Dear Hank & John - 400: For Those Who Are Still Listening

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Why do Hank and John keep things PG?  Why are white sheets the standard ghost costume?  How will computers deal with dates beyond the year 9999?  If the president was allergic to peanuts, would the White House become a peanut-free zone?  In the Garfield comic strip, can John understand what Garfield is thinking? …Hank and John Green have answers!  If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

You're listening to a Complexly Podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the best advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I feel like we've been forever since we made a podcast, John. Since we last made a podcast, I made a major announcement, which is that I'm writing a new book, and it's coming out in March,

and it's called Everything is Tuberculosis. It's a little bit of a departure for me, Hank, because now I am the science one. In fact, I have the best-selling science book on Amazon right now. Yikes. Number four in the world, but number one in science. Ooh, number four book of all books? Number four book of all books. That sounds like it's going pretty well, which I have to say is a little surprising to me.

Not, no, no. Thanks. No, it's nothing on you. I've read the book. It's very good. I agree that people should buy it. I am surprised that, I don't know, it's tuberculosis. The whole problem with it is people don't pay attention to it. That is literally the reason tuberculosis exists. It is an attention

problem as much as it is a biomedical problem. So I am absolutely delighted on a few levels, I'll confess, to the fact that the book has sold so well and indeed sold so much better than my previous book, which has been surprising and really exciting. But yeah, it comes out in March and I'm signing 100,000 copies of the first edition so you can get a signed edition wherever books are sold. That's been interesting, Hank, because I'd forgotten when I made this commitment, I remember saying at the end of signing 250,000 copies of the Anthropocene Reviewed that I was getting out of that game.

Yeah, I remember that too. And then I missed it, you know? I missed signing my name over and over again. That's a weird thing to miss. But I've done it about 12,000 times. I've got about 88,000 to go, and I don't miss it as much as I did 12,000 sheets ago. Oh boy.

That's 88,000 is a lot more. I had not, I felt like my vibe was you were further along than that. Nope. Nope. I'm about 12,000 in with 88,000 to go and I've got about two months to do it. Do you think that if I wrote a book that it would be a good idea for me to do this? No. For sales of the book though?

Maybe for sales. And this is something that I feel very strongly about. Like I'll obviously always want my books to sell well. I'm not above that. But this book I especially want to sell well because it is so much about trying to get people to understand both the history of tuberculosis, but also the kind of terrifying present of it and how much together we really can change the arc of tuberculosis merely by paying attention to the crisis and treating it like a crisis.

Yeah, it's like Kony 2012, but TB. Well, I wouldn't say that's a perfect comparison. TB 2024. 2025, actually, in terms of the book. Good God. It'd be great if we- Can you believe that 2025 is a thing that is part of our lives? I know.

So, oh, that's a wild- We're a quarter of the way through the century. Man, you always hear about the technological change that might happen. You never hear about the political change that might happen. I am uncomfortable. Yeah. I mean, we can talk about all of that stuff, but I'd rather not. Instead I like to talk about the fact that people who were born in 2004 can drink in

the United States. Yeah. Children's. that people who were born in 2004 can drink in the United States. Yeah. And 2004 is like, basically we were thinking about making YouTube videos. Yeah, no, we weren't, because that YouTube didn't exist yet. But we were almost thinking about it. We were thinking, we were doing internet stuff in 2004. I certainly was doing internet stuff in 2004.

Yeah. Yeah. You were helping me design my own website with my hot HTML skills. Anyway, Everything Is Tuberculosis is available for pre-order now. And it's going to come out 20 years almost to the day after my first novel, Looking for Alaska. 20 years, Hank, I've been writing books.

Yeah. Yeah, and you haven't written that many. I know. Sorry. You've written almost as many books as me in like three years. I really want to write books more. It's fun. Me too, man.

It's a great job. It's the best job. I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful that people have responded so generously to this one so far with all the pre-orders. I hope I don't disappoint them with the actual book. That becomes my immediate worry. Once the books start selling well, I'm like, oh God, I hope I don't disappoint them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. I feel the same way about almost everything that I do, but especially the things that people pay money for. It's stressful. Yeah. All right, let's answer some questions from our listeners,

beginning with this one from Sarah. And by the way, I'm so glad we didn't get a joke today. I just gotta confess. I'm hugely relieved. I'm sure you're gonna squeeze one in in the middle, but it's good not to start off with that. I wanna keep you guessing. You're always waiting for it.

I like the idea of inserting it somewhere in the podcast and seeing if I see it coming or whether I'm blindsided. Anyway, this question comes from Sarah who writes, hey, John and Hank, how do you guys keep it so PG? Thumpens and Penguins, Sarah. How or why? Oh, why?

I thought it was how and I was in my heart is how, and Sarah, the how is challenging sometimes. I guess. It's funny because I don't keep it PG everywhere. No. In fact, it would be easier to keep it PG in written stuff, but I'm less likely to. And when I'm like on Tumblr, Twitter, or Blue Sky, or threads, I curse up a storm. I'm also not very PG in my like normal life, including in front of my child. We talk about like grownup words and how, you know, just like I can drink some drinks

he can't drink, I can say some words he can't say. And, but I think, John, the why is about accessibility. Like there are, there's all kinds of different ways to be a person in this world, and we want what we do to be open to as many of them as possible. And a lot of them, whether they are children or just have sort of a different code of morality than I do, feel very differently about curse words than I do.

Right. Yeah, I think that's part of it, but that can't be all of it, right? Because like, I want my books to be widely accessible. And ironically, it's my books for teenagers that are the least PG of my books, right? Like the Anthropocene Reviewed and Everything is Tuberculosis are reasonably PG. I'm not sure that like a child would love reading

Everything is Tuberculosis, but they might. I mean, I think some children will. Cool babies will be into it. And for me, the podcast is more about family listening. And I know there are lots of people who listen to it with their little ones, like not their teenagers, but their little, little kids. And I just kinda like it that we have a space

where we are reasonably PG, precisely because we're less and less PG in other spaces. I mean, on my sports Twitter I struggled to go seven or eight words without Throwing in some some bad ones. We've also not cursed much on vlogbrothers Like I remember like I kind of remember every time we've done it. Yeah, I Don't know. Yeah, we don't like to curse on vlogbrothers. I don't know why it's just so weird It's just it's like like every place has its vibe

and that's the vibe on Dear Hank and John. That's right. And people can catch the vibe. People can catch the vibe. And I find it weirdly easy to do. I, you're saying it's hard for you, but I find it's like, I don't know, I just go into that version of myself

where I imagine my mom's listening. Not that we don't curse it from mom. Yeah, mom hears me curse a lot. Yeah. This next question comes from Devin, who asks, dear Hank and John, as spooky season, AKA the best season, approaches and stores display new Halloween wares,

it occurred to me that somehow humanity collectively decided ghosts would be represented by placing a white sheet with eye holes in it over one's head, like in Scooby Doo. Uh, why? Why is this the way? When and how did sheets over our bodies and moaning, ooh, become the universal standard ghost? If you're able to provide any information, become the universal ghost standard, stairway to Devon. Mm. Mm. It's gotta be just a ease of access thing, right? It's like, you got a sheet, you got a child,

you gotta have a costume, you gotta make a ghost. No, I don't think it goes back to that. I think it goes back to burial shrouds. That would be my guess. Because burial shrouds were a much bigger deal than coffins until like, I don't know, like the late 1700s, early 1800s or something. And so when the dead would wake up, they would be wearing their burial shrouds. And so they would basically look like they were wearing sheets with, but they, you know, but then you need to see as a human. And so you cut eye holes in the sheet.

Yeah. That would be my guess. Is Casper the friendly ghost just sort of bundled up in his, his little burial shroud? That makes me a little sad. Well, I never realized Casper had died, you know? Casper's a little boy who died. It's very sad now that you mention it. It's like almost always when ghosts are played for laughs, I want to be like, hold on a second. There's a tragedy here.

Yeah. Well, I don't sometimes, sometimes it's like an old lady and it's like, yeah, old lady died. No, but like, like moaning murder was a bunch of haha funny funny. Yeah. And but she did get murdered or funny funny about the situation. Yeah. I, for one, do not want to be buried in a burial shroud, just so you know, just so it's out there. Well, I think that we've kind of we've we've skipped over burial shrouds and now we just have regular all suits

Do you want to do you want a regular all suit or do you want to wear something special? No, I just want to wear like my my a FC Wimbledon suit I guess if I were to die tomorrow my nice suit with the a I thought you meant like you're killing the kid like you just like no no no not like a full kit like with my Shorts that have DFTBA on that the kit. Like you just like. No, no, no, not like a full kit. Like with my shorts that have DFTBA on. No, no thank you. Just some kind of, I think I'd probably want to dress up for the occasion.

But the main thing, Hank, and I know I've said this before, but I literally can't say it enough, is that I'd like to be buried at the very top of Crown Hill Cemetery, directly above James Whitcomb Riley, the other famous Indiana author. This is the guy who wrote Little Orphan Annie. He wrote Little Orphan Annie, which was first titled The Elf Child. Thank God they changed it to Little Orphan Annie.

I'm having a moment because I looked up Little Orphan Annie just now. So Annie is what I'm most familiar with, the 1982 film. Sure. The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow. familiar with the 1982 film. This will come out tomorrow. Or which was based on the 1977 Broadway musical of the same name. Correct. Which was based on Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip created by Harold Gray. Based on. Which was further based on Little Orphan Annie, the book by Charles Whitcomb Riley.

James Whitcomb Riley. Whatever. I love that you don't know his name. By Charles Nelson Riley. Charles Nelson Riley. The best part, Hank, about Annie being based on a Broadway show, being based on a comic strip,

being based on a poem called Little Orphan Annie. The best part about that is that the main character of Little Orphan Annie is named Little Orphan Allie. And the only reason the show, the only reason the poem is called Little Orphan Annie is because of a typesetter mistake. What? Yeah. The whole thing should have been called Allie. It's a girl named Mary Alice Smith. I don't think that was a mistake. I think that was an editorial choice. They were like, Yeah. The whole thing should have been called Ali. It's a girl named Mary Alice Smith. I don't think that was a mistake. I think that was an editorial choice.

They were like, little orphan Ali. Annie sounds way better. Riley wanted to call it little orphan Annie, but a typesetting error during printing renamed the poem to its current form. And so you're reading this poem that's about a child named Ali that's called little orphan Annie. The rest of the poem is still about Ali? That I don't know. You can actually listen to James Whitcomb Riley read this poem, because he's not that old.

Well, he's dead. He's the same age as all the other dead people. Is that how that works? Let me see, Little Orphan... They seem to... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all the other dead people. It's not how that works. Let me see. Little orphan. They seem to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They was. It's little orphan any throughout the poem because of a type center error. OK.

It's not a very long poem. You know, this guy. This guy. There was a there was a fourth adaptation that just happened in 2021. I think I've seen clips from it. Yeah. They're still at it. Yeah, on TikTok, which is how we watch movies now.

I gotta say, John, I don't know if you deserve to be up there. This guy's stuff's still happening. You don't think there's gonna be versions of The Fault in Our Stars made in 2070? Strong disagree. I am really looking forward to the Broadway musical Everything is Tuberculosis. I am too. It's going to be a hit. I mean, people are going to love it. I can't wait for the thrilling multi-studio bidding war over the movie rights for Everything is Tuberculosis,

my hit non-fiction book about tuberculosis. That's what I'm most excited about. Oh man, somebody's going to want to turn it into a Netflix documentary, I'm sure, and they'll pay like, they'll have a budget of $300. I want to say no to that because I don't have any desire to go through that whole process again, but I also feel compelled to say yes to it because the reason the book exists is to expand awareness of TB. Yeah, you should do it if it comes up. Yeah.

But the, I mean, the guest lecture probably will reach more people than a Netflix documentary. I don't know. Netflix documentaries, man, I just watched the one about Vince McMahon. Yeah, but that's the one about Vince McMahon. I never thought of Vince McMahon one way or the other until I watched this documentary.

You gotta have some real criminals going on in your tuberculosis book to get a good Netflix documentary. There are some criminals. There are some criminals. All right. Like all of us. Give attention.

Are really participating in a crime that is the ongoing horror of tuberculosis, the world's deadliest infectious disease. I found that when I made jokes like that doing stand-up comedy, people really love them. That really lands well Good. All right. Well, maybe I'll write a stand-up comedy special With your stand-up special about cancer. Oh I Love the engineering challenge of building a grave on

That hovers upon another person's grave. You're going to have to stay alive for a while so we can build that hover technology. But. Elon's got me. All right, Hank, it's time to answer another question from our listeners. This one comes from Elon or possibly Ellen. Dear John and Hank, I realize it might still be a bit too soon, but when do you think we should start worrying about how our computer systems are not built to handle years beyond

9999? By we, I of course mean humanity since we will all along be dead by then. Memento Mori, Elon. Oh, you know, I had this feeling not too long ago that we wouldn't have that much lost media. You know that like there's always like you always that much is always lost to history But I just feels like everything is being preserved all the time Yeah, we're taking so many photographs and videos and every every tweet that we write is preserved And it just feels like everything is gonna be preserved right? I'm like I've never been worried about About YouTube videos going away, like about losing vlogbrothers. Now, there is one vlogbrothers video that has been lost to the lost media

hole. Some gamma ray hit some hard drive in some warehouse somewhere, and that YouTube video literally just doesn't work anymore. We did not take it down. It's just not there. I don't know which one it is, but I remember finding this out and being upset. Wow. Yeah. Wow. But- I mean, what a loss. It feels like Vlogbrothers is incomplete now.

Yeah. Well, there's also a couple that we've taken down over the years, so it's incomplete in other ways as well. True enough. We don't have to talk about those ones. Nope. More embarrassing than and cringe than anything else and mean occasionally. But anyway, my point is, in the last few years, as it feels

like computers are changing in a kind of deeper, more fundamental way with like, like just on like right on the edge of autonomous agent computer programs that can sort of conduct themselves in the world as if they are themselves people-ish. I've started to feel like, oh, this is not static. This is not like a thing that's going to be forever. Now I will say, I think we're going to have phones for a long time. That's a very convenient thing to have a handheld computer and there isn't really a better way to do it

than the way we're doing phones right now. Right. But I think in the year 999, when we're about to roll over to 10,000, I would be shocked if any of the systems that we are currently using Agreed. Have any bearing on that reality.

What do you think is the chance? We have almost nothing from 10,000 years ago, right? We've got some monumental structures, but we don't have much in the way of anything else. I mean, 10,000 years is a really long time. I guess we're talking about 8,000 years. So what do you think the chances are that in 8,000 years there will be any relic of any,

like do you think there will be a Mr. Beast video or a copy of an absolutely remarkable thing available in the world? I think no. I think yes. You think we're gonna get better at preserving information. I'm not sure that we are. Well, I think that it's gonna be less burdened.

I think that particularly books, because they are just nothing. They even now, they are just having a store of all of the books That have ever been made digitally is like a like an endeavor that a single person could take on and they wouldn't even have to be that rich Right, but you've you've got to count on each of those things being preserved generation after generation for eight Thousand years like a lot of stuff is gonna get lost Yeah, I mean it is a generation after generation or is it like literally one autonomous AI agent

that lives that whole time and its job is just to save the books? Like just in case you... Book guy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I hadn't thought about one autonomous AI that waits for 8,000 years, but I guess that is around the corner.

I'm really overwhelmed by the state of things. I wouldn't be surprised if people die and then we keep them alive doing jobs that they seem like they would be good at as AI. Well, that's one of my big fears is that like, that I'll be made, like there will be Vlogbrothers videos into perpetuity because my consciousness will be uploaded enough by virtue of the amount of stuff that I've made that people will continue to make Vlogbrothers videos and they will feel like

they were made by me and on some level they were. That is very weird. The other thing there is I'm worried that in the same way that a sort of creators or an author's descendants control their work in the future, that an author's descendants will control their image and likeness and voice and creations. And so like- And I go back and forth on that because there's part of me

that like right now in my will, it just says like none of that ever period. Yeah, like this all public domain or something? No, no, no, just none of it ever period. You can't use my likeness. Oh, your likeness. I was talking about IP, intellectual properties. Oh, oh, but you can't use my likeness. Oh, no, no. Oh, your likeness. I was talking about IP, intellectual property stuff. Oh, oh.

But you can't like feed an AI a bunch of John Green books and then start publishing new John Green books. I haven't written that into the will yet, John. That's in my will. Oh, Hank, you gotta get on your. I got a normal will, like a normal guy. I'm not thinking about my likeness. Now that you have a normal will,

it's time to start updating your will all the time and with weird, weird stuff like that. What do you do? Do you just email your lawyer? You're like, hey, can you put in, don't ever turn me into a weird AI bot in the language? Yeah. Yeah. Can you add some language that says no botting me for the foreseeable future?

On the other hand, I don't wanna deny my descendants, if there's some cool technology that I can't foresee right now, and they're suddenly very limited. And I'll give you an example. The estate of James Joyce has made it very difficult to do James Joyce studies. And that's probably in line with what James Joyce wanted,

but who the hell cares what James Joyce wanted. But who the hell cares what James Joyce wanted? Like that's not useful anymore. Like we need to be able to do, we need to be able to like read all of James Joyce's letters and we need to be able to do all that stuff because it's cool and interesting and it helps us understand Ulysses better. And so I go back and forth on it because the, the needs of the world change and I mean, I realize that I've just compared myself to the greatest novelist of all time. Well, hey, John,

there is a comparison to be made. You both are professional writers and you will both die. And we will both die. We share a profession and a fate. That's more than most people. Most people only share a fate. But everybody who shares a profession also shares a fate. True.

Unless, no, yes. who shares a profession also shares a fate. True. Unless... No, yes. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by sharing a fate. Sharing a fate. It's universal. This podcast is also brought to you by the S word, the F word, and also the E word. What's the E word? EGLE! We've never said it. E word. What's the E word?

Eagle! We've never said it. We've never said it on this podcast one time. Never in 400 episodes if we ever, by the way, this is our 400th episode. Never in 400 episodes if we ever said the word eagle because it's too filthy. Today's podcast is also brought to you by James Whitcomb Riley's Little Orphan Alley. Little Orphan Alley, saved by a typo. And this podcast is brought to you by Bot Hank.

Bot Hank, ready to take over once I'm done. Oh, God. This next question comes from Grace who writes, hey, Green brothers, let's cut to the chase. If the president of the United States is allergic to peanuts, would the entire White House become a peanut free zone like an elementary school? Would someone with such an anaphylactic allergy even be allowed to run for president? Seems like too much of a security risk to me. I think they would have to go peanut free to be honest. We'd love to hear your thoughts, Grace. This is the kind of question I've been waiting for, Grace. I like it when you say, let's cut to the chase. Let's cut to the chase.

That's my favorite part of your question. Yeah. I mean, first off, you can have an anaphylactic allergy and a run for president. Absolutely. That is not disqualifying on its own. Grace, I'm not sure you've been following our presidential election, but it turns out a lot of things aren't disqualifying. Oh, John, I have always worried about peanuts because if you have two of them, chances are

one of them is assaulted. Damn it. This is a joke. I can tell it. What was the end of it? Sorry, I didn't get to hear the end. One of them is assaulted. Oh, yes.

That's an old school dad joke. It's old school peanut joke. Yeah. Two peanuts are walking down the road. A classic among dad joke enthusiasts. Yeah. It's a classic among the in the form. It's the little orphan Annie of peanut related dad jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That guy's also buried on a hill somewhere. Have I told you how unfunny the people at Crown Hill find this joke? What? That you want to be buried on top of Charles Nelson Riley? James Wickham Riley? Yes. They are not abused by it one little bit. They don't find it funny at all. They are not abused by it one little bit. They don't find it funny at all.

Oh man. Our parents are at Crown Hill today actually. I was like, where are you guys going? And they were like going to Crown Hill and I was like, just for a walk. And they were like, yup. So come by it honestly. It's nice in there. Look, it's a pleasant cemetery.

Occasionally you find a person who's actually buried in the wrong grave. You do? Yeah, grave mistake. Oh, Jesus. Okay. That's no more. No more. You know, our parents got into the cemetery, but oftentimes you can't because they're surrounded

by fences. Do you know why? Why? People are dying to get in. It is funny that they're surrounded by fences though. Are they keep out fences or they keep in fences? A little bit of both. A little bit of both I think.

Just in case. I just think the one thing we know about ghosts is they're not going to particularly struggle with like a wrought iron fence. They're not going to be like, oh well, I guess I'll stay in the cemetery tonight. It's got to be for the protection of all of the stones. I guess at nighttime they might lock it up. Yeah, they lock it up at night. Crown Hill is open sunrise to sunset.

There used to, of course, be a lot of grave robbing. What if you just hid, though, in there? It's a big cemetery. Could you just hide in there and just spend the night? Yeah, I think it's home to over 100,000 human souls. Or none, depending on your worldview. I don't know that that's how souls work. I don't think they stick around.

No, but people just say that. That's how people say it. That's a good point. Yeah, it's better than saying it's home to 100,000 human skulls. Or 100,000 human, or 200,000 human femurs. Probably a little less. That's right. That's right.

All right. Well, I think we answered the, I think that the president would have an epi-pay, I think it'd be pretty easy to manage. Yeah, I agree. But they did do that on, you know, recently, sometimes they have little treats on planes. Mm-hmm. My life has been sort of the process of watching the little treat get worse. And I'm not going to blame a peanut allergy on this, but I will blame an airline. I agree with you. The classic peanuts was great, except for people with serious peanut allergies for whom

it was catastrophic. I don't mind making a small sacrifice for the peanut people. There were other options. We could have gone with like a Gardetto's style snack mix. Yeah, snack mix. That would have been great. I'm just saying, and I'm saying it loud for everyone to hear, pretzels suck. A hard pretzel is the worst snack food. I've seen you go off on this rant on Twitter,

which by the way, what a waste of time Twitter is. What a waste of time ranting about pretzels on Twitter is. It's not just a waste of time. It's a waste of time that makes the social order a little bit worse. It's like smoking cigarettes. It's not just bad for you. It's also a little bit bad for the social order. I find it very similar to gambling, where it's not just bad for you. It's like gambling I find it very similar to gambling where it's like it's a bunch of people who are who are trading the currency of their lives for Sensations, but will never be delivered. What is actually being promised? Yeah, they'll never feel what they what they want to feel That's that's you and me on Twitter. Yeah, and Sarah was like, you criticize Hank's tweet Twitter usage a lot, but I can't help but

notice that you yourself are using Twitter. And I thought that was a good argument. So I'm going to stop criticizing your Twitter use and start criticizing my own. Right. Well, John, if you left, I leave. I'm only there for you is a lie. I don't believe you. That I just told you.

Okay, that's it. I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I'm leaving today. Yeah, no, no, I'm not. I have been enjoying Blue Sky lately. I've never been on Blue Sky. It's very, very, very weird. It is, you know, of course, very similar to Twitter, but it is

it is surprisingly lively and not like just sort of chock full of complete garbage the way that that threads is. Also, I think that there is so little sort of high talent posters on on Blue Sky that I just do very well. Oh, Jesus Christ. Calling yourself a high talent poster is like calling yourself a really good gambler. Where you're like, well, you know, I'm just an excellent gambler. I happen to win at roulette all the time because of my excellent high talent gambling.

No, I think that like probably, like maybe two to 500 people just turned off the podcast and were like, I'm done with that guy. Yes, I agree. There's two to five people who will never hear my voice again because of what you just said. And you know what? They're right.

Yeah. The people who are still listening are the ones are just exceptionally generous. The problem is that I was like mostly... I was like... I was joking, but like a little bit... Not enough. Yeah, not enough. Yeah. All right, Hank, before we get to the all-important news

from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, let's answer this question from Jacob, who writes, Dear John and Hank, in the comic strip Garfield, John appears to hold conversations with his cat, but all of Garfield's dialogue appears in thought bubbles. Is John able to guess what Garfield is thinking, or is he so insecure that he imagines himself scorned by his own cat slowly depreciating in value? Jacob. Oh, Jacob, I don't think that's necessarily true. How are John and Garfield able to have a conversation when one of them is only thinking and one

of them is speaking? Is it telepathy? I think it is. I think that it is. As a cat owner, so I think that there's two ways. There's the way that people who aren't cat owners see this, which is that John is insane. And then there's the way that cat owners see it, which is that we know all of the thoughts our cats are having.

Right. Right. Right. And I like do. I look at the shape of his ears, what he's doing with his tail, what his face looks like, what his eyes look like, what his fur is, how it's pointed. And I'm like, I know exactly what Gummy Bear is thinking. What does Gummy Bear think about most of the time? Food?

He thinks about Chester a lot. Which is the other cat. The other cat. Yeah. He thinks about going outside. He has a little outside tent that he goes in. So he's constantly thinking about that. When he's outside, he's thinking about coming inside.

He's thinking, there's like, you know, he could have like, like sort of complex thoughts about like whether or not he would like to be affectionate or have affection directed toward him. And indeed he is at many times of two minds on that subject. Yeah, he has to hold in concert two competing ideas in his head, which is of course the definition of a first-rate intelligence according to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Gummy Bear is often thinking, I would like to be cuddled, but also I'm a wild jungle cat. Right, right. Do you think he ever has to hold at the same time a sense of the need to hope and a sense of the futility of effort? No. Okay.

Then I would like to be a cat. I think cats should vote. Wow, that's bold. I mean, I don't. I've read Garfield. I don't think cats should vote. Yeah. I think they could be bribed with lasagna too easily.

Turns out it's not that. As opposed to regular people, which have much more sophisticated bribing techniques like the chance to win a million dollars. Oh my goodness. I'm so nauseated by this moment. I'm not having the best time. Ready to be done with it. Well, except that I am having kind of a good time. Yeah. Just not on that front.

Right, yeah. I'm letting myself have fun. Good. Listen. Yes. Hank. Yes. There is one other thing we have to talk about

before we get to the news from ours and AFC World. Okay. We have talked about this email from Walt who says, hey guys, I taught high school for 20 years and I just retired. The preposition misuse that got under my skin the most was when students would say that something happened on accident. Not a question, but just agreeing with you, prepositions are messy. Walt, whose grandson calls him Grandpa Walrus, which is the cutest grandpa name I've

ever heard of. On accident. On accident instead of by accident. That is what we say as English speakers. Like something like this happened on accident. I failed to get my homework done on accident. Would it be by accident? It would be by accident except that it doesn't matter because prepositions are terrible. They're catastrophocic.

Sorry, that wasn't a word. So yeah, I mean, I'm glad I don't have to learn English because apparently the preposition rule is whichever one we use is the one we use. It's so vibes based. Yeah. As is so much. You know one thing that has been giving me a little shot of hope is that I got to see AFC Wimbledon play in person twice in the last week. That's awesome. I got to see us win.

How long has the season, when does the season end? It just began, Hank. I know, but when does it end? I'm asking because I'm maybe going to go to the UK. Oh, in May. You're going to go, when are you going to go? Like June? That's a long season.

Yeah, it might end in April. No, it ends on May 3rd. Okay. Well, maybe I'll look at some games, see if I can go. And then I'll probably not go because I don't care that much. You got to go. You would love it actually. You'd have a great time.

You'd be moved beyond belief. You really would be as I was when we beat Carlisle 4-0 thanks to a Mattie Stevens hat trick and an own goal, my favorite kind of goal. It was like the perfect game for me. I got to see an own goal and a hat trick. It was magic. Nice. Yeah. And then, but my son wasn't able to go to that

game. Poor Henry has seen us play six times. He's never seen us win. We went all the way up to Nottingham there in the East Midlands to see us play Notts County where we lost one nil on a crap goal like a league two, flail at the ball, meaningless goal only to have us win three nil against Morcom in the game that Henry didn't see. Poor Henry has still never seen us win. I feel bad for him, but not that bad. I'm still going to make him go to lots of games. I just looked at the schedule and they don't have a game while I'm there. Really? Yeah. I'm only there for like three days. Oh, you're only there for three days. Yeah. I'm only there for like three days. Oh, you're only there for three days? Yeah. Oh, I see. So currently, AFC Wimbledon have played three fewer games than almost all of the other teams in League 2 because of the pitch situation. Remember our pitch flooded? We had soggy pitch issues.

Yep. And so we're currently in 10th place, but if we win those three games in hand, we would actually be winning League Two. We would be number one. That is nice. Yeah. I mean, I think that it's a long shot to assume that, to win League Two, but anything is starting to feel possible.

I watched us play the most recent game was yesterday as we're recording this against Morcombe and I I just was like this team They they just they know how to put the ball in the onion bag That's where balls go they like they know where the ball is supposed to go and it's supposed to go in the onion bag. Yeah to go and it's supposed to go in the onion bag. Yeah. Why don't they do it like, I've seen Messi do some goals recently. They should do it more like him. They should. They should. We should sign him. I was recently at a party and somebody asked, could you sign somebody like Mbappe? And I was No. No. No, we're the 86th best team in all of England. If you mean like, if you mean, if I like Mbappe that they share the same fate, yes. Have the same job and share the same fate, yes. We could sign somebody like Mbappe. We could sign the John Green to his James Joyce. Oh, man. But we are beating the franchise who are currently in 12th place. So, love to see that. What's

new in Mars news? You know, I don't really know. I didn't have a chance to look. I actually had a time set aside to do it, but I didn't do that. And instead, I did something else. I think I was making a TikTok. I'll give you some Mars news then. Oh, yeah. What you got? We're going up a crater rim, Hank. Perseverance is. It's working its way up a steep crater rim. With we talked about that. That's the exact thing I brought up last time. All right. but that's okay Bruno Mars and Jessica Caban met at a restaurant in New York City in 2011

At which they began dating and they have been dating for over 13 years now Yeah, and There were some rumors that they had called it quits. It's unclear whether or not they are still together. 13 years is a long time. It is. That's a long relationship for Bruno Mars. I hope that they're doing okay. Yeah, that's a hard one to,

it's a hard transition if that's what's going on. For sure. I hope everything's going okay with Bruno Mars. Yeah, we're thinking about you, Bruno Mars. If you want to send us questions, we should have done more for our 400th episode. How was this? I know this was are you kidding?

This is perfect. We should have done something. No, pre-order Everything is Tuberculosis available wherever fine books are sold. That's true. You can go to everything is TB calm and All the places where it is or or you could just like use your Existing knowledge base of where books are purchased either one works. Yeah, but this way a penguin gets whatever penguin wants

Yeah, that's true. I'm having a landing page. Do you like it. It's the number one bestselling books in communicable diseases. That's right. They had it as the number one bestselling books in viral illnesses and I had to send them an email. Really? Nope. That's not what this is. We need to learn about TV.

It's a bacteria. We got to learn about TV in this hit new book, Everything is Tuberculosis. That's right. Yeah, do the credits, man. This was fun. I had a great time. It's Hankandjohn at gmail.com if you want to send us a question. Thank you to everybody who did.

This episode was edited by Linus Obenhaus. It was mixed by Joseph Tunamettish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosianna Halsrow, Hassan Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. The editorial assistant is Taboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now is by The Great Gunnarolla, and as they say, in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.