Dear Hank & John - 57: Og Nomekop

Episode Date: August 9, 2016

How do I organize someone else's books? How do I justify the money allocated to extending my life? How does tug of war work? And more!

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Dores up for the Think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where me and my brother John will answer your questions. We'll give you a dubious advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wilburden. How you doing John? I'm doing great. Everything is beautiful here.

There is one issue, Hank, that's been hanging over, I think, all of our heads since last week, which is that careful listeners of the podcast may have noticed that in our last episode, I said that we'd received like 478 Snickers bars at the office and then later in the episode, I said like 458 and then later in the episode, I said a number that I had said previously and then I corrected you. That sounds about right. I have the final number here. The actual number, did you go and count all your Snickers bars?

I counted them one by one because they came in a certain number of boxes, but I emptied out all the boxes just so that I could put them in my bathtub so that I could have a Snickers bath. And are you going to tell me the number of Snickers that are currently left or the number you received? The number I received was 384. So I want to apologize to everyone for getting that number so terribly wrong.

But most of all, to my sponsor, my longtime corporate sponsor, Snickers, maker of the most delicious snack on Earth. So currently, I have about, I'd say like 200 odd Snickers remaining. I think that it would be great if we could if we could just sort of follow you around in your personal life and take every moment where you exaggerate on an objective exaggeration

where it's like an actual number. And figure out what the percentage is like averaged out, what the percentage is that you exaggerate by. I think that would be super interesting. I'd be interesting to find out if it was like if it was consistent. Like, this is how much John exaggerates so we can sort of say it objectively

or it just flies all around. I think it's almost exactly 384, 458s is how much I exaggerate. I would be interested to know how many Snickers bars are actually left because you did just exaggerate how many Snickers bars are actually left because you did just exaggerate how many Snickers bars you've eaten, I hope. I mean, I'd slightly exaggerated it maybe, but I haven't been enjoying at least, I would

say, a handful of Snickers bars per day. They are delicious. Can I tell you a story, John? Please. We recently moved to a different office, and in the process of moving, we just sort of grabbed stuff as it was and put it on a truck. And one of the things we grabbed was this trunk that opens up, I think we got it at Target.

And inside, there's some storage space. I was going through the office to be like, oh, oh, God, all this stuff to figure out where things were. And I opened that trunk. And inside inside there was a bag of Halloween candy, an open bag of Halloween candy with some three miscateers and snickers and starbursts in it. And I was very pleased and excited to find this. And I just like took a handful and closed it up. And then, and I kept doing that for weeks.

And it was just like a wonderful little treat that I had, but as time went on, people saw me doing it, and they were like, what is there, are there treats? Are there treats in that trunk? And so this bag of Halloween candy that had been totally undiscovered since last Halloween, so almost a year now, I was, it was like my secret for about a week before the knowledge of the location of the treats exponentially grew throughout the office until now, of course, there are only starbursts left.

That reminds me that after the coming nuclear apocalypse, we may be low on food, but there will always be starburst. Is that the short poem for today? That's our short poem. There will always be starburst. Yeah, let's skip the short poem today and instead focus just a little bit more attention on whether or not we can get a corporate sponsor to send us 384 more Snickers bars,

because I am concerned about what I'm gonna do when these Snickers run out. I just wanna point out that you got Snickers bars and our office didn't, and now my office knows about that. My office people, one that actually sold the sponsorship at VidCon, and they're like, why didn't we get a butt? And we have a whole thing about M&Ms, which is also a Mars brand.

There's a great deal of contention now about the fact that we did not get our favorite candy and you did. Hey, I think what concerns me about the way that you're constructing this Snickers issue is that you are imagining that my office received 384 Snickers bars. And I want to be absolutely clear about something for the sake of my own health and for the sake of the health of my employees, for the vibe in this office, those 384 Snickers bars were addressed to me.

They are my Snickers bars. A portion of them may reside in the office refrigerator, but they are mine. They belong to me. They will be consumed solely by myself. I, that is remarkable to me. I, are you sure that that's the best thing for your employees to be like,

hey, I got a bunch of stuff, I'm your boss, I'm gonna keep it. Oh, I don't think they really think of me as their boss. I think they think of me as like the strange man who shows up some days. John, can I do a, can I perform a short poem for this podcast? Absolutely. The poem for this podcast is from just the notes that is at the top of our podcast,

notes document and those notes are. 384 Snickers. Helium Car would be slightly lighter than aircar. The fault in our stars is not available on Netflix. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha That's a short poem. We generally call 384 Snickers. It's by John Green and it's from the podcast notes of our August 1, 2016 episode. Oh boy, it's not August 1. I don't know what day it is when this goes when this is aired, but it is true that a car with helium tires would, it turns out, be slightly lighter than

a car with air tires. About 0.25 pounds lighter. Nicholas did the math, and boy, did you do the math. We will put the math on our Patreon page at patreon.com slash deerhankajon. And now Hank, it is time very belatedly to get to some questions from our listeners. All right. This one is from Trey, who asks, Dear Hank and John, in recent weeks both Stranger Things and the new Harry Potter play came out. I want to tweet about those things, but I don't want to spoil things for others.

But one of my favorite parts of Twitter is sharing experiences with people. At what point can I post without a guilty conscience? I have no idea how to handle this, Hank. Is it never? Is the answer never? It's never. I still do not post Harry Potter spoilers. Like I do not tweet about like what? Because like there will always be someone reading Harry Potter for the first time.

And not like what, like if you wanna have a conversation, if you wanna like have a conversation about Harry Potter, be like, hey, can anybody come join me in this chat room who's already read Curse Child? Can you please, like, let's create a space where people who have enjoyed stranger things that want to discuss it? Can we go to a place that is segmented off

from the rest of the internet? The idea that all discussion on the internet has to happen in this like Uber public forum of either Twitter or YouTube or, that's not how it has to be. We can create social spaces on the internet that are not in the faces of 100% of the people who follow you. I'm not totally convinced of that, like because I don't know exactly where the line is, not in the faces of 100% of the people who follow you.

I'm not totally convinced of that, because I don't know exactly where the line is. If I tweet about the results of the most recent AFC Wimbledon game, have I spoiled the experience that AFC Wimbledon game for people who wanted to wait to watch the highlights on YouTube? I might be biased here, but I feel like real life things

are different from fictional things. So it's not like, if I don't know who won the Canadian election and people are like, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is, and I'm like, oh dang it, you spoiled it for me. That's just the world, that's life. I'm not like, oh, I was gonna watch the election coverage later.

That's just a thing that happened in the real world. That's life. I was going to watch the election coverage later. That's just a thing that happened in the real world. That's a fact. So the rule is that you can never spoil fictions on broadly available public social media. However, you can spoil non-fictions. Yes. Because I mean, I think that- Can you spoil a non-fiction book? Are you allowed to spoil a memoir?

Yes, because it's a true facts of things that happened. And I think that we do that all the time. It's like when someone publishes a memoir, oftentimes what will happen is the news story will be like, this book came out and this person said these five things. Because then it's a new story. I don't know, I actually, it's a new story. It's funny you should say that Hank, because I felt like the movie Titanic was a little bit spoiled for me

Just because I happened to already know in advance what happens You know like with the Titanic I knew that it was gonna sink and I felt like if I could have gone at that Experience cold it would have been a much more powerful film for me because I would have been like, oh my, oh my goodness. I thought this was just gonna be a cute love story. Yeah, but no, it turns out that this is terrible. And for some reason, Kate Winslet is not willing to share her door and now Leonardo DiCaprio is gonna die. Oh dang it, I did it, I spoiled the movie, I apologize.

I'm very sorry. That, see, Leonardo DiCaprio's character in Titanic didn't actually exist. That portion was fictional and so you can't spoil it. You can, however, say that the Titanic sank because that is a thing that happened. Alright, so there apparently is the line and I have crossed it for which I apologize. Hank, we also have a question from Sarah, and this question is as follows. Dear John and Hank, I started playing Pokemon Go almost as soon as it was released back when the servers were super flaky, and even though the game seems to be working fine now, I have a serious problem. You see, I live in a rural area, and there are no Pokemon or

Poke stops that can be easily accessed from my home. I also can't drive yet, and because of my parents' busy schedule, they can't just drive me places simply for the sake of catching Pokemon. What do I do? Well, Sarah, I think that you, first of all, need to twist your parents' arms and tell them to drive you places. Also, just get an apartment downtown.

I'm imagining you're 13 or 14 years old. Just get that up, just do it. Get a job, drop out of school, you'll be fine. You gotta focus on getting up to level 20. Don't you want. No, you won't. That's terrible, terrible, terrible advice. Listen, I like catching Pokemon as much as the next person or possibly more, given that I have just reached level 21. Oh, however, I really feel strongly that you need to wait Sarah for better augmented reality games to come out that are friendlier to people living in rural spaces.

And then just take your moments when they come. Your school will almost definitely be a Pokestop. So when school starts back up, you can stop paying attention in class and just, you know, make sure that you update that, get your Pokeballs from the Poke Stop every six minutes. And our advice on this topic is terrible, Hank. We're all headed in, we're just both headed in terrible directions. I think, here's my proposal, John.

We create a new game, it's called Namakop Ag. And it's just like Pokemon Go, except all the places where there are Pokemon, there aren't any. And then all the places where there aren't Pokemon, there are tons. So it'll get all the city dwellers out under the country land. And all the rural people can be like,

ha ha ha, I got like a level 84, Narpal Black, and everybody would be like, what is that even? I've never even heard of that, Namakop. So. That's a pretty brilliant view. I like that idea a lot. We should talk to Niantic about this exciting opportunity where they don't even have to license the Pokemon characters.

They just spell them backwards and put them, make them slightly less cute, and suddenly it's not even a problem. All right, I got another question, John, if you would like to hear this question. Yes, I would. It's from Katie, who asks, Dear Hank and John,

I'm about two months away from moving into college. I'm gonna be living in a triple room, me and two roommates. In a room that was built for two people, the layout of this room is one loft bed with a desk and a wardrobe built into it, and then the other two beds as bunk beds. I want the loft bed because it's the best bed,

and so does everybody else. Is there a way for me to get my preferred and everyone else's preferred bed without seeming like a total jerk? I mean, in this situation, I take the worst bed 10 times out of 10 to get myself in good with my new roommates. Ooh.

I was gonna... So I feel like there are a ton of different answers to this question based on like economic theories. Like if it's like the communist theory, or then you all have to just switch beds every night. If it's the idea of helping incremental taxation and progressive taxation, then you would say, okay, who's the wealthiest person in the room? They get the worst bed.

If it's just like American egalitarianism, then you have to just be like Rochambot, and then you pick or you know, you have the person pay for the best bed You pay the other roommates, you say, hey, I want the best bed. Here's 50 bucks And then the other ones are like, well, I'll give you 52 for it. Ha ha. And then it's just it's just a capital Yeah, so that But I do like John's suggestion, which is more sort of communitarian, like, just say, hey, I'm going to sacrifice a thing for you and we're going to be friends because of it. I think that what you want at college ultimately is not a slightly better bed, but better relationships.

Like, you have to get along so well with people for those like triple rooms to work at all, that I just feel like it's a very marginal gain for real risk. Like, as you know, Hank, I'm a very risk a first person, but I feel like the downside is significant and the upside probably isn't as significant as you think. Right. Yeah, I think about this all the time. Like, our, like, the differences between the perceived levels of goodness of a product. And, but once you actually have it in our using it, you're like, well, yeah, I mean, it's just, yeah, it's not. The thing that I thought was going to make me happy made me happy maybe in the moment, but not for, like, actually in the long term, not really. And I particularly think about this when I'm watching House Hunters

and the people are always choose the larger house that's farther from work. And I'm like, you are choosing to spend so much time in traffic, in exchange for a thing that has been objectively proven scientifically to not make you happier. Whereas spending time in traffic. Yeah, but when you're looking the problem is when you're looking for a house, you can't help but

think about the house. Like you're making that decision inside the house. Inside the car on the way to work. Sarah and I were looking at houses when we were moving to Indianapolis and we were looking at houses for the first time. At no point did we, any of the things that we consider actually affect our quality of life, whereas a bunch of things that didn't factor into our consideration at all were extremely important. Like looking back, the number one thing that I wish I'd looked for in a house was a house that did not have much lawn. And it didn't even cross my mind. I was like, oh, mowing the lawn is fun. It turns out that is not the case.

And are there any other house hunting tips John that you have for us? I mean, I guess like the number one house hunting tip that I would make is never make a decision while you're hungry. That's just a tip in general though. Like I find that you make better decisions when you're not hungry. And I also have found in my own life that one of the best ways to not be hungry is to eat

Snickers bars. Is yeah, I thought maybe we were working towards a Snickers integration job. Hashtag sponsored. All right, Hank, we have another question. This one comes from Ella who writes, Dear John and Hank, I've recently started volunteering at my local charity bookshop and have been given free reign over organizing the many, many shelves.

Ella, congratulations on the greatest and also most exciting responsibility that you will probably ever have in your life. How do I organize them? Like fiction and crime and thriller are obviously organized by author, but what about sections like mental health and self-help or craft or economics or any of the many categories that aren't fiction and crime?

Do I organize by subcategory, stress, death, sex, relationships, or do I stick to going by author or do I go for the aesthetic version and go by height? What should I do, Ella? This is a wonderful question. This is one of the great questions of being a human alive in the world today. How do I organize my books? Or if I am very lucky, how do I organize

someone else's books? I think this is, I mean, literally there are entire, like, not just courses, but entire programs that people go through in school in this particular topic. And lots of them will probably be listening to the podcast right now, and so I really don't want to say anything, as I'm afraid I will offend them. Use the Dewey Decimal System. It's very difficult.

I mean, I would, I believe in going with the Library of Congress Cataloging System. The Dewey Decimal System is also excellent, but I love the Library of Congress Cataloging System. I just think that it's very, you can Google it. I just find it to be pretty comprehensive, but one of the fascinating things about cataloging a library, whether it's your home library or a book shop or a public library, is that there are all these books that live in the in between spaces that defy easy categorization like in my own home library. I have a section for books about Conjoined Twinshank because as you know I have a lot of books about Conjoined Twins but there are some books that are about more than one thing right like there are some books. I have for instance a book

that is about both boxing and the holocaust. Now does that go in boxing or does it go in holocaust studies? These are like these turn out to be kind of like really interesting deep questions. And that's one of the reasons I love cataloging and recatologging my home library is that in addition to like always reminding me of books that I want to reread or that I never haven't gotten to read. It also like always reminds me that, you know, the world, even though we have to organize it, is always like resisting our organizational impulses. Yes, the world does not want to be catalogued. It does not want to be simple. It does not want to be, yeah. Yep.

But we must, for the sake of trying to find the book. We must, it is our obligation to ourselves and to each other to find ways to catalog the uncategorizable. So just do it by color. And, and, you know, do not do not do it by color. That'd be really good. I was actually just looking at my bookshelf when I said that and like I have all the Scott Pilgrims,

one, two, three, four, five, six, and they're all different colors. And it'd be like, oh great. So it's like my Scott, my six Scott Pilgrims are in different spots in my libraries, all across my house, depending on like, which was the three, the blue one, or was the orange one?

Yeah. So we're gonna encourage you to consult with a local librarian because they know a lot more about that stuff than we do, and also because librarians are the best. All right, John, I got another question. It's from Tom, who asks, Dear Hank and John,

I've just finished a couple of years of cancer treatment, and I, possibly foolishly, started running the numbers. The NHS has spent somewhere in excess of 2.5 million pounds to extend my life by probably as little as a couple of years. How can I possibly repay that debt to society in such a short space of time? How can I justify that my life is worth that much when that money could have saved millions if it had been spent more wisely? We very rarely rationally allocate resources.

So the idea that you should feel responsible for irrational allocation of resources is a bit of a stretch, I think, because the world doesn't allocate resources rationally. That's the first thing that I would say. The second thing that I would say is that you have to remember that life doesn't exist for money. Money exists for life. And the third thing that I would say is that the NHS and every human being that comes after you has also benefited from your treatment because you have contributed to their understanding

of cancer. You've contributed to their understanding of cancer, you've contributed to their understanding of how to treat it, and that's a really important contribution to the history of the social order, right? Like, that's the main way that we've learned is by trying to treat people, figuring out what works and what doesn't work. So you can't separate the money that's been spent on you from the good it's done, not just for you and those who love you, but also for the wider social order. Yeah, and in that same vein with regard to the social order, the NHS and healthcare systems in

general exist, not just so that we can take care of the people who are sick, but for the people who are healthy to know that they can be taken care of and will be taken care of when and if they get sick. And that creates a feeling of security and it creates a feeling of value of being valued by your society and by your government to know that that system is there. And that in that cost that you have just applied just to you is actually kind of providing a benefit across all people in your country who can feel as if they know that money would have been spent on them if they had been unlucky enough to be in your

situation. And so that cost basically gets spread out over all of those people who get to have that sensation of safety and of support and of being valued by their society. Yeah, I think Survivor's guilt is so difficult and it's very, very real and this is one expression of it among many and I'm not gonna pretend to be able to take that feeling away or that fear away.

But I think ultimately the value of any human life, if you try to calculate it monetarily, everything falls apart. Yes. I just don't think that human lives are like the value or worth of a human life can effectively be measured by markets. No. No. Though I think that I think that sometimes we try and it's very upsetting. Yeah. I mean, yeah. All right, John, I have another question. If you want to go a little bit lighter than that one, it's from Kelly who asks, dear Hank and John, when there's a large-scale tug of war happening, I've seen a lot of people using the 1-2-3 pull

method instead of having all the members of their team constantly pulling. While I've seen this work and agree that it's the most effective way to win tug of war, I don't understand why it works. In my head, I would think that if the other team was constantly pulling with all their collective might, that they would win during the break while my team is counting to three. So why does my team win? Well, it might just be that your team is strong and barely and amazing and great and just an excellent tug of war people with really nice calves. But I have some thoughts.

John, do you have any? Well, I'm not very good at math, but my general thought would be that by saying one, two, three pull while another team is applying constant pressure, you would apply a sudden surge of pressure that they would not be prepared for mentally that might cause them to stumble and fall over. Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that work here. First, is that no one is ever pulling with all of their that no one is ever pulling with all of their, like no one is ever pulling with all of their might together on like the constant pull is actually very hard to maintain.

So you're not giving a hundred percent all at once. And so you're sort of like always counting on someone being pulling harder than you are. And then sometimes you're pulling harder and sometimes they're pulling harder. So everyone is, no one is actually pulling constantly. Everyone is pulling at varying speeds and then it averages out over the side that's supposedly pulling with all of their collective might. And then that's also happening on the other side. People are all pulling a little bit,

like a fair amount, to keep themselves from being pulled over. But then they all do that sudden surge at the same time, instead of having that average out over the whole rope, it happens all at once. And so there's a greater force being generated than will ever be generated by the other side. And then the other thing is to just keep them off balance because tug of war is a game of because tug of war is is a game of

Strength but it is also a game of agility and balance and in keeping your footing Not sliding forward and not being like not having your your center of gravity go too low that you lose traction And not having it go too high so that you stumble over your feet. So that is that is what I would guess And I probably took that question, probably took a two series. Yeah, I mean, as you can tell, Hank Fancy's himself an expert in the field of tug of war, even though I would wager that the last time I competed in a competitive tug of war match was 20 years ago. 25, maybe?

I'd say maybe 19. I bet I did some't talk about it summer camp But I do I the I think you might falsely remember how long ago summer camp was definitely Wait how old am I I was in summer camp 19 years ago? Where are you? Yeah? I'm 36 so you were in summer camp when you were 17 Yeah, I wait I was it I was a junior counselor, John. Oh, all right, I just guess I don't remember that. One more comment about the 1-2-3 pull business. It occurs to me that since Tug of War is ultimately a game about balance,

you should really say one pull. Because when you say 1-2-3 pull, all your opponents are getting ready for that pull. But if you just say one pull, like they're not going to be ready at all. I think I might have just cracked the code to being successful at tug of war, Hank. No, what you really need to do is you need to have a system down before you go in. And you're like, okay, we're going to pull on, so the first pull we're going to pull on two, second pull, pull on five, third pull, pull on five, third pull, pull on three, fourth pull, pull on one, and then everybody'll be so confused

but everybody on your team knows exactly what's happening. I love it, John. I think that's actually, I think that's actually exactly how NFL teams call plays. Like that's how quarterbacks do it in the huddle. Although at this point, we're veering into something that we truly know nothing about, which is playing American football. So perhaps we should answer one more question from our listeners

before we get to the all-important news from Mars. But I have a thing that I want to bring up, John. Okay. Is that okay? Can I bring up a thing? Could I just get a little bit of... Is that... I am very interested in the moment when a sport goes from pure fun to like super competitive. And for me, that moment is when someone introduces a strategy that makes them much better at the sport, that then everyone else has to emulate, but it requires some significant investment of either time or money.

And then everybody is like, oh, like the people who are like, this was fun, but I'm not here for that. They all drop out and then suddenly, ultimate frisbee becomes this thing that I can no longer play because there are rules and penalties and you can't drink a beer while you're doing it. Yeah, I mean, I guess the only, my only counter argument would be that there are lots

of sports that you can drink a beer While doing that are still super competitive and in fact are possibly made more competitive by the presence of beer I'm thinking especially of the adult softball league that I was briefly a part of which involved a lot of drinking and then also a lot of Screaming at an umpire And I would just be like, but but we're not playing for anything. There's no money, there's no pride here. We're all old people. Why are you yelling that you were safe at second? Like, let it go. I think some of the competitive energy just comes from human nature. Yeah, I think that's definitely true. All right, but now

can we answer one more question before we get to the important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon? Yes, we can. All right, Hank, this question comes from Robert who asks, dear John and Hank, an episode 12 of Dear Hank and John, dang it. I said, dear Hank and John, an episode 12 of Dear John and Hank, you discussed the multiverse theory and you said that in only two of the 14 quadrillion possibilities, does Donald Trump become the Republican nominee for president? Oh, of all the dubious stuff we've ever said that might have been the most dubious.

You said he won't actually win the presidency in either of these universes, but did say that in one of them an asteroid will hit the earth and kill all but 17 Americans. I haven't slept since the Donald officially accepted the nomination. I just sit quietly in bed, weep and try not to wake my husband. What should I do? So I'm confused if this person is tremendously overwhelmed by the possibility that we are now in a 50-50 scenario with the asteroid impact, or if it's just Donald Trump.

That's upsetting them. I mean, given that there's a 50-50 chance that all but 17 Americans will die in the next couple of months due to an asteroid, I really feel like I need to be eating more snickers per day. Yeah, we've gone down to the only two possibilities and we're not sure which one we're in. So yeah, I've got to increase my SPD ratio.

Yeah, we do need to start living every day like it's our last because Because for for all but 17 of us. That's the case well 50 50 change The world is not going to I mean the world is going to end. It's going to be terrible, but it's it's not going to happen soon I Don't think it's unlikely to happen soon. I'm really hedging my bets here, Robert. The world is unlikely to end soon. The multiverse turns out to be a far more complex

and terrifying place than any of us could have anticipated back in episode 12. But I still believe that the United States is a strong country and a good place to live and a very successful nation state in many ways. It's important to remember that even in extremely difficult, strange, worrisome times, that, a lot of black and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white and white people like the currency of the dollar, they value it. Our crime rate remains relatively low compared to the 1990s and the 1980s. There are a lot of things about the United States that are good. It's very easy to focus on the things that are terrifying.

The only other thing that I would say is vote. Yes. Yes. Yes. Which brings me to the sponsorships for this episode of Dear Hank and John, which is brought to you by the Fundamentals of Our Economy. The Fundamentals of the American Economy, John. According to John McCain and also reality, they are strong. Ish. I mean, not that strong, but strong ish. And of course today's episode of Dear Hank and John is also brought to you by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Leonardo DiCaprio. Leonardo DiCaprio, still feeling like there was probably room on that door for him. And as far as guest is additionally, brought to you by Namikapag. Namikapag, the new hit game from the Antic, which allows you to play Pokemon-type game without having to license any of the Pokemon names. And also, while you do not happen to live in a city. And finally, today's podcast is brought to you by the Library of Congress cataloging system. The Library of Congress cataloging system may be the best,

maybe not, we're not sure. They're just the ones who paid us to say that we like them. I love the idea of getting a sponsorship from the Library of Congress Cataloging System. I've got, I've got two corporate relationships, Hank. I've got one with the Library of Congress Catalogging System and I got one with Snickers. Oh, God. All right. This has been a fun episode of Dear Hank and John, John. I know, but now we have to get to the part where you tell me that human beings are desperately

trying to get to a cold dead rock when they have a lovely home right here on Earth. It is very nice here on Earth John, I have to say, though I will also say that yesterday in Montana there was a high of 35 or a high of 95 and a low of 35, which seemed a little bit excessive to me. Additionally, the fire season has begun and there are some really quite nearby raging fires that have created a lot of air quality problems. But it is. That is terrible. Quick question for you, Hank. Are there fires on Mars? There are no fires on Mars. Yeah, it is a fire-free place. Yeah. Why is that? So that's good. Because

there's no life. Also, there's no air. So yeah, no oxygen and no combustible material. So. Sounds like hell. Actually, I guess not hell, because there's no fire. But yeah, so what's the news from Mars? Well, the news is from the National Geographic Channel, who is working on what it looks to be a very interesting

series that I'm not 100% sure I will enjoy but I'm hoping that I will and I'm really excited to see whether or not I'm going to like it. It's called Mars and it is a global event series coming this November. That's what it says. Global event series, I think what they mean is show, TV show, which is a drama, but it's sort of mixed together with the realities of exploring Mars. So it's a drama, a six-part series, scripted drama in which some people go to Mars, and

it looks, I watched the trailer for it, which you can watch at MakeMarsHome.com, which is the website for this thing. They look really quite exciting. And they will be mixing together the scripted drama with actual people who are like Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Elon Musk and Peter Diamandis and people like that who will also be talking about the mission. And yeah, it's being exited produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Yeah, and I think it looks like a fun, cool show. That will be celebrating the spirit of adventure,

the spirit of exploration, and all of the stuff that goes along with it, and all the drama and freakiness and scary, but there won't be. But it will be, I think, hard science fiction. No aliens and stuff. Just a story of the first humans to explore the surface of Mars. Question for you.

Where is it being filmed, you know? Mars, John. It's being filmed on Mars. No, but I'm in big trouble. That means I already lost my bet. No, it's being filmed on Mars. No, but I'm in big trouble. That means I already lost my bet. No, it's being filmed on Mars. So here's the question, John.

Could we make the argument that humans go to Mars, but in like virtual reality television shows? No, I don't think we can make that argument. All right. I think that my bet is looking better and better with each passing day. Well, Hank, it is still the offseason for AFC Wimbledon, but not for much longer.

Their first game is next week. Very exciting. Up there in the third tier of English football, we're going to get a nose bleed. We're sitting up so high. We're actually going to start the year, Hank, because AFC Wimbledon is first in the alphabet at the top of the legal table.

Oh, all right. We'll see where we go from there. The news from AFC Wimbledon this week is that after quite a long time of not signing a striker to replace autobiocontinoa, AFC Wimbledon finally have. His name is Tyrone Barnett, possibly Barnett. I'm not good at pronouncing things.

And he is 30 years old. He is Hank, get this from Stevenage. Oh, you stole my best player. No, no, no, he grew up in Stevenage. But he never played for Stevenage. So no worries. He played for Shrewsbury Town and South End United and is now coming to Wimbledon. I have to say at South End United, he had five goals and 20 appearances and that's a pretty good, uh, that's a pretty good ratio. So I'm feeling hopeful and excited about our new 30 year old striker,

welcome to Wimbledon Tyrone Barnett, or possibly Barnett, long may you reign. Long may you reign. Well, congratulations, John. I'm so nervous about this season, Hank. I know, well, is there a way to print out the table as it stands at the beginning of the season and just frame it?

Like, do they have a... It's all downhill from here. They have a thing that they actually release, like a physical copy that you could get. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question. I'll have to ask. Hank, what did we learn today? Oh, John, we learned that if you want to win at tug of war, all you need to do is listen to me because I'm an expert on everything to do with tug of war, apparently, because I just thought about it for a little bit.

Yeah, that reminds me of how we're experts in everything, because we just thought about it for a little bit while we were recording a podcast together. We also learned that the opportunity to catalog the shelves at a bookshop is the greatest opportunity on earth. And we learned that you should not be sharing spoilers of any fictional things on the internet. But if you want to tell the whole world that Justin Trudeau is the Prime Minister of Canada, that is acceptable. And of course, we learned that soon you'll be able to download a game called Namikop Og that will allow you to play a Pokemon Go-like game, but in rural spaces. Very excited for Namikop Og. I think it has a bright future hank. One quick suggestion, maybe if you could make

the name not so terrible. It occurs me that it would probably be Agnomacop, because that would be the reverse of the whole thing. Agnomacop is much better. It does. Unfortunately, we only arrived there at the very end of the podcast. Thank you for listening. Hank, thank you for doing this podcast. With me, the podcast edited by Nicholas Jenkins, our theme music is by Gunnarola.

Our intern is Claudio Morales. Rosiana Hoss, Rojas, helps out with questions. You can email us at hankajonagemail.com and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. Thank you all so much. Thank you all so much.