, but you're kind of done with them? I'm not sure that you want to burn your shoes.

I'm not sure what's inside of shoes in re-burning. Yeah, you'll be fine. Just put some caracene on there. I always think it's great if you haven't earned up and people say, what's in the earn? And you say, we don't talk about the earn. Oh, that's great. That's terrible and it's bad.

Yeah, one thing that's kind of fun to do with pottery is to break it and then like bury it in the yard so that in like 400 years someone will dig it up and be like, oh, and they'll like imagine a backstory. But they'll have no way of imagining the true backstory that it was just your dogs, ashes, and then you scattered them and then you broke the pot. Like they will never, the archaeologists of the future will never guess that backstory. No. John Frederick J. Bauer, the inventor of Pringles Potato Church. I know who Frederick J. Bauer is, Hank, Jesus Christ.

He requested that his remains be kept in a Pringles can. So that's happening for Fred. Yeah. I don't know why. If that works for a man, a human man, then why are, why are we going so fancy for dogs? The main thing that makes me think about is that I really hope that I am not so closely associated with any innovation that they put my body in it. Yeah, can you get, can you get ashes and do a podcast, John, because that's how we should go. God knows this will be our main legacy. We have no good answers for you, Alice. And we just wanted to include your question because of your answer. Smash the pot. Smash the pot. And bury it in your front yard. Yeah. You got to do one of those slow motion videos where you hit it with a baseball bat and put that on YouTube because apparently that's the

thing. All right. Hey, Hank, let's answer another question. Okay. This question comes from Leo who asks, Dear Hank Adjohn, I've been hamster sitting for a week. He's adorable. But he runs constantly on the wheel. He will use this thing for several minutes at a time. But I don't understand why he enjoys it or why he bothers. Do you have any explanation for this strange hamster habit? The seasons are once again moving from Pumpkins to Penguin's Leo. Oh, it never really thought about. Wow. Pumpkins to Penguin. Wow, I never got the reference.

And until now, now I get it. Leo, you're asking, why does this hamster sometimes get on the hamster wheel and then sometimes get off? And then why does the hamster sometimes eat and sometimes drink? Why does the moth fly to light? Leo, why do any of us do anything? Yeah. Why do you watch TV sometimes? Why do you go on Twitter? Leo, we're all just getting on and off the hamster wheel trying to make it through this veil of tears.

Just one hamster wheel in the next. There's been a weird amount of actual scientific research done on why hamsters use hamster wheels. There was initially a thought that it was because they couldn't run wild and free, and so they needed, and like this is certainly a thing, it's good for them to have, but it basically was a surrogate for their regular exploring behavior. Turns out, though, if you put a hamster wheel out in the forest, mice will run on it. They're like, oh, excellent. This is what I've been waiting for. So they just like running. It is a positive, they get positive endorphins when they run,

which is why many people enjoy running. So it is a rewarding activity. It feels good, and I think it feels good because it helps their bodies keep healthy and their bodies are designed to keep themselves healthy. So the body says, do this, because it will benefit you ultimately, but in the short term, I will just make it feel as if it is just a good feeling activity. So why does it bother? Why does anyone bother?

We're all just doing the things that our brains are telling us to do. But it is very difficult to control, especially if one is a hamster. I feel like that's a little bit overly negative, not about hamsters, but about humans. And I just want to say that human consciousness is freaking amazing. Yes. And a gift to be cherished. And if I die this weekend of flu, not to be overly negative. Just remember that I loved being alive

and I'm very pissed off about the fact that I dumped. This next question comes from Anne, who writes Dear John and Hank, why are there so few new Christmas songs? There's Last Christmas by Wham in 1984. Mm-hmm. Good job, Wham. There's Christmas in Hollis by Rundy MC in 1987.

Sure, of course. There's all I want for Christmas is you by Mariah Carey in 1994, but there were hundreds of other Christmas songs made before that, which get played over and over and over again every single year. Do people enjoy this repetition? Were people of the past just much more Christmasy so that they needed to create all this music? Are we all more grinchy now?

Why don't other holidays have hundreds of specific songs? Why only Christmas? The holiday season leaves me raggedy and. Ooh. And first of all, I have many different things to say about this, but we need to start at, there are lots of holiday songs for Halloween and it deserves them and it has them and we don't appreciate them in the same way, but there are many spooky, good Halloween songs

and we should all have our playlists ready. Yeah, but there's not a ton of huge hit Easter songs, at least from the 21st century. Like, they were really crushing those Easter hits in the 18th and 19th century, and then it just fell off in a big way. Not a lot of good Friday jams, you know, not a lot of like,

Arbor Day, it's because Christmas is the biggest deal, right? Like Christmas in the US and many other countries is like the holiday. And the other holidays are just, you got all the Langsign for New Year's Eve, by the way, Hank, my December episode of the Anthropocene Reviewed is my first ever one review episode,

and it's about all the Langzahn and the incredible story of seems like you've been working on it for a long time, based on my YouTube recommendations. Oh, man, I have been working on it for many months, but it is the story of all Langzahn, which I would argue is like the greatest holiday song by a wide margin, even though it's not a holiday song. And I think the thing that you're forgetting here is that there's probably like 90 Christmas carols of which like 30 are big hits. And I would say that there's been, you know,

like 2,000 years of Christmas. And so actually, the fact that there have been three Christmas hits in the last 60 years, it's pretty good. Pretty good. It's way more than the first few years. It's right. Well It's way way more than the first first few years. Right. Well, we don't know for sure. But yeah, I mean, they didn't do a good job of recording the hits back then. Ultimately, like the hits that our Christmas hits. Like, Christmas is a time of nostalgia. Yeah. And so the hits that our Christmas hits are in a lot of ways, like they were

when hits were first happening. And Christmas hits was one way of doing that. And then, because like white Christmas is now the top-selling song of all time, lots of people want to get it on this. Yeah. So there's almost, it's too crowded a landscape and every single, like I'm sure Sean Mendez has his Christmas songs.

Everybody wants to have a Christmas hit. Everybody wants to be Mariah Carey because that like all I want for Christmas is you, is the thing that has been ultimately Mariah Carey's legacy. Not the biggest thing that she had done at the time, but the longest lasting thing that she has done by far. I'm sure that the majority of Mariah Carey plays each year are now all I want for Christmas is you.

And so people want that, and there's almost too much competition, and also it feels a little bit like a little tofony, whereas those nostalgic Christmas hits that sort of, you know, were the childhoods of the baby boomers who are, you know, now ultimately somewhat in control of parts of culture. Disagree. That'll think they're in control of any part of culture.

I think they desperately wish they were. They remember being in control of culture, but I don't think they're in control of any part of culture. I think they desperately wish they were. They remember being in control of culture, but I don't think they are. That's absolutely. That's very true. They're just in control of the money. But I think that there is sort of this legacy, like this nostalgic tendency to Christmas music where we look back to a time and when we can look back at those times, we can filter out all of the bad parts of them and just see like,

oh, it's just been Crosby singing a nice song with his nice voice. Yeah, there is something amazing to me about how every single Christmas album and almost every top-selling artist releases a Christmas album. How every single Christmas album has that one song that they're clearly trying to make the hit like that one original. Like, wait a minute, you hear the Jonas Brothers original such and such. I'm sure that their Christmas album has an epic original that just never made the hit. But like if you get in that rotation, it's huge. Like it's big. It is, it's what like allows you to buy a private island and live on it for the rest of your life. But Hank,

just a quick note on your, your toward baby boomers of whom our parents are two. Okay. We're going to do that. We're going to do the baby boomer disk restaurant because the internet has had lots of it while you've been out. Well, I mean, God, that just makes me so happy not to be there. But whenever people criticize baby boomers now, and I certainly think there's a lot to criticize about them. But whenever people criticize baby boomers now, I always

think about that phrase that you either die a hero or you live long enough to become a villain because they were the like radical counterculture hippies of yesterday. They were the like, would stocky communist, you know, let's all get high, tune in and drop out. Like that's how I understood baby boomers when I was a kid. And now they're like, Trump, it's an incredible journey that they've been on. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's also we should remember that there is a lot of variety and there are no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, hang, no, no, no, no, no, on. So generation is one thing. It has a start date and an end date and everyone inside of it is the exact same. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's good, good astrology, everybody. We've really duplicated it. And it, heartily, we're all just wild mice on a hamster wheel, John. Oh, I'm one sick wild mouse. Yeah, wild mice get sick too.

You know what happens to them after they get sick? They die. They just get picked off coyotes. Right, this next question comes from Maddie speaking of, do animals have the same four blood types as us? Well, with the plus minus variance. I mean, I know they have different diseases that we should probably avoid,

but theoretically, if I needed a blood transplant, could I get it from a crow? I'm not the side effecting me. I don't know the answer to this, but it's a great example of something I've never thought about. I've never thought about, also, like, there are lots of different animals

that you could have picked, and the fact that you picked a crow makes me think one of two things. Either you have a crow nearby and maybe actually might soon need a blood transplant so you're preparing for the future or you want to become part crow and want to put crow blood inside of you.

Yeah, that could be a great new origin story for crow women. Yeah, what I'm gonna say is no, don't put crow blood in you. Other animals do have blood types, they have different blood types than we have. And we have done a little bit of experimenting with putting the blood of other animals into humans. It doesn't work very well.

Pig blood is the one that we've done the most research on and tried to like sort of modify pig blood to make it something that would work in humans. But human blood works and human blood types are well understood. And yes, and other animals do have blood types, but they don't have the same blood types as us. They also don't have the same blood as us. And you will have an immune response to having another same blood types as us. They also don't have the same blood as us and you will have an immune response to having another species blood in your veins.

So that's why we don't do it. And this is not how you become part crow. You become part crow by giving the crow's gifts and then over years of giving crow's gifts, to become sort of your familiars and then they surround you with their crow bodies until you are a giant 15-foot tall crow with a human core. Which reminds me that today's podcast

is brought to you by Crow's with human cores, Crow's with human cores, the next logical step in humanity's evolution. And this podcast is also brought to you by Carrie Bradshaw's pretzel necklace by Carrie Bradshaw's pretzel necklace. Carrie Bradshaw's pretzel necklace. Maybe, maybe it went to Anne's grandmother and it's a, it's a sex in the city prop and it's going to be just $40,000. I don't know. Did you follow the logic?

Kind of. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Sick Wild Mice on a Hamster Wheel. Sick Wild Mice on a Hamster Wheel, enjoying their last moments. And this podcast is brought to you by Last Christmas by Wham. From 1984, you might have thought that that was a classic, but it's a classic now because it's almost 40 years old.

Yeah, yeah. It's strange to think that people who are born in 1984 And it's classic now because it's almost 40 years old. Yeah. Yeah, it's strange to think that people who are born in 1984 are almost 40 years old. But you know what else is strange is to think that I am 43. And when I called the doctor about my flu-like symptoms, they didn't say, well, you're young, so you don't need to worry. They said a bunch of other things that I should look out for in people of my age.

This next question comes from Ariana who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm on a walk right now. I also might be trespassing since I'm not quite sure if I'm allowed to be here. Anyway, I came across these leaves and they're weird. One side of them is white and the other is yellowish. There were a lot of them and I'm intrigued. I've attached some pictures for you. Possibly illegal and seriously befuddled Ariana.. The attached picture hank is unambiguously of maple leaves that have fallen because it is fall. I, Arianna, I'm going to go ahead and say that either you don't go outside nearly enough don't go outside nearly enough or you are from a place where maple trees are not common. Because most leaves in autumn, in my experience, are the leaves that you took a picture of. Yeah, but maybe Ariana's from Florida and she's never seen a deciduous tree before.

I mean, are they white on the bottom? These are maple leaves. They are maple leaves, but maybe there's a certain type of maple tree that like, because I feel like my maple leaves are the same color on both sides. I have seen maple leaves like this before. I have usually seen them after a big storm,

like early in fall and they fall off a little early. And that's what they look like. Right, those are early fall maple leaves fall off a little early. And that's what they look like to me. Right. Those are early fall made beliefs. Early fall made beliefs. Like it got cold too fast. And so the beliefs didn't finish getting yellow

before they fell. They freaked out and fell down immediately. We've all been there. I know that like a made belief, my impulse, when I am scared by some unexpected set of circumstances is to just get on the ground. Slide down. Yep.

I need to stop being all up in the sky. Yeah. I'm way too high up here. This is not safe. I didn't really know that going down is actually like the beginning of becoming dirt. Yeah. You served your purpose, don't worry. Ariana, we're pretty sure this is just a maple tree,

but if you discover otherwise, please write in and let me know. Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I wanna ask you this question from Tim, who writes, dear John and Hank, why does nobody ever talk about the fact that we can see the moon during the day?

In all the books I've read, the moon is typically described as some kind of romanticized night thing, but I've never read any description of the moon during the day outside of science fiction. Isn't it kind of cool that we can see it during the day? And what does this mean for werewolves? Tim.

Well, werewolves John come out during the full moon. Yeah. And the full moon is never out during the day. Never? Correct. What are you sure? Yeah. Never. It never happened. I feel like I've seen it. Well, you may have seen a a gibbous moon during the day at the very end of the day

or the very beginning of the day. But the when the moon is full, it rises at the moment, the sun sets, which is, it's a wonderful thing. You know, you always, if you want to take somebody to impress them of a landscape for a night hike, always want to do that during a full moon so that the moon will come up right after the sunset and then you've got sort of this like double whammy of amazing celestial phenomena.

Basically, the full moon is happening when the moon is farthest away from the sun in the sky, and then the new moon is happening when it's closest to the sun in the sky. Partially, the moon is less visible in day because it's when the new moon is, and when the very slim crescent are, and it is often very hard to see a slim crescent in the daytime, you can spot it, and I try to, and it's really fun, but it's going to be fairly close to the sun, which is sort of hard to look around in that area of the sky because the sun is a deadly laser. And then it's also going to be very small and in a bright sky.

So I love looking at the moon and I love that you can see it in the daytime or in his super good spotting daytime moon. And he gets so excited and every time he sees the moon in the daytime, he says, I'm so surprised. Because it's very surprising, but it's not a super rare event. I just think that we don't spend a ton of time looking up the sky during the day.

Yeah. I love the moon, man. Well, that's really lovely. I'm surprised by the loveliness of that answer. It helps to have a son who is just, who is all about the moon. And if the moon is in the sky, he will knock it a bad until I show it to him. It's funny. I didn't know which kind of son you were talking about until you got to the end of that sentence.

And at first I was like, Hank is really kind of waxing poetic about the sun, which is a real surprise. It's not like I'm not used to that from him. Yeah, it's really it. But I dig it. Anthropomorphizing that sun. Yeah. When it's not in the sky, he says, moon friend always comes back. Oh, that's very sweet. Yeah, the moon always comes back, buddy. It'll always come back. Well, not always, but there's no need to get into that with him just yet.

Hank, the news from AFC Wimbledon, I'll start. Oh, it was a tough, it was a tough old week for AFC Wimbledon. Oh, no. First off, lots of dealings with the financial problems. There's about an 11 million pound shortfall when it comes to building the new stadium. There was a big meeting of the supporters and the founding chairman, Chris Stewart, was there. Lots of, lots of people were there.

And it seemed like a small majority of people do not want to seek outside investment and dilute the ownership of the club. Right now, 75% of the club has to be owned by the supporters group by the Don's trust. And so they're going to try to find another solution that does not involve outside investment in diluting the fan ownership. I don't know what that solution is going to be, though, and it is also not clear. It's not clear what it's going to be, but hopefully there will be some kind of compromise solution and some ability to be in a stadium by next season. But yeah, it's very concerning for a lot of fans and, and for me as

well, on the pitch, uh, Wimbledon played Bolton. The team that started the season with negative 12 points and now it has two points because they tied AFC Wimbledon. It was a really, uh, really frustrating two to tie Wimbledon's Marcus Fores scored twice once in the 41st minute near, near half time. And for a second time in the 81st minute, it looked like Wimbledon were headed to a 2-1 victory, and then with pretty much the last kick of the game, when the referee should have already blown his whistle to end the game, Bolton scored in the 95th minute. And so it's a two to draw and three points turn into one.

Wimbledon is still outside the relegation zone with 17 points after 19 games, almost a halfway through their league one campaign this year. But boy, it's tight at the bottom. And obviously we don't want to be relegated in a season when we already have a lot of financial challenges. So we'll see. But yeah, 19 games in, 17 points, three points clear of the relegation zone and who should be sitting in that first relegation spot.

But the franchise currently playing its trade in the Philippines. It's almost like some kind of script writers write this stuff. Well, John, in Mars news, you know, IKEA. Of course. They design things here on Earth, and there are a lot of people on Earth that live in small apartments. So that is something that might come in handy

when it comes to Mars. The designers at IKEA wanted to figure out the best designs for things in small places and figured that learning from how we design for space would be a good place to start. So two years ago, a group went to the Mars Desert Research Station, or the MDRS, which is a simulated Mars habitat in the Utah Desert that is operated by the Mars Society. So it's not operated by NASA, but by a nonprofit

that just is like Super into Mars. And while they were there, they realized that the design of the station was heavily focused as you might expect on the technical details, but less so on design and just like experience of living in a place where even if you're doing science, you might want to sometimes do fun things or have some privacy or just live in a space

that is attractive at all. So the designer did what any respectable designer from a big furniture company would do. They helped design what they believe is a more comfortable layout for the station, creating better group and personal spaces and using the wonders of modular IKEA furniture to do it. And of course, they're also launching a line of products next year inspired by what they learned working with a simulated Mars habitat. I love the idea that IKEA is going to flat pack all of the Mars furniture, you know, and like, you're going to send two big rockets, one with the people and one with all the IKEA stuff, because you know, it never fits in your car. You always gotta bring a second car.

And so. Well, and that's so heavy. Yeah. But like they have to design it for weight, so they're gonna have to make like super lightweight, but durable, modular, Mars furniture, and then in the future, we're all gonna be using that stuff,

and then it'll be much easier to get our stuff around. We wanna move your desk, just pick it up. It's Mars desk. Yeah, I mean, I will say, I recently bought a bike after having ridden, you know, the same bicycle for like 15 years. And the bike's now like a nice bike. Oh my God, yeah.

Ways like eight ounces. It's wild. I don't understand. Like when I'm pedaling the bike, I think to myself, this is how much effort it takes to pedal my body weight because the bike weighs nothing. Yeah, you've trimmed, you've really trimmed the weight of the bike down.

Now if only one could do that for the weight cyclist. What are we gonna do about the body weight problem though? But yeah, it is, I feel like if they could just take bike technology and apply it to martian furniture will be fine because they've got these carbon fiber things now that just they wait like six ounces. Yeah, but a good bike weight cost as much as a bad car. Yes, yes.

In fact, when I was buying my bike, it was explained to me that I was buying something called a dentist's bike. The person who does not bike very often buys a very expensive bike. And I kind of appreciate it. The salesperson for just calling me out for exactly who I was. Letting you know, yeah. But yeah, I mean, I'll tell you what, it's a great bike. And I, yeah, I mean, those bike shops probably wouldn't exist if not for the dentist. It's true.

Whenever I ride it around town, all the real serious cyclists always look at me because they're like, how did such a terrible cyclist get a hold of such a nice bicycle? Oh my God, that's hilarious. I love my bike and it is not carefully engineered, I would say. And on that note, Hank, we have to go record one of our very last editions of our Patreon only podcast this weekend, Ryan's. Which we, who knows what will happen

because we've tried out some other formats and they haven't worked great so hopefully it will be one of our last episodes of this week in Ryan's unless we get really desperate. This podcast is a co-production of Complexly and WNYC Studios. It's edited by Joseph Tuna Mettish, produced by Rosiana Halsey and Sheridan Gibson, our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjorno, and the music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

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