Dear Hank & John - 288: I Thought I'd Come Up With A Joke

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

What's up with pee shivers? What did we do before glasses? What do I do about freeloading roommates? Where are all the Irish setters? Do I correct my neighbor's misunderstanding of my cat's name? Hank Green and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John! Or is I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John. My birthday is coming up and I've decided what I want you to get me. Oh great! I want you to give me a very small abacus because I've heard that it's the little things that count. That was pretty good! I want you to give me a very small abacus because I've heard that it's the little things that count.

That was pretty good. Thanks. I had to confess I had forgotten that your birthday was coming up and I'll be getting you just as a spoiler alert, nothing. No, I told you what I wanted. Yeah, I just, I'll be honest, I don't really have time to get you a tiny little abacus as a punchline.

No, before I want your hot sauce that you got all excited about. Oh, the Rancho Gordo hot sauce. Yeah. Great. Let me make a note here in the podcast notes, because you'll be looking at those ever again. Have Nicky by hot sauce for Hank and send it to him with a very personal card. Okay.

I've got that. By the way, Hank, just, my handwriting is very different than it used to be. It's much nicer. Definitely. It's straight from me. Yeah, gosh, I'm so glad that we have projects together. They bring us close so that we can really have that deep brotherhood.

Do you remember like three years ago, I spent an ungodly amount of money promoting your book all over America with a huge purchase of billboards and I had for sure. So I feel like that was my birthday present for a decade. Well, we used to do these like really intensive birthday projects on on our brothers and to the point where like your birthday would be coming up and then I would experience tremendous dread. And so we had to stop that. Yeah, I know.

It was because it would be so much work around whatever the thing was. Yeah, because you had to be like, up, you got to do better than last year. No. And then eventually Hank, we had to learn a very important skill in life, which is we had to learn to take it down a notch. Right? And I feel like this ability that we had to learn the hard way, that sometimes you can't just keep ratcheting it up. You can't just... Gosh. Sometimes you just have to take it down a notch.

I think there's kind of only one way to learn it, which is too bad. Yeah, but eventually Hank and I learned that with the birthday project situation getting completely out of control, by the end, I was spending like three or four months of the year preparing for Hank's birthday. That's not a sustainable situation. Pretty soon it's going to always be Hank's birthday. And so we had to take it down a notch. And then we ended up taking it down.

So many notches that I'm going gonna send Hank a bottle of hot sauce. I'm gonna love it. This first question comes from Janelle who asks, Steer John Hank, ever since I was little, I start shivering anytime I have to pee. I'm very much not a fan of this because whenever my mother sees me shivering, she says loudly, oh honey, do you have to go pee? Oh wow. Which is hopelessly embarrassing.

Oh wow. It fails hopelessly embarrassing. Oh wow. Oh, it fails to fill me with rage. Anyway, do other people get the pee shivers? Is there a reason? Hank, please read my name and your best French accent. Jean-é. He couldn't even finish it. He couldn't even finish it.

That's how French always stop before you think they're going to. Oh, you just sort of, they just trail off. I kind of agree with that. In fact, I was just recording the Anthropocene Reviewed audiobook and I had to go back and change a bunch of the pronunciations and the French kids' names who discovered the cave paintings at Lasco. Yeah.

Because I didn't do a good job of just being like, oh yeah. Yeah. Janay. And they were like, you're saying that like an American and I was like, well, I've got to wait. They hear me say the other words in the book. I have this conversation that like my Fred Jackson was a little flat on Ravi Dock.

Wait until they wait until they hear me say for. I mean, we are America where you can have a city named Cairo and just call it Cairo. Yeah, I live pretty close to for sales in Diana. I wonder what is the most like American English sound. I think it's the, yeah, like Orlando, whenever I hear like Rosiana or someone British say Orlando, I'm always like, oh wow. I mean, you could make anything sound good. Anyways, Hank, what's up with the pea shivers? Oh, we're not sure. Oh? Now there's a there's a temperature theory, which I just don't buy. I have experienced pea shivers and I don't think that that peeing is making my body cold enough to make me shiver. Also, as

Jeanelle has said, pea shivers can be a thing that happened before you at pee. Now, usually there are things that happens after or as you pee, but they can just be a thing before. And so this makes me think that it's the signal mix up theory, which is also why sometimes when you see a bright light, you will sneeze, the photo-exneas reflex, it is just that your optic nerve is overloading and it's bleeding over into a different nerve in your face. That's making you think that your nose is being tickled, which is wild.

And so there's the idea, and I can't get into the nervous system actual explanation of which nerves are close to each other. And is it the fact that the bladder is shrinking or the blood pressure is dropping or something that is giving you this strange, vagus nerve stimulation or something? But it seems to be a nervous system anomaly. It seems to happen more on some people than in others. But in no people, is it a big enough problem that anybody's ever taken the time to study it?

So, you know, you may be like the person who has the most intense pea shivers, which may make you an ideal candidate for scientific research on pea shivers. Or all of that. It doesn't sound like that's what you want though. Or alternatively, you know, you could write the great PhD thesis that is just out there waiting to be written about how the P shivers help unlock a Secret of the human nervous system that internally to some scientific breakthrough and then you win the best Nobel Prize ever Which is the Nobel Prize for getting obsessed with your own P shivers?

Such that it eventually led to a medical breakthrough. I assume you'd have to like share that Nobel Prize with a couple other people, but still like a third of a Nobel Prize is a really good outcome. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I think if you get like a hundredth of a Nobel Prize, that's a win. Now, the broader problem, if you think about like the number of people who have zero Nobel Prize versus the number of people who have like any, any more than zero Nobel Prize is, like it's definitely, it's great if you can share one. It's almost like I, I'm not here to tell the Nobel committee their job,

but I feel like they should fraction it out a little more, you know, like really look into who contributed on any level to this. You would not be the first person to actually make that suggestion, John. Um, I know I've, I've long thought that's a good idea. Not for like the Nobel Prize in literature, although even the Nobel Prize in literature should kind of be split up, because it should probably go to editors and to translators.

And you know, it shouldn't just go to one writer because nobody's working in isolation. But the problem here, I don't think, is the P-Shivers. I think it's the mom who's still asking a honey D you have to go pee. Because I'm the father of a four-year-old. And oftentimes, I will pick up on some signals that potty time may be necessary,

and we may not be near a potty. And so I will say, hey, honey, do you have to go potty? And sometimes there'll be like, nope. And for him, it's no big deal, because he's four. But look, if once he can figure out, in any circumstance, the correct way to go potty, I shouldn't have to ask anymore. Well, this sounds like a mom problem.

Okay, I agree with you in the abstract, but we also do not know Janelle's age. There's no hint about Janelle's age here. Janelle could be. You think Janelle is four? I think it's Janelle. If I mean admittedly, if Janelle is four, she is and it's a very good writer.

Yeah. Yeah. We want to take back your science. Don't do science. You're going to get it to, yeah. So I'm going to create a persuasion of you. Exactly. If you're four, you need to do a bad

and this whole idea of getting your PhD in peace shivering and just go with a Nobel prize the old fashioned way by writing the great American novel. But if you're like, I agree, if you're like 11 or older, it's probably not, not great. Yeah. It's not, and maybe it's like a teasing thing.

Like we don't know the inside of someone else's relationship, Hank, but like, well yeah, if you don't love it, Chanel, I feel like you can say, I don't, I don't love it, Mom. I don't, I don't love it. I know that it reminds you of when I was a little baby and that you feel nostalgic for those times, but I'm not and just, just have the thought

and don't say it out loud. We all do that all the time. This reminds me of when I was in middle school and I told dad to stop calling me Booker Bear. And I like tearing up right now thinking about that. Oh, it's just like, and he was like, oh, you're right. You're right, I should have stopped doing that. And like, he was the most understanding of all time,

and I'm sure he went back to his room and had a good, all cry about it. Oh, yeah. They're not just growing up. They're also growing away from you. It's hard. It's hard. Hank, what did we do before glasses?

That's Caroline's question. She writes, Steer John and Hank, how did human beings function before the invention of glasses? I find it hard to believe that people of ancient civilizations were able to do much of anything if they couldn't see. And yet here we are. Yeah.

Did all the decision makers or anyone with influence just happened to have 2020 vision? Caroline. Well, so this is weird. Now we know for sure that nearsightedness is not like a thing that is a recently a risen thing. Didn't just get invented.

But, no, like Aristotle talks about near-sightedness in 350 BC. But like the- And I'm sure he was wrong about it. But as part of his long and storied history of managing to identify lots and lots and lots and lots of things and then be wrong about them. And but it does also seem like near-sightedness not only is becoming more common, but is like more common among like in particular environments. So there are like modern society seems to produce more near-sighted people than like a hundred

other society. And we don't really know what's up with this. Now, there's, it's possible that like some kind of eyesight diversity was helpful and that like you needed people who could do really close up work and you needed people who could do far off work. And so you wanted a diversity of kinds of eyesight. But like we really don't know, and like you could, like you obviously couldn't do a bunch of stuff that you would have to do in a hunter-gatherer society

or an agricultural society. Everyone were severely near-sighted, but I think part of it is that it's developmental. And so maybe it wasn't a huge, like negative evolutionary outcome. I sometimes worry that we get so focused on the ways in which things might have been beneficial, that we forget to give space for the way that things might have just happened and not been that much of a problem. And so that wasn't much evolutionary pressure to solve for it. And I can see how it wouldn't

be a huge issue for people to get more nearsighted over time because they're probably doing more close up, close to home work by then anyway. You know, they're probably not the people who are out, you know, trying to identify the difference between this herb and that herb in a big field of herbs. They're more like, you know, mortar and pestling if that's a verb. Yeah. Yeah. Or, and it may also be that like, it's almost like a natural way of dividing labor, where you've got a portion of the population who is intrinsically good at one thing and a portion who isn't, because then

those people who aren't end up doing things that are also necessary. But we don't know. What do people do? They dealt with it. Just like how we dealt with not having beds. Stuff was worse. We didn't have toothpaste. Like it was things were worse. People died younger. We were less effective. We were in pain more often. And we couldn't see people's faces from 20 feet away. Like they're all kinds of ways. Also, that life was worse. Also, now things are still bad. And they're still bad in ways that can get better. And yeah, in the same way that we're like, oh, how did people ever manage without eyeglasses? I think in 500 years people would be like, oh, how did people ever manage without this or that?

Like, how did they manage thinking that the human lifespan was 72? Right. Well, I think all the time about what that thing's gonna be. I bet it's gonna be better glasses. I mean, I could Well, I think all the time about what that thing is going to be. I bet it's going to be better glasses. I mean, I could really, I could use some. I got to like my glasses. Better eyes, the general.

I'm getting, I'm getting to that point where I, uh, find myself, uh, keeping, keeping things further away so that I can read them. And so I know that the day is coming when I don't have one pair of glasses. I have two pairs of glasses that exist inside of one pair of glasses. And I would love for science to solve that problem. Yeah. And actually, like, we kind of have it. Like, there are, there are some things, but like we mostly have. Yeah. We can't solve it for people who have a history of orbital cellulitis.

Oh, interesting. I, I think that that, that in 200 years, if all goes well, we will look back and be like, I can't believe they just got sick all the time. Yeah. They just got like, like, they just got a cold. Yeah. Like, several times a year, they just feel bad and lie in bed.

Right. And they would lose all of this time to being ill. Yeah. And what did they do when they had to like, how did they take care of their children when they were ill? Oh, God, yeah. I mean, I asked that question even now. It is really hard.

Like everything becomes harder when you're not well or when you're caring for someone who's not well. And it's interesting. I think if everything goes right, that should be the case in a couple hundred years, that people will be astonished by the prevalence of illness in our time. But I also think they might not understand

fully the prevalence of illness in our time because it's such an afterthought in our discourse. Right. Not right now, but it is in general. Like Virginia Woolf has this amazing essay from, I don't know, like 150 years, a hundred years ago or whatever, not 100. I don't know when it's from.

It's from like a hundred years ago. It's from, it wasn't written recently. And it's called On Being Ill. And in it, she talks about like, why isn't influenza a subject of epic poems? Like why don't we write about this? Why don't we focus on this?

And I think there are, she explores some of the reasons why, but I think there are a lot of reasons why we have just decided that illness is sort of something that we kind of push off to the side so that we can focus on the real stuff, love and mostly love, mostly romantic love, mostly for the first time. That's the main topic. That's what they call romantic poetry. Yeah, falling in love for the first time, which is still what all the songs are about. Yeah, yeah. I, you said forever now I drive alone past your street. Nah. But boy, I know that there are people

who have heard that song more than me, but there are not many of them. Why have you heard that song so many times? Oh, Alice is a massive, massive, massive, massive fan of drivers license. Wow. Oh my gosh. It's probably, it's the best song she's ever heard, but it's also the first time she's ever heard at best song she's ever heard.

So it's a pretty intense, it's the same reason why first love stories tend to play pretty well even after all these millennia. It's just a pretty, you know, pretty intense falling in love for the first time with a song is intense. Yeah. Yeah. Orren loves music, but his tastes change, change rapidly and vibrantly and wildly. Just things will do not have anything to do with each other. But he picks good music, which is great. I'm about to get really defensive

because if you're implying that driver's license is not great music, I'm gonna get angry. I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't. In fact, one of his favorite songs is Harry Styles song, which I'm not saying those are just, like he's also into to popular currently popular music. I don't know like he picks things out like we listen to a lot of music and then he decides

that like honey honey by Abba is his favorite. It's like okay. It is. Yeah. Put it on your playlist. He has a playlist and he calls it my funny playlist. Oh, that's good. No, sorry.

He calls it my silly playlist. Can we listen to my silly playlist? I like it. And it's adorable. Very cute. John, I wasn't my silly playlist. Can we listen to my silly playlist? I like it. And it's adorable. Very cute. John, I have another question for you. It's from Meal who is Danish and we're just so good at Danish

that I'm sure I'm doing that great. Who asks, dear Hank and John, I live in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, and I am fortunate enough to have a balcony that I enjoy very much and grow strawberries on. It's a nice little balcony with just enough room to enjoy a cup of coffee or a beer in the summertime. It is apparently nice enough that a family of pigeons

have decided to move in. Oh, no. I, however, don't think it's big enough for all of us. And I think that I have the most right to it because I am the one who pays the rent. What do I do? Can I make pigeons pay rent? If not, how can I convince them to move on?

Not to pay street meal? This is such a problem in cities. I think I've told the story before of the very intense romance that played out right outside of our bedroom window when one pigeon fell in love with another pigeon on top of our window air conditioning unit in New York City. And yes, so I can only tell you some of the things that I did to try to make that situation better. First, I took a broomstick and I tied,

I sort of tried to make, you know how death carries a thing? Sive? Yes, I've never done to say the word Hank, I can spell it like a magician, but I've never done it, I'll say it. And I'm, even now I'm not totally confident in your pronunciation, so I'm not, I'm just gonna keep going.

So, I took a broomstick and I kind of tied a thing to it to make it into one of those things, and I sort of scraped the top of the air conditioner and I was like, this is not a place for you. And that worked for like 30 seconds and they came back. And then I would kind of tap the air conditioner with the broomstick and be like, again, this is not an appropriate place for this,

this, this, this kind of shenanigans. And again, it would work for a little while. You know what worked forever though, moving to Indianapolis. Well, I love him on television. We still have a lot of problems with birds, but they're not right outside my window anymore. Yeah, yeah, we, they are right outside my window

and they will, it's funny, they're all year round, but then spring hits and suddenly they have a lot to say. Yeah. They're talking to each other, they're trying to convince each other that they are the best possible. Look at me. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna make a great family man.

But there is, so there is. You can hear this noise that I make. This stuff that we have gotten, and we've put it in the places where they would make their nests because we didn't want them to keep making nests. That was the main thing that we wanted to discourage. It's holographic tiles or what they call scare tape.

It's like a weird, like they look at it and they can't make sense of it and they don't want to land on it. Right. They're like, I say that's not, that doesn't make sense. You can like, you know what, set these things down and they work on that front CDs. Yes. So, so we actually use CDs. Remember how you used to play music by, it was a complicated thing. But anyway, we use old CDs to discourage birds from hitting the window. Yeah. Because we want birds to have a good long life that doesn't involve dying on my front doorstep.

So we do that, but, and that sometimes works, scare tape sometimes works. Some people put up that anti-pigeon spike stuff. Yeah, spikes are so not pretty. And kind of like they just look real mean. I mean, they aren't, they aren't beautiful. I, the main thing, meal, is that you signed off

not a pastry comma meal, and we don't get that joke. It's a meal foil is a kind of pastry. And I know about that because of the great British bakeoff. Did you almost call it the great, British break off? Because the great British break off is such a good name for Brexit. And how did we make it to 2021? Somebody has made that joke. The Great British Breakoff. I'm gonna search Twitter for that joke and we'll find it a thousand times. Great British. How do you spell British?

No, British. Great British. Great British breakoff. It's the best spoonerism of all time. No one has ever said the great British breakoff. But I bet the Great British breakoff, rename Brexit, 424 likes. Damn it. And the great British break off is definitely a suggestion.

Dang it. Dang it. I thought I'd come up with a joke. Who called it a Brexit instead of the great British break off? 2000 likes in 2019. Oh, no, I'm not even, I'm not even in the top five. Have you ever done that where you think of something when you're writing? You like think of an idea or or a Senate structure or a pithy little observation or a pun or something and then you don't want to be accused of plagiarism so you google it to see if anyone else has ever used it. Have you ever do this? I do and I have a story about it but you tell yours first. My story is that about 80% of the time I Google it, I find out that not only am I plagiarizing,

I'm plagiarizing me. You know, it'll be like, yeah, no, yeah. That's from looking for Alaska. It's just that it was 16 years ago, so you don't remember. Yeah. Well, my story is that I wanted April to do something really dumb and so out of character. And I wanted her to tweet about something really. So basically, I wanted her to tweet something that would be indicative of how she was feeling being both like this fragile, stupid, pathetic human

which we all are and how people were imagining her as just like really powerful pundit. And then like she wanted to tweet, I wanted to tweet something about that. And so I thought, what if she closes, what if she like does something really dumb and like hurts herself? Like she closes a finger in a door and I was like, that's not funny enough. And so I was like, what if she closes her boob in a door? But I'm a guy.

And so I'm like, I don't know, like maybe there's a sliding glass door. I don't know. Can you close a boob in a door if I don't know? And so I Google or on Twitter, I search close boob in door. And then there's like 30 tweets in a row all from the last year about people who've closed their boobs indoors And then I so I put it in the book and my editor doesn't say anything and my agent doesn't say anything my wife doesn't say anything all People with boobs and then I get I get I get I get on the men writing women subreddit About it because people like you can't close your boob in a door and I'm like It's over Twitter. I googled it. I looked it up people tweet about it. It's not just April. That's my story.

That's my story. It's fine. I survived being on the men writing women subreddit. I was gonna say it's probably not the worst thing it's ever gonna happen to you. Yeah, it's also not that if I far not the worst thing on the men writing women subreddit. Yeah, I would I would also submit that it's probably not like the best moment in the book. I thought I'm not gonna do that. Nothing I'm super proud of. Yeah, it's so it's that that that's actually the kind of thing that's like the hardest thing in writing is like how do you how do you stitch together things in a way that feels believable that doesn't pull people out of the story?

Because if you miss just once, people are pulled so far out, right? Mm-hmm. So it's hard. Yep, it's hard. It's a fine line, too, because on the other side of, like, if you hit the wrong side of the line, it's cringe, but if you hit the right side of the line, it's very similar to it.

Right, so it's hard. Which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by plagiarizing yourself. Played by yourself. It is inevitable eventually, and also one more sign that we are not who we once were. True. And we all have to leave room to keep growing. Today's podcast also of course brought to you by Rancho Gordo hot sauce.

Rancho Gordo hot sauce coming to Hank's house on or about May 5th might be a few days late. Coming to my biscuit. This podcast is also brought to you by Booger Bear. Booger Bear, the name that my dad called me for the first 13 years of my life. And he can start again. Yes. If he wants the window is back open. The window is back open. And today's podcast I'll talk to you by by Focals. By Focals. It's a great and it's not that they're not a great invention. It's just that I was kind of hoping to be able to buy a little bit more time. I want to ask this question about Irish settlers, just because I think it's so weird. Okay.

From Robin who writes, dear John and Hank, when I was a kid in the 70s, Irish settlers were everywhere. I think that's the name. I think that you may be looking for Irish settlers. Oh. I wanted to read the question because I was like, you can't say Irish settlers were everywhere and not say where you are. It didn't make any sense to me.

Like, what do you mean? Irish settling what? From what? I didn't understand any part of the question and so I wanted to ask you Where all the other And now and now it's all come into sharp focus. It's not about Irish people It's about a dog breed Okay, let's start the question over when I was a kid in the 70s Irish setters

Okay, let's start the question over. When I was a kid in the 70s, Irish setters were everywhere. But now I can't even remember the last time I saw an Irish setter. It's been so long that John forgot they existed. Yeah. And just assumed that I just put an L into that reading. Where did they all go, Robin? Well, they died, Robin. I mean, how long do you think dogs live?

I just googled this and how Herzog PhD has written an article in psychology called the Great Irish Setter Epidemic of 1963. Dog breed feds and shares some surprising commonality with viral epidemics. No way. Yeah, it's a real article. Wow. Irish Setter popularity in 1964, baseline

in 2003, same as 1964, at like less than 2000, uh, Settlers. Okay. Um, by 1973. So from 64 to 73, it was up to 60,000. In 1982, it was back down below 2000. Whoa. So you have identified something. This is remarkable that I would never have thought of, Robin, that like there was an Irish-cetter epidemic. We decided that they were a real good dog, and then we changed our minds. Yeah. Can you imagine all the people who like got into the Irish center business? And then suddenly it was just gone. I have to say I'm not as concerned about them. But I'm... But yeah, no, the dogs themselves. Yeah. Hank, here's my question. Why? Not why? Not why did Irish

centers become a phenomenon in the 1970s, although that is an interesting question. My question is, why did they stop being a phenomenon? Like, because they're a healthy dog. Now that I'm looking at a picture of an Irish setter and I understand the question that Robin was asking to essential, really essential things for being able to get to the bottom of this,

to essential, really essential things for being able to get to the bottom of this. I think our grandfather had an Irish setter. Yeah. I'm looking at this dog and I'm having a memory of childhood that Pop-O had like a hunting dog. I didn't pop-O have like 17 dogs named Harris. That is correct. They were all like, one of the Harris's.

Looking at this dog, I think one of the Harris's, an early Harris was a dog like this. They're cute. And I remember from what I could remember was a nice dog. Yeah, well, and so this article is actually like super interesting. It talks and it's also comparing Irish setters

to Old Town Road by Lomas X because like another phenomenon that will never end. But it also compares Irish setters to laboratory retrievers, which have had a much more gradual, but sustained growth in popularity. And now are one of the most popular dogs, and over 160,000 of them are registered a year, which is beyond where I were setters ever were, though at their peak of the popularity, setters were above Labrador dreamers. But the other thing is, my first instinct was like, well, maybe they weren't that good of a dog. But looking, it appears that they are just as good.

Like they don't have any health problems that labs don't have their, they don't have any behavioral problems that labs don't have. It is just an accident of history. Wow. It is true in general that it is better to grow slowly than it is to explode in growth. Yeah. Not just for, although I think Will Nozzx

actually bucks this trend because I think Will Nozzx has done a great job actually. I just think of reinventing himself using that moment to put himself in a position where he can keep making music and make really good music. And content generally. Yeah, his TikTok is also great. Yes, but in general, it is,

it's both less fun. I feel like I can, I feel like I can, I don't know what it's like to release Old Town Road, but I do know what it's like to have a book that grows slowly and then grows very, very quickly. And it is scarier to have a book that is growing really, really quickly. And also the other side of the mountain is also steeper,

just like the way up the mountain was steeper, the other side of the mountain tends to be steeper. And now that I know that this happened to the Irish setter, I kind of feel like I should get an Irish setter. I am looking to hunt more upland gamebirds. And that's what I always expect. And they are tireless, wide-ranging hunter. Maybe that's the issue is that they're tireless. I like dogs that get tired very easily.

Yeah. My preferred dog vibe is like, I have been on a walk and now I would like to sleep until the next walk. Yeah, I want to see you model some behavior that I need to feel better about engaging in. Yeah, totally, like, exactly. I need my dog to relax so that I can feel better about relaxed. Right.

The last thing Hank needs is a tireless dog because he already is a tireless dog. Oh gosh. I mean, they're not, I have no idea this question would be so interesting. Well, I mean, I had no idea the question was the question. So we're both living in a surprise future. I can't wait for like a dog to get

for the email us a 72 paragraph explanation of why the Irish setter decline in popularity that we can read for the entire episode of next week's podcast. I mean, I feel like I'm not getting by the way I would love to know if there's a reason a podcast like the Irish setter epidemic would be a great podcast. Just like go investigative on it. I mean, it wouldn't be a bad topic for the Anthropocene Review, you know? Irish-setters. I have a personal connection to the Irish-setter

through my grandfather, I think. I'd have to pursue that a little bit. I'm a little nervous now that I've looked at more pictures of Irish-setters that Harris may have been as some kind of mutt, which doesn't help me narratively at all. But what I will say is they look like a little bit a hairier than your average retriever. And so that's extra work because you don't want as many hairs. And also in an age of lots of dog allergies, maybe like the least hypoallergenic dog is not the most desirable dog.

Yeah. That said, I think it's an opportunity to go deep, which is what I like to do in the Anthemocene Review, which by the way comes out May 18th and is available now as a e-book book or audiobook narrated by me. What if John, the next, we can be in charge of the next new dog breed because we're going gonna invent the golden retreader. Oh, it's such a good idea. It's such a good idea. Because they love that. I don't know why they love that, but they love that.

I think you've just stumbled onto a million dollar idea, Hank. What if a golden retriever had long hair? Because that is what is missing from a golden retreader hair. Like you'd or a younger hair. Like what if it had more hair? More if it was, I don't know. I feel like people like the Udals. So if it was Irish Satoodle.

An Irish Satoodle. I'm already interested. If there's anything I know, it's that we need to breed more dogs. We need more. We need more. Highly specific, ideally copyrighted and trademark dog breeds. That's what American capitalism is missing.

I've been saying it for years. Where are we coming up short in the creation of new dog breeds over and over and over again? I hear about the Irish center. I hear about the English bulldog. What about the American Cedar Doodle? I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick.

I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick.

I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick.

I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I'm so sick. I well, honestly, I don't think that we're gonna get better than Irish settler. Yeah. That's true. My best joke of the day was, it's just a pure mistake. Good boy. All right, we have another question. This one comes from Rosa who writes,

dear John and Hank, I introduced my cat to my neighbor today and I told my neighbor that my cat's name is Malcolm. He then proceeded to refer to him as monkey for the rest of our conversation. Now at first I thought it was an affectionate nickname so I didn't pay any attention, but then after about 10 minutes of chatting it dawned on me that he thought Malcolm's actual name was monkey. So do I correct him or have I passed the point of no return and now I have to call my cat

monkey whenever I am in my neighbor's presence to avoid devastating embarrassment, sending mild anxiety from England, Rosa. It is England's like number one export. I mean, the, the, the great British mild anxiety is also, uh, is also a good name for Brexit which is just like you guys weren't that worried. Yeah, the great British. Little bit worried and you created a huge problem. Yeah, I mean the great, the great British, the great British mild anxiety is also a pretty good name for the great British British Bake Off because like it creates the whole way reality show. It's the exact amount of anxiety I want. And then resolve it. Yeah.

But the wonderful thing about the Great British Bake Off is that it creates the mildest possible tension. It gives you the lowest imaginable stakes. You know that everyone is going to be fine if they don't win the Great British Bake Off. Nobody's on the edge of either celebrity or catastrophic failure. If they don't win the Great British Bake Off, they's on the edge of either celebrity or catastrophic failure if they don't win the Great British Bake Off. They're just trying to bake a cake. Yeah, that's an amazing moment

in the celebrity Bake Off with James A. Caster. Paul Holleywooder, whoever asked like, what happened here? And he said, started making it. Had a breakdown? Bon Appetite. And you're like, yes, you've put it, you put it all in first place.

This is, and that's essentially like every episode of the show. Yeah, and also like many of the days of my life. Yeah, for sure, for sure, but, but yeah, it always ends with Bon Appetit, one way or the other. But on to this Malcolm Monkey business. I think that Rosa has missed the obvious solution, which is just flat out changing Malcolm's name to Monkey, which is a phenomenal, they're both really good names, but I think Monkey might be even a better cat name than Malcolm.

Well, okay, more important than that. you can call a cat whatever you want, and we do, no one I know calls their cat their name every time. They call their cat their name sometimes. But then you got, like, Cammy O was named like, Cammy Udall and Camoodle and Cammers and Camcam and Kitty and like, you know, she doesn't know what her name is, she's a cat. I mean, I think she did a little bit.

But mostly her name is like, if you, that's how cats work. Right. So, like, you, I mean, I think that you can call Malcolm Monkey in some situations and maybe sometimes you'll end up calling Malcolm Monkey in other situations even when your neighbor isn't around.

I think that's the right way to treat this, is to treat it as a gift. If this was your neighbor has offered you a new pet name for Malcolm, and that is a wonderful gift, instead of being like, what am I gonna do with this anxiety? If this was a dog,

you'd have to do it different, or a child, because like they kind of care what their names are, but cast don't care. I think that's exactly it. I think you see this as a gift that your neighbor has given you. Now your cat has two names, and you've got a lovely new pet name for your cat, and that's the situation.

And if you ever call the cat Malcolm in front of your neighbor, you can be like, oh yeah, no, Malcolm's my nickname for monkey. It's a built-in solution. Yeah. Yeah. Problum solved. John, do you want to know the Mars from news from ABGIF? Well, yeah, let's do it.

Let's do the Mars from news in AFC Wimbledon. Or as some people like to call it, the news from Irish settling in the 1970s. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So many. I can't believe I got that. That's such a such a big it's such a big error from one letter. It's such a one letter.

It really changes the meaning of that sentence. And not because you know, because we are of Irish descent, I was also going to be a little defense. I was feeling a little defensive. You know, yeah, Like, so. Well, it more like more like I'm not sure that's the right way to describe the Irish diaspora in the 1970s. The great 1970s. Right. I would say I know so much about as I was not alive. For most of the news from A.M.ledon. America's favorite third-year English soccer team. It could be better, but it could certainly be worse. After winning four straight games for the first time

in five long years, AFC Wimbledon had a nil, nil draw against Ipswich Town. That's great. Now, it was a pretty good result. We were away from home. Ips switch is pretty high up the table. And I mean, we were better. I think they did hit the post once, but I thought we were better. Like we had a lot of chances. I you basal continues to be a problem that no league

one team can figure out how to solve. And he was one on one with the keeper a couple times, and we just got unlucky. But it is one more point on our journey to hopeful safety to the skin of your teeth being quite thick enough. Oh my gosh, this has been very stressful, but I'll tell you what, if we hadn't won four straight games and then tied one, it would have been much more stressful. Well, but also, you know what, it's hadn't won four straight games and then tied one, it would have been much more stressful. Well, but also, you know what, it's also stressful though.

We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We're pretty stressful though. We but I'd rather just win it. Because one thing I have not experienced, hang? Yeah. In almost three years is watching an AFC Wimbledon game while being certain that we will not be relegated that season. That's wild.

Yeah, because the last season was cut short due to COVID and when it was cut short we were very close to relegation. And the season before that, we didn't achieve survival until the final day. So just being able to watch one game without worrying about relegation. What would be nice? Really, really lovely.

Really lovely. I mean, the fresh-hitting thing is that like you and the five teams just beneath you that Have basically the last two games the exact same result and so none of you pulled away from anybody else Yeah, oh, it's very it's very tense and tight down there at the bottom and obviously my Heart breaks for the four teams that will be relegated, but also obviously I don't want it to be us.

Yeah. So which will definitely include we can get something against Rochdale. Good old good old. Swindon is your other team. Yeah. Come back in the day. If anybody remembers the spinoopers, there's a different world in which instead of sponsoring AFC Wimbledon for the last nine years, we sponsor Swindon Town. But I wish Swindon well, but they're, they're pretty much, they're gone. They're, they're, they're relegated. So there's not much they can do. But there is still something that Rothschild can do and they know it. And so there's a lot to play for.

Rochdale can do and they know it. And so there's a lot to play for. And hopefully we can get a point or two from our next three games and have another season of third tier football. But this time, ideally with fans in the new plan lane stadium. Well, news from Mars, John, ingenuity continues to do all the good ingenuity things. Took its third flight, flew 100, so the first flight just went up and down and that took like less than a minute. The second flight, it went up and like moved a bit, moved 13 feet and then went back down. That was also less than a minute. But now it's flown up and then flew 164 feet with the top speed of six feet per second, which is...

Wow. That's fast. That's faster than I ever went on Earth. see four feet with the top speed of six feet per second, which is, uh, wow. That's the, uh, that's faster than I'd ever went on Earth. Um, so that's good. The cameras, uh, so it has cameras. It's not just flying around. It's also taking video and taking pictures. And part of the testing of the helicopter is testing that the computer is able to follow the flight instructions that, that they've sent to it while also running algorithms to control the camera over long distances.

So, like, they're not telling the camera what to do, the camera is telling itself what to do, so that it can send back good pictures and good video. So, the results of these first flights have been very exciting for the helicopter's ability to it can clearly both fly and take pictures, giving us more to look forward to as ingenuity continues its mission. Now, it's not meant to be a long mission, but it is meant to allow us to watch, you know,

sort of drone video of Mars, which is just very cool. And we haven't gotten any of that as of the recording of this. We've just gotten pictures from the onboard cameras, no video of the drone flying. Got that slow Mars internet to deal with. Yeah, it takes, engine noise got us send it over to perseverance and perseverance has descended up to a satellite and the satellite has to send it back to us.

It's a whole thing. Yeah, Hank, I want you to know that I just looked it up. I did not know six feet per second sounded pretty fast to me. I was like, man, that thing was moving. It moved six feet per second, but then I looked it up. It's just four miles an hour. So, in the future, I'm gonna be like,

in the future I'm gonna say things like, oh, I walked six feet per second for five miles today. Right. That's wild. It's a six feet per second sounds like pretty fast. Yeah. It turns out there's a lot of feet in a mile. Yeah, it turns out a second isn't that quick.

No. Wow. Also, we're pretty big. Well, I don't know. That's just what Google tells me. I might be wrong. No, you're right. I looked it up too. Oh, great. I checked you. Oh, good. Well, I don't know. That's just what Google tells me. I might be wrong. No, you're right.

I looked it up too. Oh, great. I checked you. Oh, good. I appreciate the quick fact checking. Not on any Irish setter facts or anything else, but on that one mathematical calculation that Google made for us. Yeah.

Next time people ask me how fast my car goes. I'm going to be like, it goes 100 feet per second. Yeah. I mean, it probably goes even faster than that. I would imagine. If I'm not not when I'm driving it. Almost every day when I'm driving, I think about when I was like 16 or 17 years old, I was driving with my friend Chip. And I was like, why don't you drive faster? And he was like, because where do we need to be?

And that's, it was so. Not how my friends thought about it. No, not how my other friends thought about it either, but it's such a good way of approaching travel. Yeah. Where do I need to be? And it just slows you down a little bit because when you get in a car

and you feel like frantic, you don't drive well. No, you don't want to feel that way. And so I try to remind myself like, I don't need to be anywhere. I'm not rushing to a hospital. Like it's going to be okay. Let's drive defensively and slowly and try to make it to the next day.

That's your weekly little bit of road safety advice from your favorite road safety podcast. Do not look at your cell phone. Please. That's actually the biggest one. That's a big one. Don't look at yourself. But you really need to hear.

Just wait. It's what humans are best at. John, thank you for making the podcast with me. We're off to record our Patreon only podcast this weekend stuff. And you can get that podcast if you become a patron at patreon.com slash dear hankajan, which helps us fund Crash Course in SciShow and all the other work that Complexly does. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Meticch. It's produced by Rosiana Hallsborough-Hasson-Cheridan Gibson.

Our communication coordinator is Julia Bloom. Editorial assistant is Deboki Trucker-Varity. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great gunorola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.