Judge John Hodgman - Capital T and That Rhymes With P and That Stands for Justice

Episode Date: May 18, 2016

Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thorn clear the docket and rule on pizza ordering, when to watch the next season of Game of Thrones, cereal dust, learning to drive as an adult and more. Tickets are on sale now for Judge John Hodgman's East Coast tour! More information at MaximumFun.org.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. This week, we're in chambers, clearing the docket. Judge Hodgman, how, sir, are you? I, sir, am fine, thank you. And you, sir, are good. Have we elevated ourselves to like a diplomatic ball level of formality? Have we elevated ourselves to like a diplomatic ball level of formality? Yes, that's right. It's also a very oblique reference to the second song in the musical Hamilton, which I believe you have still not listened to. Nope.

I refuse to listen to it because I want to see it. I highly disagree. You are saving yourself for the experience. I highly disagree with your plan, but that is for you to decide. We all must decide how we will engage with Hamilton. In the meantime, I'll be listening to the soundtrack of The Music Man. Capital T rhymes with P, and that stands for justice, right? No. That is how the song Trouble in River City goes. Well, why don't we get straight to these cases?

These cases aren't going to solve themselves, Judge Hodgman. Well, they probably would work themselves out, but especially the fairly low stakes of the first one on the docket. Also, did you notice that I just used the verb to solve regarding these cases? Like you're a French judge magistrate? Oh, mais oui. A detective judge? I am actually Belgian. Here's something from Brian.

When I order that most popular of pizza topping combinations, I say to the order taker, pepperoni and cheese. My wife, Victoria, insists that by including the words and cheese, I risk getting double cheese, since every pizza already comes with cheese. Saying pepperoni and cheese is common enough. No employee has ever confused the order in my experience, and they know if I wanted extra cheese, I'd say so. Judge Hodgman, please allow me to order to my convention. If I ever get pizza with dreaded extra cheese, then I'll conform to her phrasing. True high stakes case. Jesse, can you guess what my ruling would be? Do you have a feeling about this? Do you have a sense of justice surrounding this issue? I don't. I do feel like the clock is

ticking. And if we don't defuse this bomb, all hell is going to break loose. The world could be destroyed because of the super high stakes of this case. Which of these two wires sticking out of the piece of pizza do I need to cut? Exactly. Honestly, from my childhood, I have always been confused by the term cheese pizza to indicate pizza with no other toppings but cheese because it always seemed redundant to me. Now, we've discussed on this podcast that there are actually a lot of different varieties of pizza that you can get at Pepe's in New Haven, Connecticut, including white pizza, white clam pizza. Lots of pizza that doesn't have tomato sauce. Lots of pizza that doesn't have a lot of cheese on it. But a traditional American style pizza, the default is dough, tomato sauce, and then some kind of industrial mozzarella cheese, and that's pizza. So why do you even call that cheese pizza? Because you would

never just have it with just sauce on it. And yet that is largely accepted to say i'll have a slice of cheese pizza but i have never heard the term pepperoni and cheese pizza in my life that's familiar to me i believe it's a real thing yeah i don't know whether it is a regionalism or what this is rule by me not rule by mob but i did go to twitter to see if there was anyone who happened to be working at a pizza parlor today or in their lives and to get a sense from them. And I heard from two listeners and followers of at Hodgman on Twitter. One was Peggy, who said, I asked how commonly would people order a pepperoni and cheese pizza as opposed to just pepperoni pizza? And she said, hardly ever.

Cheese would be an assumed unless the customer specifically ordered a pizza without it which i guess was a possibility thank you peggy also known as at sam hayne night and kevin also known as at food history fan so you know he's talked about hot dogs being sandwiches before he went one further to say not only uh that people would almost never order pepperoni and cheese pizza. He says, if they would say that, I would always verify whether they meant extra cheese and pepperoni or just pepperoni, adding an extra and unnecessary step to the ordering process. And he served pizza in the upper Midwest. He says Iowa college towns and larger communities. I guess he was one of those itinerant. He traveled from town to town working in pizza parlors,

much like Henry Hill sold trombones to the various rubes of Iowa, right? Yeah, or like the TV show Kung Fu. Yeah, exactly. And Peggy worked in Northern California. I don't know. But to you, it's a familiar phrase, pepperoni and cheese. Yeah. It does roll off the tongue.

And someone on Twitter said maybe it's just poetic, even though it is redundant, it is poetic because it echoes macaroni and cheese. And all I could think about were the pepperoni rolls that Chase Henderson served me in Charleston, West Virginia when I did a show there, which is a delightful regional snack. The court does not like causing service personnel confusion when it is not necessary. So I'm going to order him to stop doing it. This is controversial. But ordering a pepperoni pizza, everyone understands what you're talking about there. Ordering pepperoni and cheese cheese pizza while it sounds musical and probably doesn't cause a lot of confusion there is the possibility for it and people just want to

go home at the end of the night and not have their jobs all complicated by people saying things weird so even though it's probably not a huge problem in your life or anybody else's i would say go with the default and just say pepperoni pizza from now on hubbubub, hubbub, hubbub, hubbub, hubbub. That's fine. No, no. I'll have order. I'll have order. Feigned hubbub.

I hate the feigned hubbub. What do you do prefer? Rutabaga, rutabaga, rutabaga, rutabaga to hubbub, hubbub, hubbub? Yeah. Watermelon, watermelon, what is it? Watermelon cantaloupe, watermelon cantaloupe. Here's something from Ben. As a fellow lover of Dormish wines and all things Westeros.

Hold it, Jesse. Yeah. This is obviously a typographical error. You are not to blame. Ben either made a mistake or autocorrect changed Dornish wines. That is wines from the region of dorn in westeros in game of thrones land to dormish which means i guess wines that you make in the toilet of your dorm or just wines with a certain dormy quality sure a certain pungency i said westeros too instead of westeros i watched it it's like

one of my favorite tv shows but i've never read those books so i don't know how to pronounce them that doesn't really make sense i think they say it and i think they say westeros in the tv shows yeah you're i mean you're probably right this is there are many different there are many different dialects and regions when westerosi regions So maybe their difference of accent would have a different pronunciation there. But Dornish is what Ben meant to say. Begin again. Okay. As a fellow lover of Dornish wines and all things Westeros, I'm in a quandary.

George R.R. Martin is nobody's so-and-so. Thank you. He may finish his book when the book is finished. However, the next television season is coming out on my birthday. And my birthday! Happy name day to you,

Ben. And to me. It's the same as my birthday. And to you. What, this Sunday? The 24th is my birthday, yeah. I didn't... Jesse. Yeah, I'm very excited about it. I feel so terrible. Do you know what the 24th is also? Barbara Streisand's birthday.

Is that so? Yes. It's also the wedding anniversary of Paul F. Tompkins and Janie Haddad Tompkins. Oh, congratulations to the Haddad Tompkins clan. Happy to all of you guys, and I'm sorry, Jesse, to have been taken by surprise. I must have had a note somewhere in my life that it was your birthday on Sunday. I'm going to get you a present. Oh, that's very kind of you.

Unnecessary, but very kind. Okay, so here's what Ben says. Watch the next season. I'm going to get you some fine Dormish wine. Oh, thank you. Watch the next season or wait for the next book. To spoil or not to spoil? That is the question.

To endure the slings and arrows, killing characters that I know are still alive, or to take arms against a sea of white walkers in print only i didn't i didn't i didn't like i didn't like that ham-fisted shakespeare yeah that was a really awkward parody there that was not necessary ben you know strunk and white that out of your life don't do that again. But I love you. First of all, this is not buzz marketing for the season premiere of season six

of Game of Thrones because this podcast came out after it. It's already been on. Ben's already made his decision. It's too late. We're recording it before it is about to come on. And my understanding is that starting with this season, the showrunners

of the television show Game of Thrones are now charting their own course through the Westerosi wilderness and writing their own storylines while a friend of the show and of my life,

George R.R. Martin, is writing his book there in Santa Fe, charting his own storylines. Insofar as what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have planned, they will eventually reach the sort of same endpoint because David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and George R.R. Martin conferred about this. But they're officially separate universes at this time. And I would say for that reason, and also reading books, and particularly these books, is a very different experience. There are already major plot changes from the books to the TV show, and the book itself is a much different experience because it's told from multiple points

of view. You are inside the characters' heads and points of view in a way you cannot do in visual media. Even though a story might be told primarily from the point of view of one character, you can't hear their thoughts in the way that makes the book so completely compelling. And honestly, Bailiff Jesse Thorne, let my gift to you be the encouragement to read A Game of Thrones, the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire sequence of books. Because if you like Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, boy, oh boy, once you're inside that dude's head, he's one of the most compelling characters in fiction. Wait, are you telling me that your birthday gift to me is homework that's right that that's the best gift of all

it is the most anti-judge john hodgman uh uh gift possible is me forcing some culture on you and guilting you into reading it as a present. Are you going to the ball game with me too? I would love to go to the ball game with you, but only, only if we could bring Rhea butcher along as well. Cause I promised her the next time I'm in California and go to a ball game,

I will go see one with her. That sounds awesome. That sounds like a blast. That sounds like a blast. Doesn't it? Yeah. In any case. Yeah.

So here's what I say, dude, a book's not going to be done for a while. Watch the show. Enjoy it? Yeah. In any case, yeah. So here's what I say, dude. Book's not going to be done for a while. Watch the show. Enjoy it. When you read the book, it'll only enrich your experience of it. Here's something from Michelle.

My husband of 12 years has the irritating habit of leaving mostly empty cereal boxes in the pantry. It seems as though the cupboard is full, but soon enough, we discover dust-filled bags masquerading as edible food. I do the grocery shopping, and I occasionally like to eat breakfast, so I am annoyed by this. His side of the story is he's saving the cereal dust because he believes there will be a market for it in the coming zombie apocalypse as it mixes into a nutritional

paste. Oh, good lord. He was not a prepper when we met. I'm not sure I want to go down that road with him. What should I do? Ugh. That's called prison, Weetabix. Ha! I say this.

Take him up on it. Collect all the cereal dust and make it into a paste or slurry using, I don't want to poison him. Let's say using heavy cream and refuse to buy groceries until he eats all of it in front of you. That might, that might cure him of his zombie apocalypse jokes that are as stale as the cereal dust that he is refusing to throw away because he is lazy. This could really bite her in the rear.

I mean, what if he comes to like it? That's like, there was an old, you know, Norm MacDonald used to have a joke in his act about how one time his grandpa caught him smoking a cigarette and he took him out back behind the barn and made him smoke an entire cigar right from the start to the end and that's when he started smoking cigars the beauty of that I think you have encapsulated one of the great beauties of

Norm Macdonald's stand-up comedy which I've I love and always did from the first moment i saw him on comedy central in 1993 or whatever was that he would say seaguar yeah he sure does a very a very specific corny pronunciation that he just sticks with i mean it's the original robot sometimes you realize how much you've stolen from people unwittingly and then it comes to light and you feel shame. That happens

to me about once a day. Here's a thing about the zombie apocalypse. You know what? Obviously we are long past not only peak zombie apocalypse trope, but peak meta zombie apocalypse trope. And by trope, but peak meta zombie apocalypse trope.

And by trope, children, I mean cultural idea. But that said, this is not buzz marketing for any particular cruise. I don't know why there is not a specialty cruise now that people join. There is not a specialty cruise now that people join. And one quarter of the people on the cruise are paid actors who turn into zombies halfway through the cruise. And then go through. And the whole point of the cruise is to avoid the zombies. And if you get caught by the zombies, you have to turn into one. This may not be fun for you, Jesse, but I would have a grand time on such a cruise.

You know, one of my best friends from high school, John King, came and visited the last time I was home in the Bay Area. And he was telling me about how he and his wife go to out in the Californiaifornia desert you know out towards where they do coachella and stagecoach and so on and so forth there's like a an apocalypse like a post-apocalyptic wasteland themed getaway that like you know like like tens of thousands of people go to dressed in weird mad max outfits and i'm not talking about Burning Man, let's be clear. Of course, I was going to ask, but no. It's post-apocalyptic cosplay in an immersive theatrical setting. Yeah, and I was pretty impressed.

And my friend John is a huge dude, too. And so the idea of him wielding some kind of laser warhammer uh was really thrilling to me i'm just asking you how much money are you going to invest in my zombie cruise idea i got five it's an immersive theatrical experience a la sleep no more but on a boat with zombies that's my that's my elevator pitch do you you think we could get the Mark McGrath crews crossed over with it? So it's zombies, but it's popular 90s zombie bands? Man, you have just made this so much more profitable. You have no idea.

Yeah, I mean, it's like Third Eye Blind and stuff. We're going to get every serial dust eater in the world on this thing. Okay, here's something from Marty. Yeah. I'm registering with the court my suit against my daughter Carolyn, who will graduate from art school in May. I would like you to order her to come home to my very tiny town immediately after graduation in order to learn how to drive

and get her driving license. Carolyn's not very interested in living in my tiny town as she seems to have fallen in love with big city life in the Bay Area. This is understandable given that we lived in Tokyo for five years before she left for college. I'm going to add here and that she probably doesn't have to pay her own rent yet. I'm afraid that if she doesn't learn to drive soon, she will limit her future small-town living opportunities. If she does get her license, she can better enjoy the road trips she likes to take, and she can make her way out to our tiny town for major holidays. Last but not least, it would be much easier for her to pass her driving test in our tiny mountain town than in the big city.

Please, Judge Hodgman, order my daughter to come home after graduation and dedicate a few months to learning to drive and passing her driver's license exam. Sounds like Marty has a secret agenda, which is he would like to spend some time with his daughter before she grows up so much that she doesn't want to have anything to do with him at all. Don't you agree, Jesse? No, that seems very clear. And also that he would like, he or she would... Oh, excuse me. That's right. You're absolutely right.

I should not have presumed that that was the father. I have an aunt, Martha, known as Marty. I have an uncle, Marty, known as Martha. Yeah, well, there you go. No, excuse me. It's Martho. I apologize. It's the male form of Martha.

art school or immediately before and so is concerned that uh by in making this decision uh he or she has cut him or herself off from his child or her child yeah i got both adverbs in every single time let's say marty is mom if i order carolyn to go home to tiny town and she can't drive, how can she even get there? You're basically asking me to order your daughter to hitchhike with strangers through the woods to get to you to learn to drive, Marty. Maybe you'll never see her again. I don't want to have that on me. But on the other hand, if you are graduating from college and you do not know how to drive, you should change that, in my opinion. You've heard guest bailiff Paul F. Tompkins discuss this very issue in a previous episode of Judge John Hodgman. He described learning to drive as a grown man. He avoided

it for a long, long time, even living in Los Angeles, taking the bus. And the great pride and happiness he felt in becoming a complete grown-up human being by learning this basic skill of adulthood and one that frankly is not just a matter of fun times get-arounds but is also an issue of safety for you if you need to get out of a situation you should be able to drive away if possible and well, not being a burden to others. So I believe that with very rare exceptions that I can't even think of one, but there must be probably one someone's going to email me about it. I'll be like, yeah, you're right. People should know how to drive.

It is a basic human adult skill. And as we've discussed with Rhea Butcher, you should know some things about your car. Think of it this way, Caroline. butcher, you should know some things about your car. Think of it this way, Caroline. You may be the last or second to last generation of humans who will have the opportunity to drive a car because way out there in the Bay Area, you got certain internet companies who have decided that all cars should be robots. And that's going to happen. And then you won't even get to do it. So take hold of this dying art form and learn to drive in your little tiny town.

You should also, if you're an art student who is about to graduate from college, you may find yourself needing to live further away from the center of things than you would like because real estate does not favor the art student it favors the venture capitalist right jesse yeah i would add to that uh that i i grew up in the aforementioned area as a non-driver i did not uh i didn't get my driver's license when i was a teenager uh not least because both of my parents declared that I would have to pay the extra insurance in addition to everything else, and I couldn't afford it.

Fair enough. But also just because I didn't care. And you didn't have to because you could get around the city very easily. You wouldn't want to drive around San Francisco. No, it's a pleasure to get around San Francisco by public transportation. But when I found myself in circumstances where I needed to learn to drive, which is to say that I felt trapped in Santa Cruz

where I went to college, I was shocked. I mean, sincerely shocked at how easy driving is. Yeah. Like my recommendation is, and this is a very strong recommendation use the internet to find a good driving school take three hundred dollars or four hundred dollars or whatever

pays for three or four lessons uh and just learn to drive you will be stunned to learn that is very easy to learn to drive especially if forgive me for saying this you don to learn to drive, especially if, forgive me for saying this, you don't learn to drive stick. It's very easy to learn how to drive in a couple of hours with a professional instructor. You'll still be nervous for a few months, especially on the freeway, depending on how nervous of a person you are, but the skills can be acquired like almost immediately. And usually as an adult, you don't even need to get a learner's permit, depending on where you live. So I can't recommend paying someone to teach you to drive enough. All the stuff about, oh, you got to learn it from your parents, and then you have to deal with your parents and stuff.

I learned in two hours from a nice Guatemalan man. Maybe it cost me $140 or something. Best $140 I ever spent. Even though this court does recommend learning to drive a manual transmission, I would rather, Carolyn, learn to drive manual than not learn at all. In this case, go and spend some time with your mother-father or father-mother, whatever the case may be. I don't even know why we have to use such gendered terms.

Go and spend some time with your Marty in the country and enjoy learning how to drive. Here's a follow-up to a past question regarding the removal of shoes. Rebecca says, I hate wearing shoes, especially inside the house. My boyfriend never takes off his shoes because he says that the floors are always dirty. Every time I go to his house, I must have something on my feet and I never feel comfortable. If he just took off his shoes in the house, these quote unquote dirty floors would not be an issue and I could walk freely with nude feet. He says that shoes or not, the floors would still be dirty. Please, Judge Hodgman, help us put this problem to bed.

Nude feet. I know. I imagine nude pantyhose immediately. Yeah, sure. Or p what pads are oh yeah sure the the the little pantyhose socks you put over your feet when you're trying on shoes yeah shoe store before you used to just buy 17 pairs from an online store of various sizes and shapes and you just put your feet all over them and then you return them to give your foot junk to someone else on the internet that's how it's done now you don't wear peds let me solve your problem rebecca you and your boyfriend should break up they you guys if this i i don't want to doom your relationship and i don't want to say you should break up and if you but this is one of those things where it's like some people are shoe on people in the house and some people

are shoe off people in the house and you guys are walking very different paths in your lives if he is a guy who never takes his shoes off because he says his floors are always dirty because there is a component both of cultural tradition in his mind and also uh i i would imagine fear of dirt that is psychologically compelling to him yeah i mean i never take my shoes off but it's not because the floor is dirty everything is dirty yeah it's true and i almost always take my shoes off in a house because uh j' old longtime girlfriend, Lisa Dierks, who is still my friend, insisted upon it when I was but a 19-year-old child. And I felt it extremely weird, but I got used to it and now I like it. So maybe you can convince him to come along your way and you can clean his floors real good.

And you can get him some kind of comfortable slipper or house shoe that he can wear. And then you can walk all around his disgusting floors with your, uh, with your, uh, shoes off and your nude feets. But I would say Rebecca, that, that frankly, the onus is on you. If you want to convert him to your style of life, you're going to have to make some effort to help him along. And I would say my order is clean his floors or help him to clean his floors. Get to the bottom of whether that's a real concern about dirt or a primarily psychological concern about dirt. See if that's going to be an issue in your life. Get him some house shoes, some slippers of some kind that he can wear indoors and get him to see if he'll do it for a month. And if he comes

around by then, you guys may have a future together. If not, then you're either just going to have to deal with it and put shoes on or find someone else in your life who enjoys feet nudity as much as you do. You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast always brought to you by you, the members of MaximumFun.org. Thanks to everybody who's gone to MaximumFun.org slash join. Maximumfun.org. Thanks to everybody who's gone to Maximumfun.org slash join. And you can join them by going to Maximumfun.org slash join. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by our pals over at Made In.

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Memorial Day from the 18th until the 27th. Visit madeincookware.com. That's M-A-D-E-I-N cookware.com. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by the folks over there at Babbel. Did you know that learning, the experience of learning causes a sound to happen? Let's hear the sound. Yep. That's the sound of you learning a new language with Babbel. We're talking about quick 10-minute lessons crafted by over 200 language experts that can help you start speaking a new language in as little as one, two, three weeks. Let's hear that sound. Babbel's tips and tools are approachable, accessible, rooted in real-life situations, and delivered with conversation-based teaching. So you're ready to practice what you've learned in the real world,

and you get to hear this sound. It's not just like a game that pretends to teach you a language. It's also not a rigid, weird, hyper-academic chore. It is an actually productive app that actually teaches you while you are actually having a nice time. And you get to hear this sound. Here's a special limited time deal for our listeners right now. Get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash Hodgman. Get up to 60% off at babbel.com slash Hodgman spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Hodgman. Rules and restrictions apply. Here's something from Mason. This dispute is between my partner and I of eight

years. My partner of eight years and I. My partner is... Me and my eight-year partner, I think is what, I think that's what you're supposed to say. I think it's between his partner and an ape? Him and me, Johnny eight-year, partner mine. Got it. My partner is an American citizen born in Australia who's never lived in America, although she's visited several times. Her mother is a native-born American citizen. I think that my partner should vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, but as she's never lived in the U.S., she believes that she doesn't have a moral right to do so as she's not directly involved with the events and consequences of her vote.

I've looked into the matter, and even though she's never lived there as an American citizen with a parent currently living in America, she's legally eligible to vote as long as she's registered to do so. She still does not think she should do so, even with the law on her side. Should she vote or refrain? Jesse Thorne, I'm not sure that you know this, but we are in a presidential election year. You know what? I honestly didn't know. I was wondering why there was all this talk about these old people. Let me break.

That's because the system is broken and it doesn't serve you. Got it. But, you know, this court takes voting as a very serious obligation of good citizen personship. And I never would encourage someone to not vote even if their preferred candidate in a presidential primary didn't win and they wanted to show everybody how badass they were by staying home and showing everyone. But this is an interesting situation.

The partner is an American citizen, but born in Australia has never lived or paid, presumably paid taxes in America. And I, frankly, I'm not sure why Mason is so invested in this. What does he care what she does? It might just be that Mason is so feeling the burn or feeling the hill or feeling the...

John Kasich. Is so feeling the burn or feeling the Clint or feeling the Cruz or feeling the Trump or feeling the Kasich. Or feeling the American Independent feeling the trump or feeling the case ick or feeling the american party right or feeling the green party or feeling case i think would be feeling the sick who's the natural law candidate this year that's who i'm voting for that he wants that he wants to get he wants to get his american citizen partner of eight years him and her into it but i'm gonna say this i certainly see no problem if she wanted to vote and was willing to take interest in and educate herself about the particular elections and exercise her privilege

as a technical u.s. But if she speaks with an Australian accent, she should probably stay out of it. And that goes double for that tax evading Paul Hogan. Yeah. No, no. He should vote. He gets a vote.

Crocodile Dundee should vote from exile? Yes, he should he should he's beloved where is where is he in exile by the way i don't know where he is in exile and he was escaping american taxes right i think oh he was yeah he went into some kind of tax exile either from in america from australian taxes, in Australia from American taxes, or in a third country from both. I can't remember which. Well, Paul, I'm sure you're listening in exile on your ham radio in some strange remote island. And let me just say, pay your damn taxes.

I just paid my taxes, and it hurt, but that's the job of citizenship. And if she's paying into that Australia system to get that Australia healthcare, I don't blame her. That's good for her. You know, Judge Hodgman, I have recently been the beneficiary of participatory democracy i don't know if you knew this no how so you were you were voted in into office as senator from california not quite although i'm thinking about it we'll see uh-huh i'm turning 35 i can finally become president maybe you'll be drafted by the republican party um i uh since i've been a child my life's dream has been to appear as a guest voice on the television animated comedy archer wow congratulations and very a very popular and enjoyable television

show so uh i have not now let's hold our congratulations thus far. Okay. I have not yet appeared on the show Archer. However, I do see it as almost inevitable now. Go to the popular petition website, change.org, and start a petition to secure me, Jesse Thorne, a guest starring role on the TV series Archer on FX. Oh, I see. Already more than 50 people have signed this. I'm sure that Adam Reid, the creator of Archer, is paying attention right now. Of course. How could he not be? He and Paul Hogan are listening together eating sandwiches.

I mean, I would say this. Put yourself in Jeff Lohman of Carlsbad, California's shoes. He could have spent his time going to the wonderful pick your meat and they cook it for you German restaurant, Tip Top Meats in Carlsbad. Where they do require shoes. Yeah, but he instead chose to do this beautiful thing on my behalf. And not only did he do this beautiful thing on my behalf, but already I've made an incremental step towards appearing on Archer, which is a kind listener works on the Amazon series Danger and Eggs and has offered Jordan, my co-host on Jordan, Jesse Goh and I, a guest role on

that program, which is almost half of an appearance on Archer. That is a nude foot in the door. So I'm just saying democracy works. If you're worried about all these voting shenanigans, just know democracy works. And if you don't, and by the way, Jesse, if you don't appear as a guest voice on Archer within the next, say, five months, I'm going to say that's because hundreds of thousands of votes were unfairly suppressed. Yeah, I think it's mostly because of voter ID laws.

Yeah, exactly so. So here's something from Joseph. Joseph wrote in after hearing our episode Baggage Claims, in which Zach and Ty had made a weekend trip to Hong Kong in order to get airline points. He lives in Hong Kong, and he offered some tips for Zach, Ty, and whoever else might spend some time there. We'll put the full version on our site, and we'll give you an abbreviated version here. This is a great, this is like a whole guide to Hong Kong. I'd like to go to Hong Kong. Jesse, will you go with me? Heck yeah, I really want to go to Hong Kong.

Okay, well, where would we eat? What kind of food would we eat in Hong Kong? Well, John, Hong Kong's best known for two things. Dim sum. Hoagies? Number one. Hoagies and Scrapple? Number two, subs.

Right. Oh, and also Cleveland five-way chili. No, Cincinnati five-way chili. I apologize, Ohio. Dim Sum and Sous-Mé, which is that roast meat. Is that that roast meat that I see hanging in restaurant windows? Yeah, you got it. So for Dim Sum, if you're not afraid to go local and fight their way past the hungry

grandmas, he recommends Linhung. H-E-U-N-G. There are no pronouncers on any of these, so I apologize to anyone from Hong Kong who I am offending at the moment. The other option is to go to a more foreign-friendly place, and there's no shame in that, called Dim Sum Square in Xiongwan. Xiongwan is our kind of hipster neighborhood with galleries and cafes. Oh, I want to go to the green point of Hong Kong for sure. For Su Mei, the heavy hitter is Joy Hing. Wherever they go, it shouldn't cost more than maybe $6 US.

Whoa, that's pretty good. What about going out, though, John? I don't know. Where would I go? Is there any kind of hair salon by day, jazz bar by night? Yeah, Visage One. Yeah, that's a hair salon

by day and jazz bar with excellent music on Saturday nights. He says, I spent one of the best nights of... Don't worry. It is a jazz bar, but it has excellent music, so don't worry. Yeah, I spent one of my... It's Dave Koss's place, and he really knows the players. I spent one of my best nights there getting jabbed in the ribs by the bow of a fiddler

in a bluegrass band comprised of off-duty Disney performers. That sounds like the worst jazz bar in the history of the world. I think it sounds great. Oh, Bluegrass. A bluegrass band in Hong Kong comprised, composed of, I think he means to say, off-duty Disney performance. And of course, I completely forgotten that there is Disneyland of Hong Kong that we could go to. That is a dream not yet come true. I want to hear some Disney bluegrass

in a late night beauty bar and get to know those people and then they're going to take me through the tunnels and give me a private tour backstage of Hong Kong Disneyland. And I'm going to take you with me, Jesse Thorne. That's how I'm going to spend all my zombie cruise money. Here's one last tip.

Definitely do read Akbar Abbas's Hong Kong Culture and Politics of Disappearance and definitely don't go to Lan Kwai Fong, our dystopian nightlife district, unless they're into getting vomited on by drunk Australians. And remember, Australians, if you can vomit on an American in Hong Kong, you can find time to vote in our presidential election. Yeah, please vote natural law. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney.

I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I-H. Were you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky.

Let me give it a try. Okay. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, call S-T-O-P-P-P-A-D-I. It'll never fit. No, it will. Let me try. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-P-D-C-O-O. Ah, we are so close.

Stop podcasting yourself. A podcast from MaximumFun.org. P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P- a case for Judge John Hodgman, go to MaximumFun.org slash JJHO and submit it there. You can like us on Facebook and join the Maximum Fun Facebook group. Join us on Reddit at MaximumFun.reddit.com where there's a really lovely, friendly community. You can hashtag it on Twitter, hashtag JJHO. And if you want to name a future case, follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne, J-E-S-S-E-T-H-O-R-N and at Hodgman. This is our last week with producer Julia Smith. Julia has seen Judge John Hodgman through many, many years. She's been an incredible shaping force on the show, patient and kind voice on the other end of the line for everyone who wants to be a litigant charming friend and she's moving on this week and we are so grateful to have had her so

we want to thank julia for all of her amazing work and we want to welcome our brand new full-time producer jennifer marmer who has been lined up and ready to go. Jennifer has been working with us for a few years. I think you're really going to like what she does on the show. We have a lot of great stuff planned for the future of Judge John Hodgman. Thanks to your support. So thanks, everybody, and thanks especially to our dear friend, Julia Smith.