Hello Internet - A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Episode Date: December 25, 2018

Merry Christmas to all!

Do you want to start, Greg? Because this is kind of more your idea than mine. I don't want to take responsibility. I thought you were going to say, I don't want to take all the credit. If it goes well, I will take all the credit. If it goes poorly, I don't want to take any of the responsibility. First, Merry Christmas, Brady. Merry Christmas to you. Do you know something just occurred to me just then? Yeah. Do you remember a while ago I told you about a dream I had

where you were crushed underneath a Christmas tree and died in Harrods? Yes. Grey right now is sitting in my lounge room. Oh, god damn it. He is sitting underneath my Christmas tree, which is not insubstantial and which I might point out we've been having a few issues with it standing upright. And if that was to fall right now, I mean, that would fall on you. It would hit you.

I don't think you'd die, but... I mean, is that angel atop made of metal or is it made of cloth? That's the most dangerous part of it. Cloth. Okay. All right. I feel reasonably safe then. But thank you, Brady.

We're here. We're in person together. I always find it weird and uncomfortable. And thank you for immediately bringing up the idea that your tree might fall on me during the recording. That definitely makes this a smoother, easier process. Just one second. I'm just going to get my phone because if it does fall, I want to make sure I get a picture. Okay, good. So let's explain this idea that kind of has evolved between the two of us over time. Well, I didn't really have an idea. I just had a phrase in mind, which I sent to you. And the phrase was the 12 days of Hello Internet. I didn't really have any idea what to do with it, but I found myself captivated by the idea that Hello Internet, it's a somewhat a regular show.

Yes, yes. You know, it's a little bit random in its appearance. And I like the idea that for Christmas this year, there could be 12 regular days of little bite-sized Hello Internets. So we couldn't possibly do 12 shows in a row, because that's basically an entire year's worth of Hello Internet. But I thought, is there something that we can do where, as a Christmas present to you listeners, you know that you're going to get a little bit of Hello Internet for the 12 days of Christmas?

It's 12 days of Hello Internet for the 12 days of Christmas. It's 12 days of Hello Internet. Nice. So a lot of people seem to think the 12 days of Christmas leads up to Christmas Day, but this is a common misconception. In fact, it's the famous common misconception. It's so famous for being wrong. I'm not sure there's anyone that actually has the misconception anymore. Well, also, I think it's entirely the fault of advent calendars right where you're like advent calendars count down to christmas and yeah 12 days of christmas i feel like i'm suddenly realizing i should know much more about those 12 days had i but paid more attention in my sunday school classes but it's not a christian thing is it the 12 days of christmas you wouldn't learn that in my Sunday school classes. But it's not a Christian thing is it the 12 days of Christmas? You wouldn't learn that in Sunday school. I don't know. Now I don't know. Maybe

that's why I don't remember. I'm sure I remember everything that happened in those classes. But yeah, I just know that they exist. And I know that they actually start on Christmas, and then go from Christmas. Yeah. So you are listening to us now on christmas day and this is going to be the first of 12 little hello internet minisodes what do we have to talk about on these minisodes brady well this is where i came in because it was my job to engineer something to go with your title and so i thought we should resurrect the postbox which we did and we have had people send in christmas cards to us and i told the people this was your big chance because obviously gray's been on project cyclops he's been off the twitter he's been off the reddit he's been hard man to contact if you want to suggest ideas to him so i

said if you send in a christmas card this is a chance gray may read it i may read it and we may discuss your question your topic we may discuss your card here on the show. So we've been to the postbox just an hour or so ago, picked up a big batch of cards. We've been opening them for a little while now here with steak knives and things like that. We've been cutting them open and looking at them. Brady doesn't own letter openers.

I didn't have a letter opener, no. And we're going to chat about them. Yeah, we're going to work our way through the pile of questions. And it's been very nice, I have to say, opening up and getting all the Christmas cards. As it might not be a surprise, I'm not a person who really likes getting Christmas cards. And for some reason this year, more than other years, I've been dodging people trying to trap me into the tit for tat game of let's start Christmas cards with each other. I don't know. This year has been a bad year where people are like, hey, can I get your address for Christmas? And I'm like, we don't need to do this. It's like, it's okay. We're friends. We

don't need to get trapped in this forever. But I have to say, it's very nice getting all these Christmas cards that are addressed to the both of us for Hello Internet and reading the nice things that people say and seeing the great cards. And as always, everybody's very funny, like put little jokes in it. And some of them are very sweet. And we have a pile of questions. And we're going to sort of just grab some and talk about the Christmas cards. What's been your criteria as you opened each card and you looked at it what decided whether or not it went into the big red bin of doom to your right or the pile of hope to your left because people could take this as advice for future years as well if they want to make it onto the pile of

hope what gets you in the bin it is harder to write an interesting question than i think people think because i also deal with this with like Q&A videos where people ask questions. And it's like, how do you come up with an interesting question? And the Christmas cards are the same thing. And it's hard to say what a good question is, because you just know a good question when you see it. But a bad question, the only really hard rule I have is questions that are asking for what's your favorite or what's your least favorite are usually very hard questions to answer.

Yeah. Because they seem like they should be very easy, but they actually aren't. And if anyone is ever writing a question, I would suggest avoiding that, of saying like, what is your favorite thing in this category or what is your least favorite thing in this category? Because it's either just going to be like a quick answer, there's not much discussion, or you get kind of stuck in your head thinking, oh, there's a bunch of books I like. What's my favorite book?

Then you get stuck being like on the record with what your favorite book is. And it ends up in like the Wikipedia is like, oh, this is this person's favorite book, right? It's like, so those I would say are bad questions. Yeah. Do you have any advice having looked through a bunch of these? I mean, you know, things like making your handwriting legible and not having too much text, things like that. A piece of niche advice would be you have to remember like well over half of these will be opened by me. Grey has been opening and doing some of the vetting,

but I'm doing more of the vetting because I got some of them earlier. Putting in your question things that are going to like bruise my ego is not wise. So saying here's my question and I really, to be honest, what I really want to know is what Gray thinks about this. If someone says that, like the chances of that going in the red bin increase astronomically. So like, even if you don't care what Brady thinks, at least like make him feel like part of it. Like, I really want to know what your favorite video game is. Okay. I

don't play video games. That's fine. Gray does does but at least make me feel like i was part of the conversations i know we did catch this as your chance to get access to gray so don't feel bad if you wrote in your card i want to know what gray thinks about x y or z but do know you probably ended up in the bin because of it brady is the filter for all things physical right so and if anything ever comes up that's physical brady is totally the filter but i've as as you were talking i just realized there were a couple that it didn't even fully register but i opened the card and it was like i have a sports ball question for brady and i was like oh whatever boom that seems like a boring question sports ball who wants to hear a question about sports ball? Nobody. Works both ways. I saw a card that said, I've got a question and I really want to hear Grey's answer to this. And then it was all these complicated sports things that you would

know nothing about. And I was like, God, this is a double failure. You've asked a question that I was the one who should answer it and you've asked the wrong dude. Anyway, let's get into this pile because it's quite a big pile in front of us. We've only got 12 mini-sodes in which to get through some of them. Yeah, there are, I think, far more cards than we can get through in mini-episodes. So we need to get started. Who's going to go first? You pull one out first.

I'm going to randomly grab a card. All right, what do you got? Would you say that's hot chocolate or would you say that's beer on the front there? I think that is a big stein of beer with goggly eyes. With goggly eyes and a mustache. Yeah. What's in there? What does it say?

Oh, there's five pounds in here, Brady. There's a five pound note in there. There's a five. Okay, this is an excellent start for getting your card recognized. Putting money in the car. It feels like I've just gotten a card from grandma, right? Where it's like, oh, I have five pounds.

Well, you'd need to read some of it for us. What's going on? To Brady and Gray, Merry Christmas. There isn't a Star Wars movie for you to review this year, which is also how we were thinking about what are we going to do for Christmas. So perfect. So please rank the 10 Star Wars films instead.

My aunts always send me money in the Christmas card. So I felt the need to do the same for you. Don't spend it all at once. Thanks. Mike in Wokingham. So it's like family tradition. My grandma used to always send me $10 from Tasmania for my birthday or Christmas.

And that was the only time I would ever see a $10 note. And that caused me so much excitement, like money in a card. I mean, even you, there was a look of delight on your face. Yeah, well, that's because it is. It feels like something from grandma. I also enjoy that the note on one side, the queen, she has a speech bubble that has been added to her, where she says, swamp hen.

And on the back, Winston Churchill is saying, rice rats. So it's been defaced. It has been defaced, but I think it's great. Brilliant. All right. Are we going to rank those 10 Star Wars movies? I don't know if I can hold them in my head to do that. Here, we can work on this very clearly, right?

Yeah. Because the original Holy Trilogy, obviously the best. Those go at the top. Yeah. The three prequels, obviously at the best. Those go at the top. The three prequels, obviously at the worst. They go at the bottom. Within those two sets so far, which is the top and which is the bottom? Well, I mean, if I was going to rank the top three, the originals,

I do change a little bit occasionally on that. But do you know what? I'd put them in the order they were released right now. As just one, two, three? Yeah, New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. Like Empire Strikes Back is like better in many ways, but the original was just like so pure. It's such a pure piece of purity.

It was well done, cracking story, well executed. I used to put Empire Strikes Back higher, but I'm going to put them in the order they were released, those three. What about you for the Holy Trinity? I'm going to go with the classic answer of Empire as the best. But I also, I think Return of the Jedi gets too much criticism. It does. It's a great film.

I really like it. I think I would put that as number two and the original Star Wars at the bottom of the top three. Love them all. But I think that's most of the time how I feel about it. That's going on your Wikipedia page now. God damn it. You've officially rated them.

And there'll be a subheading, Star Wars classification. All right, let's go down to that woeful bottom three. Right, the woeful bottom three right the woeful bottom three the second one is the worst attack of the attack of the clones that's the worst and then probably the first one phantom menace and like the third one which is terrible is the best of the terror just because it's got at least a little bit of something nastiness to it. I don't know. Here's the only way I can rank those movies. Yeah. Phantom Menace is the best of the prequels.

Okay. Because I can remember it. I can remember the story, right? I know where it starts. Yeah. I know what happens in the middle. I know what happens at the end. I could roughly reconstruct the plot of that movie.

Okay. The other two prequels, I have like no memory at all about it. I remember there was like a clone planet on the sea that was cool. And there was a lava fight that lasted 45 minutes. And that's about all I can remember. So I've got to rank Phantom Menace as best of the worst. And the other two, I can't even rank. They might as well be one movie.

So does that mean there are four others we have to rate so what do we have left we've got solo no we got solo we've got force awakens oh yeah we've got star wars on the beach capturing the death star plans oh yeah rogue one rogue one thank you and return of last jedi last jedi that's it. Yeah, Last Jedi. All right, I can do this. Okay, all right, go for it. I'm going to go Force Awakens, Solo, Rogue One, Last Jedi. I agree.

I agree. All right, there you go. We've done it. All right. As long as you break it up, it's a doable task. This has totally turned into a Star Wars episode. It has, but there could not have been a more perfect first card than that. Well picked. And thank you for your card.

And thanks for the five bucks. All right, great. I'm going to pull one from the pile now. I'm doing it again, sort of blind, Lucky Dip style. You do like your Foley work, don't you, Brady? Bit of Foley work. We've even got a Foley microphone here above the... Listeners, Brady is intentionally handling the card

in a very clumsy way in front of the microphone. He's making a weird face while he does it. Yeah, sorry. That's his Foley face, I guess. We all have a Foley face. All right, what have I got here? This one's come from California. It's just just very traditional card

we just it's just a picture of candles and pine cones and holly and it's a christmas still life yeah that's yeah it is very old school inside the first thing that strikes you is there's a cute drawing of a christmas tree and either side of it is a robot grey and a caveman Brady and instead of a star atop the tree, we have a nail in gear. Dear Dr Brady Haran and CGP Grey, I'm Andres, a junior in high school in the US, California, although I used to live in Barden. I was wondering if the two of you could talk more about your experience in high school and what advice you would give to people who are currently in high school or secondary school. There's a little addendum, Gray, what if at all

did becoming a teacher change your perspective on this whole thing? Yeah, so high school experience, thumbs up, thumbs down. I mean, I think it's very simple. High school gets a big thumbs down. My advice is, which I told many a student, just so you know, this is probably going to be the worst time of your life. And high school is like a little prison that we all have to go through and it's terrible. So if you're having a bad time, it's not you, it's the system. And my feelings on being a teacher changed nothing about that. I felt exactly the same way. The only thing that changed a little bit was my feelings on how accurately people remember the injustices that happened to

them in high school. Where I think everybody has these stories of like a grave injustice that was done to them by the system, like by teachers yeah but actually having been a teacher you see like it's filled with nothing but these minor moments that you can't help but when you're a student trapped in this system like blow up and fume on all day long and it's like i could see there were little moments where it's like oh suzy forgot her homework and i had to give her a demerit and she's like oh but there i had a reason i was like this is going to be a story you're telling when you're 30 about like the great injustice that happened when you were a kid. So I was like, keep it all in perspective.

What about you, Brady? I'm like the exact opposite. And I look back at high school as like glory days. I look at it so fondly. You know, I had a very physically capable body. I was good at sport. And I was like scoring goals at soccer and making runs at cricket. And I felt smart. And I was like getting good and I was like scoring goals at soccer and making runs at cricket and I felt smart

and I was like getting good marks in my exams and like I felt like the king of the world and it wasn't until I finished high school and was released into the wild and realised what a nobody I was. So it was like, it was almost like the opposite. Like I look back at high school through very like rose-tinted glasses and I think it was like it was good times. I still remember like injustices.

They mainly happened to my other friends and we still joke about them and talk about them. And like, you know, I had all the usual frustrations of being a high school kid and, you know, having a crush on the girl and you can't get the girl and all that sort of like, you know, the heartache and the torture of being a teenager and stuff. But generally I look back at high school as like golden days. And I love sitting around with my friends and telling all our old war stories about

the great things that happened in high school. It was all like sunshine for me. I'm really glad I didn't say the other thing that I was going to say, which is, I'm so clearly right about high school, that I am suspicious of all people who report that they had a great time in high school. And I never knew this about you, but it is a thing that I always, when I meet someone and they talk about how great high school was as an adult, I always give them a little bit of a squint eye where I'm like, really, really? Hmm. So this is interesting about you, Brady. I didn't know this. You know, I was like, I don't know, different schools call them different things, but you have

like a head prefect or a school captain or whatever it was. I got to do that role and I was in the school plays and I was in the sports teams and I did quite well academically. Not like unbelievable, but like well enough. So it was just like good times. It was like, ah, this is good. There are things I would certainly change. So what is your advice then for people who are in high school? I have no advice.

I do think it's luck of the draw. Because I obviously know loads of people who didn't like high school. My advice is be lucky. That is the best advice for all circumstances. Be lucky. I don't even think of many horror stories. I have bad memories as well, but it was all fine. I feel terrible.

Everyone's going to think I'm really like entitled and privileged, and I wasn't. I was just like a normal kid, but I went to quite a small school. That helped, I guess, but it was all fine. I feel sorry for you now, Greg. I'll give you a hug. Please don't give me a hug I don't actually want a hug

anyway what do you reckon is that a mini-sode there that's a mini-sode Merry Christmas to everyone and for once we can say with 85% certainty we'll see you tomorrow on Boxing Day we haven't actually recorded or edited

or done anything while we're talking now so yes with high but not 100 degree of probability we'll see you again tomorrow merry christmas and be lucky