Dear Hank & John - 450: Diet Coke is Tea (w/ Keith Habersberger!)

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

What is a word like “vegetarian” to describe a person who does not willingly want to consume AI-generated content? How do you avoid doomspiraling when trying to reconnect with your creativity? What’s the tastiest drink? Why do banks always tell you what the temperature is outside? Do I need to get a checkbook? What book should I read? Why are parking lot sunsets so beautiful and particularly, why are Meijer parking lots? How can I convince my friends who are visiting that it is a better place to see the sunset than over Lake Michigan?…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/dearhankandjohnProduced for Hank and John Green by ComplexlySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Oh, and welcome to Dear Hank and Keith Habersberger. It's a podcast for two brothers and sometimes a brother and some other guy. Answer your questions, give you to the easiest advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Keith, John couldn't be here this week, so we got a guy who looks like he could definitely be our brother. Definitely, I feel like I could be in the family. I feel like, yeah, I feel like you're in it.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we could get Joe Hansen in here. We could get Grant O'Brien in here. Man. Oh, wow. If the five of us did a thing. I have thought we should find some sort of thing. The way that people do like the Ryan Fest like in Oregon and where they like get, instead of getting people with the same name, just people who look enough like us that were cool with it. Yeah. You know, just guys with faces who are white and have glasses.

I mean, that's pretty much it. Yeah. But it is fun that how many of us are specifically like. YouTubers from different but similar geek and nerd niches. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're all the top of a different nerd stack in particular. Oh, what top, what nerd stack are you on top of?

Food. Oh, yeah, I guess so. Have you ever had Taco Johns? I have had Taco Johns. Did you have all of Taco Johns? No, I haven't because it's just in like the center of America. Yeah, we have Taco Johns here. They have that weird sauce that's named after a lady.

That's not familiar, actually. Maybe it's a different. Oh, Runza. Sorry. Do you know Runza? No. I was just thinking about Taco Johns because the one by my house closed and I haven't had that burrito that smells a little bit like propane in so long. I've only had Taco Johns a couple times and it was back when I was touring almost 15 years ago. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back when you had to. I just miss it. This is great for me as a professional podcaster as my neighbor's son has started a band. I'm sorry, what? Your neighbor's son started a band? Yeah, and they play in the garage that's right across the alley from my studio. That's, but in a way, isn't that wonderful? Because like the fact that kids are still doing bands in the garage, to me, that's, that's Americana.

I feel like we've lost that. I know. My neighbor is like, we should do something about this. And I'm like, but they're just trying to be kids. That's what I'm saying. Like, you're having a problem people we're dealing with in the 70s and 80s. How often do we get to have that? So what we do here, Keith, is we answer people questions.

We try to give them good advice, but we don't promise anything. Sure. And I thought, since my brother, John, is working very hard on his copy edits for his book, and so he can't be here. That instead we would get you. Do you want to answer some questions from our listeners? I would love to answer questions. This first one is from Kendra, who asks, Dear Hank and John,

vegetarian is a useful word. It saves a paragraph of explanation every time I use it. Can I grab you a burger? No, thanks. I'm vegetarian. I think the English language needs a new word that means a person who does not willingly consume AI generated content. What should it be? Huh.

Yeah. Yeah. Now you have to say like, oh, I'm anti-AI slop, right? Or I'm like anti-AI. But that's too. It's really a word with a fun prefix. Yeah. I'm a humanitarian.

That one's already taken. And also makes you sound like you might be eating people. Yeah. If you're in a vegetarian conversation and then you say that, then like, oh, now I've got a new context to atarian. Right. This is actually a problem. I wonder if anyone's ever written that comedy sketch about a person who's talking about being a humanitarian and then the other people in the room are like, oh my God. Vegetarian. I'm trying to think like, I'm sure the etymology isn't this, but is it, is et eat, like veg eat? Vege et aryan? No, I don't think so. Like,

there's also carnivore, you know, you got the vore in there. Which feels more like meat. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You don't say a vegivore. but you should herbivore herbivore I was called out in an episode of last meals for the term of voring that Courtney Miller thought I could vore her which is this is the whole reason I invited you on and I can't believe we already got there what did you what did you think about about Shane's wife talking about you voring her well first flattered obviously And, you know, I love that the mythos of me eating everything maybe is starting to make people think like, maybe he eats everything. Every one. Yeah. Like I'm like who's the, what's the monster that eats worlds?

Not the monster, but the catamari. Katamari. Well, that's just a guy with a bad dad. But isn't there Galactus, the consumer of worlds, the eater of worlds? Galactivore. Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about, Keith. I'll be honest with you. We're off topic.

What is the word for anti-AI? Look, I like this from an angle, which is that the information that we consume is very much like the food that we consume. And it has categories. And Slop is interesting. Brain rot also, something to try and avoid. But I definitely, just like with food, I'll have a little as a treat. What is brain rot an AI subsect? No, no, no.

I don't. I mean, it can be. It certainly brain rot can certainly be AI generated. Yeah. is for me brain rot, and this is me talking to my nine-year-old, but brain rot is anything where you are watching it. And afterward, it has provided you with nothing, except it satiated your attention in that moment,

but then you got nothing from it afterward. Yeah, like old flash animations when we were younger were sort of brain rot. Yeah, there were definitely brain-roddy flash animations. But there were some, like, the moment it, like, tells a little bit of a story, I feel like it's not really brain rot anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like the badger, badger, badger, badger, mushroom, mushroom, that's brain rot. I guess. I don't know.

This is a story. What are you getting out of that other than an inside joke? It's so funny. Like that brain rot is so much healthier than the brain rot of today, though. And there wasn't like an infinite supply of it. So you just had to watch the same brain rot over and over again, which has a different quality to it. And it was a whole website sometimes. So it's like, that's the website is like the hamster dance. That's probably the oldest.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Were you born in 1980? 87, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, a little later. Yeah, but you were, I guess, for me, you must have been more of a child when

a hamster dance happened because I was in college. Yeah, I was a child. And it was, it was a website. I was frequenting. I was like, this is a good place to sit for five minutes. You know, a really solid fact about. me same and i was like 18 years old 19 years old it was good it was good yeah it was really good there was so much there was so much weird the we love the moon can i can i like do a thing to like

one percent of our listeners brains right now i would think it would be wonderful po the sheep po the sheep do i know it was just for one percent of our listeners brains yeah you lost me yeah no that was that that was a thing you could install poe on your windows machine and there would be a sheep that lived on your desktop and his name was Po. And he like did stuff. That does sound familiar, but I feel like that was something like my brother referenced once, not something I experienced because my older brothers are, both of my brothers are older, so they're a little bit more early 80s.

Should we have them on the podcast? Give them a call, get them in the room. They don't look quite as much like us. Brian a little more so. David doesn't look at all like us. Is he like really hardcore tattoos all over the face? No, he's just like longer hair. like rounder he's like a he's I feel like he's the like a warlord's build

I hope David's listening who would David eat would David eat? Yeah of the smosh cast Of the smosh cast Um maybe chance Yeah I think that'd be a lot of people's choice

Yeah he seems like he tastes good He's manageable He looks good Yeah He's very consumable. Angela seems consumable, but she's going to fight back way too much. No, actually, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like a, there's like a defense mechanism in there somewhere.

Just below the skin, there's thorns. It's like when the eating baby squid thing where you have to chew them alive and they fight. You ever, you know what I'm talking about? Keith, no. I'm just, it's a thing. It's a thing that exists. I'm talking to a vegetarian right now. I'm just talking to a thing.

That's a thing. Different people eat. different stuff and different stuff is okay to eat. Yeah. I think that we should all be more careful about the kind of stuff that we consume, but in all directions. And it'd be nice to have words for it. Mm-hmm. But I don't know. Like there's like a content minimalism that really we should have again, but we never will. No, we won't. There's too much. And there's the ability for everybody to make anything. And I think that's like the biggest danger of AI. Like everyone already has the ability to put their thoughts places that no one ever could before. But now we have the ability to like create a lot of

thought, visualize in a strange way, and put it everywhere faster than ever before. I was talking somebody about like the amount of AI stuff getting on YouTube is faster than YouTube can stop it. Yeah. Like by far. Like they're just like YouTube is like, oh, we're sort of powerless here. That wasn't a YouTube dress. It's like this is word, word of word. I was watching a video about that was like a guide to starting in a YouTube channel that was like you should do your best to use an email address that's been around for a while. Because like there are so many people making addresses that Google does like a bunch of things to try and make sure that you're not just a content farm or a spammer. And one of them is like you get like the algorithm is sort of like prefers

people who seem like they've been a person for more than five minutes. That would be good. And sometimes you want to have you got to make a new email to make some new thing real quick. I know. I do that. Well, yeah. The thing is I've been doing that for so long. I got a bunch of old emails that I've never used. That's true. You got to dig them up though and remember what slight variant password you gave it. They're all in my last pass, baby. That's smart. I use last pass, not enough, but there's some, the important stuff is on there, but there's some other stuff that's just flying,

flying by the hip. Oh, wow. That's dangerous. No, it is. That's not how I do it. Less important. Can I hit you with my like theory here that like slop is different from anything created by AI? I please go on because I don't, I don't understand it yet.

So like I feel like there's this thing that is slop. that is anything that's very easy to make, but you could also make something that's very hard to make and just use tools while you're making them. And like, obviously there's times when you're just like using content-aware fill or something in Photoshop, which is not like that barely counts for anything.

But you could see like creating like a website, like my Hankgreen.com was coded with the assistance of Claude. And I'm just like, yeah, like, but like it was all written by me. All of the text is from me. Right. Yeah. There's a feeling of anything that's like super easy to make. Humans will make so much of it so fast that it will immediately be devalued in our eyes.

And it should be because it's not valuable anymore. And that is the thing that feels like slop to me. All these LinkedIn posts that sound exactly the same. All of these like comics that were generated by chat GPT that all look exactly the same. ChatGPT has like a style of comic that it makes that I just like the moment I see it, I'm like, eh. Right. I've seen this a thousand times. Yeah, I think tools that aid in the creation of your idea is more okay than tool-making idea for you, right?

Yeah, tool-making idea for you is weird because these things don't have tools. So if tool-making idea, tool is giving you someone else's idea. Yeah, right. It's just old idea mixed up. Yeah. I mean, that's how it feels anyway. I don't, I don't know. I'm not a AI researcher.

I think of me neither. Okay. Well, we didn't answer that question. There's just like, there's not like a good thing. We don't like, I just think it's interesting to say out loud, like, eating food and consuming information are similar processes, but like we don't think of it that way. So we haven't, we haven't created language around it. What's the opposite of Omni? Oh, Uni. Okay. Well, Unislopper doesn't work. I'm trying to think of like, Omni Slopper would be like, like, you know that Donald J. Trump is an

omni slopper. Yeah. Those are Omni Sloppers. So I think we can name at least the, mass consumer sloppers. Right, right. Not like one slop, but no slop. What's the prefix for nothing? Yeah, people who only use chappy tea. Well, they're unisloppers. Nunca sloppers.

Yeah, yeah. What is it? A nunca slopper. Nunca slopper sounds internety. Yeah. You know, Keith, thank you for like not letting it go. Thank you for keeping us working until we came up with a bad word. We got to try.

I'm a nunca slopper. I don't deal with any of that. This next question comes from Katie, who asks, dear John and Hank, my husband and I saw John speak at Drake University last week. This is going to be weird to answer. And as someone who used to write for fun all the time and even briefly considered being an author, I felt really inspired. However, when I think about sitting down to write, I panic and I get embarrassed because what if it's no good? What if I just wasted all that time on something stupid? What if I'm not as good as I thought I was?

So I guess my question is, how do I avoid the doom spiral of trying to rediscover my love for writing? Any tips and or prompts would be appreciated pumpkins and perfectionism, Katie. Well, this is a real time that I'm not a good substitute for real author. You write stuff? I wrote a book, technically. You wrote a book? You write songs? I'm very good at lyrics. The easy answer there is like, well, you might spend time making something.

something that sucks. But won't that make you better if you can recognize that it sucks? Right. And also, like, don't be afraid of all the time you already spent doing the thing because that's not you. That's already done. Yeah. You don't have to feel any kind of way about that. That's already done. Right. You changed. I keep hearing this about a number of different creative endeavors. You kind of have to like it when it sucks. Yeah. No, totally. You have to enjoy the pain. Like, that's a runner thing, right? They like, they actually like the pain at some point. They to learn to love the struggle. That's not for me.

Not the physical struggle, but the mental struggle absolutely is. I heard someone recently saying, like an actor saying, like, if you don't like it when it's you in a room with like three people who are pretty bad at acting, performing for a quarter full room off, off Broadway, you'll be miserable no matter what. Because it's always going to be less glamorous than you imagined it would be. Yeah. I also like, this is not exactly in the same realm, but something I wanted to ask you is recently I've decided, you know, people always like, you only use 10% if your brain. You're like, well, you know, your whole brain is working all the time. You're just not aware of it. So I've decided to try to tap into that to be like, okay, when someone asks me a question, I don't know the answer. I just say, I'll let my brain work on that for a while. And I just don't actively try to think about it. And typically, later on in the day, the answer comes up. Wow. My brain just works on it. I just like assume that some part of my brain is now going to focus on that, I guess, if I tell it to. And oftentimes, the answer comes about in like an hour or so.

Do you think that that would happen if you didn't tell your brain that you were? I think it would because I think sometimes you're like, I can't think of that word. And then like later on you're like, oh, the word. That came to me. But like it didn't come to you. Your brain worked on it. Yeah. I like that.

It's like, it's like, look. look, it wasn't magic. Something, like somebody did it, their job. Somebody in there was doing their job. Something in there was like, I got to figure this out for Keith. For Conscious Keith, Conscious Keith's got to know this answer of that name of that celebrity. Yeah, boy, I have no idea. I don't know what's going on there.

I'm totally confident that something is going on there. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I also have this feeling oftentimes where I'm like, I can't remember that thing. And I'm not worried about it because I'm just definitely going to come back. There's something will trigger it and it'll come back. And if it wasn't that good of a thing, I won't maybe, I won't think of it. But if it was good, it'll come back. Except for those 2 a.m. thought, sometimes you perceive them, they must be good.

And I think some of them I've lost have been good. Now, I've written down a lot of them. And it's rare that they're good. I don't know what my brain's cooking. That's the thing. If you actually do the thing, you're like, oh, in fact, these were all bad ideas. It's cooking up some real hot garbage in there at 2 in the morning. Yes, some human did have to invent concrete and things happened before that, Keith, but that's not a revelation.

I just wrote a video that I don't even think I'm going to publish about where toilet paper goes. It disintegrates. Yeah, but where does it go after that? Or the atoms and molecules go. Yeah, well, they become something new. I don't know. I'm interested. Hey, you got one view waiting for you.

Waiting for you somewhere in the ether. I'm sure you got six or seven at least. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote the whole video, so I probably should just make it. Just do it. I think it's interesting. I just, well, I don't know.

I feel like it's not that interesting. Like, is there, what's the? I think the beginning premise of like, where does it go? I was like, yeah, I mean, it must go in the sewer. Where do the sewers go? I don't know. But then I think the deeper question of like, where did disintegrated things go and how disintegrated does a thing get before it's not that thing anymore?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you track the atoms and molecules, they end up. all over the place. It's wild. Yeah. We eat them eventually. Of course. We drink them. What is egg? If you drink a molecule, are you eating? What's the difference in food molecules and drink molecules at that level? Well, yeah. I mean, the food molecules and drink molecules, the only real difference is the chewing. Yeah. Yeah. What's the best drink? I mean, water. Oh, boo. I know. I know. I didn't say it with

enthusiasm. The tastiest drink? Yeah, your favorite. My favorite drink. I like coffee a lot. Yeah, it's basically water. Yeah, I like black coffee. Did you say it's basically water? Yeah. All the drinks are basically water.

Yeah, but this one's like tea and coffee feel like the most basically water because it's just like other things have like other like multiple flavors. Some thought. Not that coffee doesn't have thought. Coffee has a lot of flavors. But it doesn't it like, yeah, like Coca-Cola is like a third sugar. Yeah. But like a Diet Coke is just tea. That's just a tea.

Really? You know, I'm going to die on this hill. Come at me, people of the world. Diet Coke is tea. Funny Jake. You get a lot of engagement on that kind of statement. You know what else is tea? Milk, milk is tea.

Milk is cow tea. Yeah, I'm down with that. Okay. High five. I'm down with that. Yeah, it's just heavy fat tea. Heavy fat tea. Sure.

Yeah. Why not? I think it's all tea. Yeah. It's sort of is. If it's the idea that you're putting something in something and it's diluting the flavor, that's tea. Have you ever watered down milk? Because it sounds like you have. I've had ice in my milk before at some point.

Yeah, I didn't. It wasn't for me. But I have done the ice in the cereal with milk. And there is something happening there. It has to be ice that is like more the chip ice that you can crunch through but still has structure. Something about making it colder. There is something going on with that making it yumier. or at least maybe making your brain think it's more ice creamy. It is ice cream, I guess. So, Katie, I'm sorry.

But maybe what you need to do is to ask weird questions, like is milk cow tea? And then see where it takes you. But there are lots of good prompts. There are lots of like good writing prompt Reddit subreddits, which are nice. That's like a way to get started.

I also really like, this is what I used to do when I was, when I was a young, writing person is I would, I would read a chapter in a book, and then I would try and write in that person's style in a different direction.

And I was very bad at this, but I had a lot of fun doing it. And the people, and when I showed people that work, they liked it. They'd be like, ooh, this is all very spicy,

but I think it was kind of because I, like, had the ramp, you know, I had, like, something to get me somewhere.

And even when I write now, I kind of, really rely on the words I have already written to be that on ramp to the process. So I will always like sit down and I'll read like the last page before wherever I am and then use that at the on ramp into the writing, which just sort of like gets me going. I often will also say it out loud. That's a big thing for me. I just sort of dump stuff out and worry about making it better later.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's that is very important. That's very important. Like not, like, when I say not everything is written to be published, I mean almost nothing. You know? Even like, you know, I don't edit a video by making sure the first six seconds are perfect before going on to second seven. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I dump it all out, change it, delete it, add it back.

It's a puzzle. This question is from Carly Ray, who is as a regular question, asker, who writes, Dear Hank and John, I live in a small town. I mean, dear Hank and Keith, I have. I've lived in a small town on my life, and one thing I've noticed about small towns is their local bank will always have a digital sign out front that will tell you two things, the time and the temperature. I understand. It's true. I'm right.

I'm with you. This is very America. I understand telling the time so you know when they are closed, which is any time that you're not in work. But why does seemingly every bank display the temperature? Sure. What does the weather have to do with me being able to hastily get cash for my kid's field trip I forgot about are my 15-year-old niece's ability to secure a car loan for a 2006 Impala? Hey, hey, I just met you. And this is crazy, but here's my number. But please don't call me. I don't answer calls from unknown numbers. So text me maybe Carly Ray. Wow. That was quite a sign off, Carly Ray. Did you grow up in a small town? I was born in a small town as a lyric to a song. thought the same thing. It's like, this is a song. You're about to sing, and I'm so excited.

I was born in a small town. I was born in Birmingham and raised in Orlando. This is as close as I've ever been to a small town as Missoula, which isn't even a small town. I was born and raised in a small town, a 2,000-person town. Gotcha. The kind of town with one light and it blinks and a bank that tells you the temperature. Somehow there were actually several banks, and they did all tell the temperature and the time. And we had a few video rental stores.

We had a few traffic lights because this is the county seat town. This is the big town of the county. The county was not much bigger than the town. So I'm very familiar with this, and it is funny. Wait, was it called Habersburg? Don't we all wish? No. It was Smith County, and it was in the south.

So there were a lot of people who had the name. that lined up with their county. My neighbor was Gacy Smith. Yeah. Like, there were many Smiths. But it was Carthage was the town I grew up in, which is the birthplace of Al Gore. Oh. Pretty cool.

Pretty cool. He did at one point when he was vice president. He came to our church for Christmas service and the Secret Service was there. That was kind of exciting for our little town. Yeah. It was thrilling, honestly. And it was my, the church I went to, a Methodist, all right. Did the church tell you what temperature it was?

No. The church only had to swap out the letters signs. Oh, those are very good, though. Oh, they're great. But they weren't. I still currently drive by a church that has those, and they put fun stuff. Like, I think they are a fun church because they're always putting sort of Jesus-y jokes, but not at the expense of Jesus, obviously. You know, something like a good pun, a good Bible pun here and there.

I, you know, look, I have a confident guess here. I have a guess too. Yeah, which is that banks are very temperature sensitive. And above a certain temperature, they die. That's a very funny take. It's like a lot of freshwater clams. This is just they're broadcasting their thermometer. like this is my temperature monitor me yeah if you see this too high you've got to do something

get in there the money's gonna melt yeah I'm going to assume that it's actually some sort of like way to gain people's trust in that they're giving you true factual information wow so somewhere subconsciously I'm like well I can trust them to tell me the time which has to be factual I think I can trust them to tell me the temperatures that needs to be factual So everything they're going to tell me in there is going to be equally of value and true and factual. So I can trust them with my finances. Yeah. And useful.

You know, it's like a public service. We're all here providing a public service. You know, like the church used to tell you what time it was. We're just helping. Banks are the new church. Put your money here. You'll make more money just by having it here. We're helping.

Yeah. We've got money in here. You could try and take it. Other people put their money here already. Yeah. Strengthen numbers. We have enough money that we can tell you the time and temperature. Yeah.

We don't need your money, but you could open an account today. Yeah. And your money is safe with us as long as it does not reach 98 degrees Fahrenheit. We even made the box called safe. It's safe. That actually reminds me of this podcast is brought to you by safe. Safe. It's the safe for safe. Today's podcast is also brought to you by voring, consuming all other competition every day.

This podcast is also brought to you by Al Gore. Al Gore. He's from that town that we were talking about that I forgot the name of. And it's brought to by Omnislappers, those who just love consuming garbage all day long. This next question comes from Vanessa who asks dear Hank and John. As a hit podcast for young adults, you're the only people who can answer my question. Do I need to get a checkbook? I pay my rent via Venmo, but I have had to get checks from the bank before. Is this something that I should have just checking Vanessa? Good question. And one that when I used the last check of my previous checkbook, I was like, do I need to do this again? You just used one. Yeah, but like it was literally like, oh, I'm at the end of the checkbook. That checkbook lasted me. I want to say eight years. A single, a single one.

Yeah. And I was like, I clearly am not using this. Yeah. I mean, a check is objectively a ridiculous idea. It's like, hey, do you need money? Let me write on a piece of paper and then it will become my money in your bank account. What? It's so ridiculous that places that really matter are like that doesn't count here. You've got to get a real check. A cash dears check. That check's not real. My checks are real. Did you ever have to travel with travelers checks? I don't think I did. I never went international until, honestly, like several years ago. So that was done. I fact, I think the second time I traveled, I called the bank to be like, ha, I'm traveling. So just know that you'll see these charges like, oh, no, we don't worry about that anymore.

Oh, okay. I mean, I know that I'm 45 years old, but I feel like you need a checkbook. Vanessa, I feel like you need a checkbook. Like, things come up. Sometimes you need a check. This is Montana talking right now. It feels like Montana's a check state. I probably finish a checkbook a year.

Really? Yeah. Is it for like just, I feel like it's for maintenance. Like the only times I used to pay checks. Like when the house breaks, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I used to pay checks. for maintenance. That's it. Yeah, if I have to pay the guy who's fixing the water heater, that's like a great way to do that. I'd be weird to be like, thanks for fixing the water heater.

What's your Venmo? You got cash app? But normally, they come and they've got whole card readers now. They're just like, hey, here, just sign this and scan your card. All right, we're good. I don't know that that's the case of Montana. I don't know that we're that advanced. I just got my grill cleaned. And I, honestly, I actually need to follow up because I never saw an invoice at all. Have I seen you? Is this the grill that I've seen? Is this like, in my house? No, no, no. This was in Palm Spring. No, no. That one, I'm sure we get it clean. But I actually, it was because it was broken and I was like, and the cleaning service call, I'm like, do you want it clean? I was like, I don't really got to clean that one time because it was disgusting. But I didn't really use it because part of it was broken.

It was like, well, part of it's broken. So why don't you come and you can clean it and tell me what's wrong with it? But he came. He left. I scheduled it. I never saw an invoice. I never gave him a car. I But they have a card on file. So I have, I realized, like, I have no idea what I just paid for that. I have zero idea.

I never signed anything either. So I'm like, how is this work? There's no work order. I need to call them. How much was that? I gave the guy $20 as a tip. And I was like,

is there anything for me? He's like, they'll bill you. I'm like, okay. And then they didn't. They just took the money out of your account.

Yeah. It was weird, too, because they, I mean, I haven't even look. I got, I should look. Because I can't in fact, check.

I forgot immediately. Yeah. Because I was like, okay, well, those email me. And they've done it before. But they had reached out to me. And then I had to like really hound them to set the appointment. Because they were like, hey, we're doing cleaning. Do you want us to come?

I was like, yes. How about tomorrow? No response. Or the next day is also good. No response. Just let me know. It's basically what happened when I asked you to be on this podcast. You were like, yeah, I'll do it.

And then I ghosted. You can't ghost to me. But I was like, well, he's busy. You're like, you're a. CEO of 3,000 businesses, I think. Yeah, I'm actually the CEO of no more businesses, but I'm, I've, I've freed myself from executiveing. That's good.

Except for Hank Green Enterprises, where we just do this stuff. That's a nice way to do it. What is the last check I wrote for? I mean, the last check I wrote for was for taxes. How do you pay your taxes? I have a person do it because the CPA for our company just does ours. Oh, wow. That's nice.

Yeah, because it's like, well. Well, all the money I make is here. There's no outside money happening. So it's just like, it's already got to do it for one. It's the same. It's basically just copying something's over. We got another question. This one's from Bree who asks, dear Hank and Keith,

I grew up right along Lake Michigan. So I'm no stranger to watching the sunset over the lake, which is obviously very beautiful. However, the best sunsets I have ever seen in my life have been over the local Meyer parking lots. Why? The whole sky over the parking lot becomes vibrant. orange and red contrasting with the clouds. It's breathtaking. How do I convince my friends from out of town to watch the sunset at the local mire instead of at the beach? Is this a Michigan Midwest thing? Is there something about the parking lot that makes the sky more vibrant? Not a cheese. Bree. Thank you for helping me understand how to pronounce your name correctly, Bree. That's a nice little clue. Yeah. Well, have you been to a Meyer. I haven't, but I've seen some, I've seen some parking lot sunsets. I have, I do agree. They are kind of nice. Yeah. I have a theory. I have a theory.

But first I want to talk about Meyer. Okay. Did I say it right? Yeah, you said it perfect. And it's a challenging... It's got a J-I-J-E-R. Yeah. It's basically like a super Walmart, but a Midwest chain.

So it's not just a grocery store. There's like, it's a vibe. Correct. It's a multi-department store with a large grocery section. Have you ever tried to eat everything in a Meyer? No, but I have considered I should do like a Publix one because the Florida people would go nuts and just do all the hot food at Publix. Because I think that would actually crush. But I got to be in Florida.

to do that. That's challenging. But yeah, Meyer is great. Mires like if super Walmart was awesome, that's how I would describe Meyer. Did they call it a super Walmart? Well, they used, I think that's what they're called. Because I had a town that had a Walmart that did not have groceries that was like more of a farm supply store. Yeah, the Walmart that I worked at growing up didn't have groceries. It was just. Yeah. Clothes, electronics, farm stuff, light home goods. Yeah, sort of a farm department store.

We had clothes. We had clothes. Yeah, we had clothes. But not a lot. Yeah. But yeah, Myers dope. Okay, so my assumption of why it's so beautiful over a parking lot is all the low height, low ceiling space that you get to see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like one,

you just get a bigger sky. If you have a big area where there's nothing in a... But that's also true if you're looking out over the lake. Yeah, at least in one direction, maybe not in two directions. I have a further theory. Okay. I think every time that you're in the Meyer parking lot and there's not a beautiful sunset, you don't think about it. But you are actually in the Meyer parking lot a fair number of times.

Like you're just there more than you're at the lake. Though maybe, I don't know, maybe you grew up on the lake and you were like looking out over there all the time. But I think that like you're just more likely to see a sunset in a place where you are more frequently, where there's a lot of open space. So I think that the place where you most frequently are that has a lot of open sky is the grocery store parking lot. And that is true for like most Americans.

Maybe we just love to see the bottom layer being proof of humanity and all we've accomplished in the top layer, the greater beyond, the sky, the sun. You know, I like the idea that the Meyer parking lot is the proof of what all humanity has accomplished.

Yeah. You got cars. You got cart returns. You got carts that weren't returned. You know, you've got morality on display. You got a gas station off in the distance. You got a human body slowly shambling their way to their cars. You've got a couple trees. You've got a couple small trees. A couple small trees that are decorative trees.

Probably a crab apple. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Crab apples. A decorative crab apple. That makes really tiny apples that aren't a problem when they fall. Yeah. What are the big, yucky, spicy?

When I was growing up in Tennessee, we called these big yucky spiky things, crab apples. And then I went somewhere else. They're like, no, crab apples for this. I was like, well, what was I dealing with? They were, they weren't edible. There were yucky, spiky, gooey, green blobby balls. What was that? I'm searching and I got nothing.

Green, spiky blobby ball, Tennessee on the ground. Are they chestnuts? It's not fun to step on. Are they conquers? Conquer sounds funny. Like K-O-N-K-E-R. C-O-N-K-E-R. Conquer fruit. Yeah, they did look similar to Conchers,

but they weren't hard in the middle. They were mushy in my memory. But I do like the way Conkers look. We'll never know. And it's really not important. Yeah, but I want to know. I love the idea that you guys just took a word for a thing that already definitely existed. Yeah, hey, you know. This is our local crab apple.

Wait, wait. What about hedge oranges? Can you try to, or a hedge apple? Search for hedge apple. Is that it? Maybe that's what I owe, yeah, that's it. Hedge apples. We call them crab apples.

Or maybe, and maybe that was us as children misunderstanding what people were saying. Maybe. Yeah, these are yucky. These are yucky. Common in Kentucky. these green brainy looking bumpy balls. That's what we do here at Deer Hanging John.

We answer Keith's questions. All right, Keith, can we do us some corrections? Because we made some mistakes in our last episode. Oh, not me. You did nothing wrong. You'll correct me next episode. Yes. So that's right.

You won't be here. We won't tell you what you got wrong. You won't have to worry about it. Kathleen lets us know because they, I, Catherine, is a student graduating from Clemson in May. It's very important to me that I correct, John, in episode 447, you talk about, Hank could not possibly have a $2 bill with a Clemson stamp on it wrong. Clemson tradition, it's a tradition to bring $2 bills stamped with a Clemson paw to every away game and use them in opposing team stadiums.

This is not, I think, what John was saying. He was not saying that I didn't get a $2 bill stamped with a Clemson stamp. It was, in fact, that was not my grandfather who gave it to me. it was some other guy. So that was, that is the thing that I had misremembered. It could have been, could have been your grandpa. I think grandpa got it. It could have been.

Uh, yeah. It was. I, I, John, in fact, knew who it was and I have once again forgotten. It was like my great uncle or something. Well, hey, that's close. That's close. Close for me. I am not, I didn't remember.

A relative is more than some other guy. He's just the, you just had the wrong branch of the tree. That's right. Angela also wanted to. correct me to tell me that red is, in fact, a shorter wavelength of light corresponding to higher energy in accordance with the equation E equals HC over Lambda, where lambda represents the wavelength. Red is actually the lowest energy wavelength of visible light, with violet being the highest.

This makes sense because you have to worry about ultraviolet light. That's the high energy stuff that you want to not hit your eyes and skin. Yeah. And isn't in the ultraviolet, there's also like low way, there's other waves of ultraviolet and they're they're different as well because there's some that like my dad, my dad is a geologist kind of guy, collects rocks and he has a bunch of fluorescent rocks that only shine under certain type of wavelength of ultraviolet light. And so he's got a few different waves and a few different rocks that turn pretty colors under the different flashlights. Oh, that's cool. And you've got to get a lot of energy. into those rocks for them to do their weird fluorescing thing, I guess. Some of them will absorb fluorescent like that and then glow after and some will just glow under the light itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The light activates it.

Yep. And then we have another one, Dear Hank and John, this is from Lily, who says, I wanted to let you know that I'm sure as many others have let you know. There's no pregnancy in the third Twilight movie. Bella becomes pregnant on her honeymoon following the wedding that is at the beginning of the fourth movie, Breaking Dawn, Part 1. I that's a there's a lot of twilight movies yeah and also if it's part one is how many twilight movies were there

half of a movie yeah part one means that it's not done they're five they did the whole like Harry pottery thing where they broke up they broke up the last one to make more money yeah yeah

well why wouldn't you how much money do you think the Twilight series made And since then? Yeah, total. How much is it grossed worldwide? Oh, I mean, it's got to be $7 billion. No. No, half that.

Yeah. Half that. See, they're a failure. Keith thinks actual Twilight is half as valuable as it should be. Yeah, wow. Tough. All right, Keith, let's do one last question. It comes from Eve, who asks,

Dear Hank and Keith, I stopped reading books as an adult. Growing up, teachers would assign books and my parents would pick out books and I'd get hand me down books from my older brothers and God college and grad school. They had so much reading. But now I'm in my 30s. And the concept of picking out a novel to read feels so overwhelming. There's too many options at the bookstore and at the library. How do I even know what genre to start with? I haven't picked out a book for myself since the Twilight series. Please help. Always a day early, Eve. I also exclusively read growing up mandatory reading and did very little voluntary reading. It just did not interest me, did not excite me. And I'm here to say, I'm that same kid. Reading doesn't interest me. It doesn't excite me. I have read books. But it's never been like, oh, good.

Oh, my book. It's just not what I'm looking for in entertainment. My wife loves books, just crushes a book in like a day and a half. She'll just, she's a very, very good reader. I'm not a good reader. And maybe it was because, like, it was very much presented to me, like, a task, not a joy. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's such a weird thing where, like, there's these kinds of media that are the ones that are good and healthy and, like, soulful. And the ones that are just, you know, YouTube and TikTok and TV. And it used to be, people used to think that books were, like, brain rot stuff and of course a lot of them are like for clarity and and were i've always been um but garfield comic strict books you ever buy a compilation garfield book because i had several growing up so many of them man orin has read every single covenant hobbs which i think is amazing i think covenant hobbs is better than garfield as much as i love it's why it's wild to think that you could keep writing garfield for decades when the the the vibe is very very

very much just the same things happening. Yeah, I mean, the amount of like Garfield mumification that happened, maybe a little over a decade ago with the random Garfield Garfield randomizer and the Garfield minus Garfield. Really good stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really exposed the, there were five jokes they oscillated between. The Garfield randomizer is an amazing idea. It's really good. It just grabs three random sales and they almost always work.

Here's what I will say, Eve, is picking. And I never do this because it does. It feels like work. But if you pick like a classic novel, they're all very good. Like if you read their eyes for watching God, you're like, oh my God. If you read Catch 22, it's like, oh, what a beautiful thing. Like the ones that are very popular are actually good. And also this is true of mostly of books that are popular in any given year, as long as it's like a topic or like a genre you're interested in.

Like the ones that are super like, you know, Tom Clancy, if you're like a middle age guy, you got to like it. Like you're going to devour a Tom Clancy novel. It's going to be great. So like if you pick the genre and you like go and pick the ones that are popular, this is crazy talk right now. But like there's a reason why they're popular. Like there's the reason why To Kill a Mockingbird is like a big deal book. It's because it's really good. It's a good book. But I had to read it. I know. And I'd be interested. and you don't have to. But if you read it now, how would you feel about it? Like, I should read The Great Gatsby again, because I hated it when I was in school. And I've never read it since.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I can recognize that the book. Also, I had to read The Hobbit, and I loved that. Yeah. Like, that was awesome. I was like, this is actually incredible and so fun. And what a world. But it always still was a task. So I still always thought about, like,

well, when's this chapter end? How many pages is left? It was always a, like, I have to finish this, not enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what I'd do. I'd look at the genres that you like and then I'd pick the ones that are popular and or classics in that genre and just go because I'll tell you what, if you pick like a random book from a genre is probably not going to be like super great. And I'm learning that about kids books. We go to the library and I let Henry just grab like five or six books. Oh, my God. It's trash. There are so many trash books. I'm like, who made this book? This is garbage. Why was this worth anybody's time? This sucks.

This book sucks. And then there's all like the classics and you're like, oh, my God, this is so good and sweet. There's tons of great books, but there's even more. Slops. How old is child? He's almost three. Yeah. So he's a little tornado.

I remember that it was maybe that year or the year before when I read like the Puff the Magic Dragon sing-a-long book. And I'd, of course, heard the Puff the Magic Dragon song a thousand times before. for that I'm singing Puff the Magic Dragon in the book. And then at the end of the book, Jackie grows up and Puff stops existing. And, and, like, boys become men and eventually your little baby is a guy. And I just freaking started crying in this book. Like, reading, I was like singing this song. I've heard a thousand times before.

Wow. I haven't read that one. Maybe I'm not gone. I was like, oh, I should read that. And then hearing it traumatized you is maybe not what I want to do. There is like the book, the pictures in the book, Puff finds a different child and gets to have a new friend. But the words don't have that. They just put that in there to as a salve over my broken heart that they made up.

But I'll take it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's something about picture books. Like there's there are two stories going on. And there's the words you're saying. And then there's pictures for the children to like look at and interpret more from. So maybe, maybe, hey, that's.

It's just, that's half the story in a picture book. That's right. I'm going to believe it. I'm going to believe that Puff found a different child. Yeah. This one, a girl. Because they had, because like, you got like Puff, Puff, Puff's not sexist. He's a dragon.

Not at all. Not a chance. All right. Not Puff. Dragons live forever, but not so little boys. Ow, what? Ow, why'd you do that? Why'd you do that song? Who?

You could have just not done that. Yeah, that is tough. You should see if the band across the street will play the Puff the Magic Dragon song for you. I'll put a note on their garage door. If you've been hearing that at all. I would like to make as much noise as you want. If once a week you will just play this song. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'll tell you what. Like, they'd probably be well served by doing something a little, a little bit like left tourney. You know, just like make some really hard versions of some classic folk songs. Yeah. I think that's honestly always a good rest of. Everybody loves that. Who loves that? Keith Habersberger,

thank you for making a podcast with me today. Hey, this is so fun. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the time. I need to go make a video about toilet paper now because you told me to. Yeah. Well, you told me you would and then thought you wouldn't, and I encouraged you to go back to wood.

You've got me back on board. You told me that you were interested in where the molecules go. I would believe that if there's one person who cares, then there's two people who care. I watch your videos. I love all the tidbits of education. I do. Okay.

They're great listens on my, I have a pretty short commute, so they're great listens for like the 15 minute drive I have. So like it's kind of perfect every time. Thank you. Yeah. I'm also a fan of your content. Well, thanks. And I'm glad I don't live in Los Angeles because I'd be over all the time. You would. Have you watched our killer dinner show yet? Oh, I haven't. You should. I should watch it tonight. It's really good. It's five of the episodes are out on second try and the finale is next week. It's like not to Tudor on Horn. bit, it's definitely like the best thing we've made. Nice. All right. Yeah. No, Catherine and I watch it tonight. Yeah, you'll love it. We're fans. Cool. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Thank you also to everybody who sends in your questions to dear Hank and John. You could do that at Hank and John at Gbell.com. We don't have a podcast without you, so thank you for

doing that. This podcast was edited by Bridget Kenneson. Thank you for dealing with whatever is going on in the background of my audio. Hopefully it's not too bad. It was mixed by Andrew Smith, who also had to deal with that. Marketing Specialist. is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halsrowhoss and Hannah West. Our executive producer, it's Seth Radley. The editorial assistant is to Booky Chark Rivardi. The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by the Great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.