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Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Nor is I for thinking of your John and Hank.
It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you videos to advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. How you doing John? I'm doing so well Hank. Mostly for reasons that we can't talk about until the end of the podcast.
I have to confess that I'm a little bit limping to the finish line of 2017. It has been a pretty long year for me. I published my first book in six years. That was pretty stressful.
Exciting but stressful. Lots of things have been happening. Movie stuff like just a lot of and I had Lapran Titus which I don't recommend despite its metaphorically resonant name. It's just been the last couple months have been a little intense so I am just trying to get to the end and move on to 2018.
How are you? I'm good. I just have a baby and it's so good. I also really want to see the Star Wars movie.
I want to see it but I can't because like do parents ever watch movies? How does it ever happen? You have a babysitter. Get a babysitter.
I guess but I feel like I'm getting a babysitter. I should be doing something where Catherine and I hang out. Not just staring something together. No, no it's ridiculous.
No go see the Star Wars movie. I still love a good movie as a date night. I think movies continue to be a great date night. You know what movie is going to be a great date night Hank?
Turtles all the way down coming to a theater near you. Oh goodness. Okay John. Do you want a babysitter?
Do you want to babysit my baby while I watch the Star Wars movie? Yeah that's a good idea. I want to spend 12 hours flying to Missoula so I can spend three hours with my nephew. Well I don't.
You want a short poem? Okay. All right. This short poem was sent by Heather.
It's very good and it's about death. So thank you Heather for sharing a poem about death. I appreciate it. It's by Maria Senyan whose name I'm sure I'm mispronouncing and it is translated from Japanese.
Bear me when I die beneath a wine barrel in a tavern with luck the cask will leak. Oh it's good Hank. It's good. I would love to have just a few glasses of wine after my death but I feel that the odds are against me.
John our first question of your Hank and John comes from Tim who asks Dear Hank and John I help I have a final on birds in less than two hours. I have to memorize all the birds orders, family and species of California and in two hours I have to put all that knowledge to a test. Please help please send help with the atomic number of 50. Tim like tin.
Yeah I know T.I. and it does have the atomic number of 50. Hank do you know where the elements get their atomic numbers from? I thought this was just a fascinating fact.
Yes. Where do they get their numbers from? The number of protons they have? See I always thought it was from just a dartboard that like chemists would throw a dart at a dartboard and they'd be like 50 tin but no it turns out it's the number of protons they have.
Well there's a certain amount of logic to just like oh well this is the lightest one and so it's number one and this is the second lightest one so it's number two and we'll just order them by by weight and that is how they are ordered but it just happens that's that's sort of also a consequence of the fact that protons are where a lot of the mass of an atom comes from and as you increase protons you also increase neutrons which is the other place that the mass of the atom comes from but that is neither here nor there John that's chemistry and we have a problem with regards to bird taxonomy apparently. Yeah it's a little weird to me taxonomy bird taxonomy feels a little bit dated as a thing that you should have to memorize. Yeah to me maybe tin is writing from the distant past like 1964. Yeah I'm like what is what is gonna help you by how are you going to be assisted by knowing all of the order family and species of all birds in California that is a huge like I got like California's a big and diverse place it's got mountains it's got ocean it's got like cold it's got hot it's got Yosemite and it's got all the things it's like would you like to take a guess how many bird species there are in California I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with 500 600 that I was remarkably close actually yeah I mean I wouldn't have been within an order of magnitude I would have said 12 I thought we'd eliminated most of the non-human species but apparently a few of them are still going strong um you know the official state bird of California is I bet tin does uh the Herringal John it's the Herringal now it's the Condor the California Condor must be nope it's the California quail that's terrible you got to look at a picture of California quail hank they've got one of those uh headdresses that makes them look a little bit like Napoleon they look like a bird Napoleon uh I can't spell and so I've just googled the California quail well the California quail wheel also is excellent but the California quail I mean to be fair the Condor is a wonderful bird very majestic but I have never seen a bird that is so clearly suited to official state dumb as the California quail I mean the California quail might be the next governor of California the California quail looks as if it is tipping its hat to you all of the time it does it's a hello sir hello sir hello um hello ma'am hello yeah so tin this is a dumb assignment and we disagree with it that is our that is our take we do not like this as an assignment we think you should be learning about why tins atomic number is 50 uh not about all of the geniuses and species and orders of birds in California but I do want to say hank yeah I have a buddy who is an ornithologist mm-hmm that's just something I wanted to say because I'm very rarely find myself in a situation where I get to talk about my friend who's an ornithologist oh well yeah maybe we should talk to him about why why not this is important though I could probably talk real quick with my uh my friend who's a professor of turtle studies and ask that him what do you think about this if you'd be interested in that I do I all right it's Dr.
Turtleman available hey Dr. Turtleman hello hey how's it going uh yeah we've got so we've got somebody who's needs to learn a bunch of species and orders and families of birds in California is that oh that's oh come on really there's something on that that that's ridiculous uh yeah I mean what you gotta know it's not it's not like all of the different species and genie it's it's that these things are related and how they're related understanding the connection between organisms is much more valuable than understanding like being able to name the genus and order family and species of all the birds in California come on teachers there you go Dr. Turtleman everybody uh just when I thought he'd retire our next question comes from Talia or possibly Talia who asks dear John and Hank two weeks ago I got very sick and I ended up in the hospital I'm very sorry to hear about that Talia I'm a college student and now I'm left with a bill I can't afford oh my god this is even after the hospital cut my bill by more than 50 percent right but it was it was cut by more than 50 percent from like tens of thousands of dollars whereas if you'd gotten sick anywhere else in the world I assumed that you're American Talia because this is a problem for college students usually outside of America although it is occasionally um uh oh god anyway what do you do when you can't pay for something that you have to pay for Talia um I mean usually you sign up for a payment plan John sorry I was just opening a diet Dr. Pepper I don't know if you heard that but that's the sound of me feeling despondent um yeah I mean one real response which is go get yourself a six packet crisp diet Dr.
Pepper not the sponsor of this podcast it'll solve all your problems Talia no yeah I mean usually you get in touch with the hospital and you see if you can work out a payment plan over a long period of time another option in some cases is to file for bankruptcy if you don't have a lot of assets it may make sense the file for bankruptcy although that comes with its own set of problems um I just wanted to read this question mostly because I want to make the point that I believe very strongly that it is really bad for our economy and for our social order to even have the possibility that a college student can be left with a bill that they cannot afford it is bad it is bad economically it is bad policy it is bad social policy it makes our lives as Americans worse period yeah it is it kind of makes living in this country a little bit of a gamble and I know that like all life is a gamble and that things are bad things are gonna happen but um but eliminating those uncertainties is such a valuable thing for you know mental health but also the economy like allowing people to take the risks uh to do interesting things and to uh you know try to make their own business that may end up then having its own employees um and I it feels very strange to uh you know sometimes know that I have to compete with companies that don't have to pay for their employees health insurance and it's just like huh that must be easier in a lot of ways for you to not have to deal with that right but also it's in the best interest of our country and our economy to have Tanya focusing on her studies so that she can become a better educated person and you know be productive in not just the labor market but also in bringing new and interesting ideas into the world instead of having to stress out about paying her medical bills it should not be a thing that exists and we know that it doesn't have to exist because in a lot of the world it doesn't. This next question comes from Lena who asks dear Hank and John how do you eat trail mix am I supposed to stop my face with a handful of it at all at once or do I eat each piece one by one nuts and pretzels Lena are you what what what what it doesn't make any sense yeah you fill your whole hand up Lena and then you put that whole handful in your mouth and that's the whole great thing about trail mix is that you get all the different flavors all at once you get the little sight sweetness of the raisins and the crunchy uh salty of the nuts but you also get the crunchy very sweet of the peanut peanut butter peanut heaven what am I happening of the M&Ms I have to say Hank I feel like there have been a few occasions most of them have probably been cut out of the podcast by Nick but I think there have been a few occasions today where something went wrong with your circuitry and you just like it's almost like you had to like reboot um it's been a very long week it continues to be and I meant to eat a balance bar sometime in the last four hours and I just haven't yeah that also contributes to my having to reboot periodically this is what I want to say to Lena Lena when I first started dating the woman who is now my wife I remember we went out to see a movie it was called Lost in Translation and we sat next to each other as you do when you're on a first date um or usually and we sat next to each other and I had ordered a large popcorn because that's what I like to eat at the movies and and Sarah asked if she could have some of my popcorn and I said yeah of course not because I actually think it's okay for someone to take part of my large popcorn because I strongly strongly dislike it when someone takes any of my large popcorn but because you know it was a first date I was trying to impress her um but these days if anybody asked if they could have part of my large popcorn no get your own popcorn I didn't order this for you this is my popcorn and yes it comes with a free refill but that's my free refill anyway back to my story so Sarah reaches over into the popcorn bucket and pulls out a single piece of popcorn and then puts a single piece of popcorn in her mouth and Hank I could not have been more surprised if she had grown a second head uh it's good it's like putting water in your cereal it's so weird I that's not fair when I see someone eat a single piece like when I finish a large popcorn like and I stand up at the end of the movie it looks like there's been a massacre it looks like there was the Spartan popcorn versus the Persian popcorn so they had a whole like there was a there was a chicane uh there are a million dead yes um and I I know that that's terrible um I do always throw away my uh all my stuff I know that like it makes it hard for movie theater employees but I cannot I eat popcorn a handful at a time I eat uh trail mix a handful at a time of course you want as much food in your mouth as possible at any given moment John did she then later take a second piece of popcorn or did you just go correct okay so it wasn't like I will have this one thank you very much and then she was like I felt the wave of animosity coming off of this man who I thought it would be okay for me to ask me for his popcorn but clearly it wasn't no not at all no it was just uh it was a pure like she's still like she still she'll get a popcorn when we go to the movies and she'll eat it one piece at a time like I mean it's like what do you want another best popcorn related thing that ever happened to me so I went to so I went to the movies with one of our cousins and he got a popcorn and a box of M&M's and we sat down and this was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me I was like I was probably like 15 years old and he's like older than us and uh he got sent on his popcorn opened up his M&M's and just poured the M&M's into the popcorn oh yeah oh it's so cool I was like yeah oh my god it's so good it's so good it's like making your own trail mix oh it really is it's like way worse for you ah I mean I don't know about that just think about trail mix is that ostensibly you're eating it while walking whereas with the popcorn M&M combo you're eating it while reclining yeah trail mix has like that like like if popcorn M&M's was uh was like sort of a normal trail food then it would be fine because the point of trail mix is that there's a lot of food in it and it's easy to eat right whereas the point of the point of popcorn M&M's is not that like it's not like you need a lot of fuel for this three-hour movie-going experience all right our next question comes from Hannah who writes dear John and Hank my sister is python escaped several days ago and she just fed it so it's not even hungry um well okay okay it's okay I can't probably prefer a not hungry python all things being equal yeah so it's not even hungry so I think it's good news that it's not hungry it's such a bummer we don't have a hungry escape snake in the house yeah if only we if only the python was hungry then um it would reveal itself while strangling one of us to death I'm coming home from the christmas break very soon and my room hasn't had any way how very soon wait weeks okay wait okay the pythons how much do python eat do they eat like once every six months um how often do pythons eat um 10 to 14 days okay all right yeah all right so uh my room is the perfect quiet place for it to hide out how am I going to sleep at night how do I prevent it slithering next to me for heat oh is that okay if that's the main concern like I'm like I like if it's just cuddle time I mean I'm in I mean for snake cuddle time I don't I don't like wake up with no no no no I do not want to wake up out of a deep sleep to learn that there is a snake cuddled next to me hard stop I mean okay all right I agree I just think that it's not the worst possible outcome uh well I mean I guess it's not the worst possible outcome because the worst possible outcome is always death but like it's a very bad outcome hey there's an obvious solution here which is that this is not your python this is not your problem and this was not your mistake so you come home for the Christmas holidays and the first words out of your mouth are hello sister I will be sleeping in your room until the python is recovered yeah what I need from you what I need from you is when I arrive home all of my furniture is out of the room there's nothing nothing in the room and so I can see it's python freeness right just a complete lack of pythonity and then I can move all of the furniture back in one of the time you reintroduce things into your rooms i think I think we've solved the unfortunately uh hannah's already home in real life and so uh she's probably already been strangled to death by her sister's python sorry about that hannah which we got in your question earlier but uh you know so it goes hey it's okay it's okay to have a cuddle I just don't like I've I've met people who've gotten constrictors latched on their hands before and it sounds like it's real not good uh oh my god uh this next question comes from anika who asks dear hank of jon I have a dilemma I want to try to get information on current events from a variety of sources I currently use BBC and the economist for my main news sources making you more better at this than literally everyone however in a recent conversation with a friend she pointed out that both of those sources are fairly liberal I would use moderate and more conservative sources as well and hope to get a fuller picture of the economist is liberal in what world is the economist which I believe uh endorsed both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush a liberal magazine I don't know like the economist was in favor of american intervention into Vietnam and into iraq uh the economist is an extraordinarily in my opinion uh moderate news source like I think they um I think they in twitter and in 2016 but dot dot dot uh I think the economist is a very very middle of the road news source and it would only be considered like a liberal rag in my mind also it doesn't really fall along the lines of like totally along the lines of contemporary liberal conservative bias because its bias is is pretty strongly toward free markets which it used to be a conservative thing and now seems to be a thing that doesn't neatly fall on a liberal or conservative thing yeah um I feel like you're doing okay yeah anika's problem is that the only conservative news news source she knows about is fox news and it has some problems with them yeah I actually I would recommend if you're looking for a conservative news source that isn't like fox news that isn't kind of aggressively partisan and always constantly trying to frame every news story around um you know a left right axis I would read the waltzb journal I think the waltzb journal is a pretty consistently conservative paper at least in its editorial column and it's pretty in general not always but in general you know well reported stories so that's what I read but I think you're doing okay with the bbc and the economist you're doing better than most of us I mean most of us and I'm not and I'm guilty of this as much as anyone do nothing but read like the opinion pages at blah blah blah dot com slash opinion yeah I mean most to be very honest most of what I read is the headlines on Twitter so that's oh god I'm one of them oh god but then the great thing is you retweet the headline on Twitter because it's enraging yeah well I do I do try to read a little bit of the art of I'm gonna retweet it first but but I will say that there have been studies done that we tend not to do that as as as a rule so probably I do that as well yeah I mean in in limping to the finish line of 2017 heck I have to tell you that part of what I'm thinking about is what my 2018 is going to look like in terms of my relationship to the social internet because just um I sorry I had another hard reset there I I have such mixed feelings mm-hmm it's a hard one for me I love the dopamine rush of the social internet and also it's a big part of my professional life but at the same time I think it might be really bad for my brain yeah I think that it is it may be and it is very hard to use it in a constructive way I'm trying to do that more by asking myself how mr. Rogers would tweet and uh and that is is rewarding to some extent but all right okay I want to read some of your recent tweets to you just real quick if I may um just from the last you know what hey let's let's just the last 24 hours okay all right I'm gonna check out what I've what I've said okay um can anyone build a webpage very quickly that auto updates from the indiegogo API the person who donated them was recently and what perk they got like by friday that doesn't seem like something mr.
Rogers which we did like I don't think mr. Rogers had access to any of those ideas um well I mean maybe if mr. Rogers was running a charity campaign he needed somebody to help him out real quick let's go a little bit further back because Hank has tweeted a lot in the last 24 hours which also I would submit is not something mr. Rogers would have done um uh it's not it's not surprising that more hasn't conceded his campaign was based on the idea that he is the only credible institution in the country what that's not something mr.
Rogers would have tweeted people in power pushing the fake news narrative have nothing to lose from continuing to question every institution outside themselves again I'm not convinced mr. Rogers tweeted that no let's go back let's go back to 20 hours ago I agree that was that was the one I knew you were gonna pick too I was like when I tweeted I was like mr. Rogers wouldn't tweet this but then I did it anyway okay earlier yesterday you tweeted um okay Hank here's another example of a tweet that you tweeted very recently that I don't think mr. Rogers would have tweeted uh quote my mom just now so very long pause what is a furry yeah I don't I feel like maybe mr.
Rogers wouldn't have tweeted that but he might have tweeted the update tweet which was update my mom is excited that furries are living their best lives and hopes that the pressures of the world aren't getting to them too much Hank I do not know of a twitter feed I mean actually I do I was gonna say I don't know of a twitter feed that less resembles what mr. Rogers tweets would look like but of course I do I know of a couple yeah most of them yeah I so my argument would be that I think mr. Rogers might not be tweeting if he was it he was around in this particular timeline at this particular moment he'd be like eh I think I'm not gonna engage in that way yeah because like I think engaging in that way kind of comes with tweets that mr. Rogers wouldn't tweet let's let's move on to another question this one comes from Abigail who writes dear john and Hank after a recruiter came to my school I've seriously considered going into the u.s.
Navy many people told me that I can't do it because I'm only five feet tall and I've never really worked out a day in my life but I'm very determined to succeed in this endeavor I've started running and doing sit-ups and push-ups my mom isn't fond of this idea as most mothers wouldn't be she would rather me do two years of community college and then decide from there I make teens so I could use surper and enlist on my own but I really want her approval on this life choice because you know it's a big one any dubious advice is greatly appreciated not the root beer Abigail Whitcomb that's uh that's a a and W for those of you paying attention huh um Hank this is exciting because we get to decide if somebody goes into the Navy well if anybody's to be given that power it should be me first of all I'll say that I don't know that there are physical requirements that you uh like that they won't take a person under a certain height uh a lot of what is done in the Navy is work that doesn't necessarily require a lot of physicality I have a lot of several friends who are in the Navy who are not big strong people but I think that your mom is the is the more interesting part of this question and maybe friends who are like maybe maybe not do that it's a it's a big ask it is a thing that it is a big commitment and it is a commitment to something that you won't know if you like until you're there and that um that is that is what it is yeah um I'm gonna go ahead and just say do it Abigail join the Navy no I'm just kidding don't listen to podcasters about whether or not to join the Navy make that decision with your mom I um I understand that you couldn't list on your own but I also don't know that it will negatively impact your career to have two years of community college before you enlist in the Navy in fact it might be good for for your career and then even if you end up having your whole career in the Navy um you know a 20 year career that would put you at 40 when you retire from the Navy which isn't that old I know it seems I'll do right now Abigail I remember being 18 it seemed like 40 was forever away but let me tell you it arrives before you know it there's also separate kinds of being in the military there's officer school which is a very different track from just enlisting and that might be something that if you had a couple years of community college might be an option more open to you and that comes with a bunch of perks and and options that you don't necessarily have a few just in list that said Abigail you've come to the worst possible podcast to get advice on a military career yeah there there are probably some out there that actually have some experience whereas John and I have less than none yeah I mean we have a couple cousins who are in the Navy that's as close as we get and actually they're both out now so yeah no we have no experience today's podcast is brought to you by the United States Navy the United States Navy not a subject of expertise for the Green brothers podcast is also brought to you by limping to the end of 2017 just we'll get there we can do it and today's podcast is also brought to you by snake cuddles avoid them I don't know if I'm not surprised by them I'd be into it I'd be into some snake cuddles I just don't want to wake up and have snake cuddles be happening to me this podcast is additionally brought to you by M&M's and popcorn mixed together inside of my popcorn bucket and my mouth it's the best and maybe you'll be a little bit more careful to not drop any on the floor to create the battle field of lost lost popcorn souls all right that went on longer than I think any of us expected this one comes from Helen who writes here John and Hank I'm a first-year university student and I have two friends I love my friends and I feel very grateful to have gotten to know such a nice and genuine people so early on in my college experience however I've come across a huge problem and a threat to this sense of security I have in these friendships to my dismay recently both of them have separately confided in me that they have feelings for the other who is it how am I suddenly stuck in a teen rom-com where I want so much power of information and yet feel so powerless against the forces of my friends love for each other should I tell them how the other feels should I see how long this takes to play out and stay out of it mostly I'm worried that I will lose both of them if they're impending relationship either fails or I become an eternal third wheel should I find new friends dubious advice needed Helen all right Helen I got a great idea okay what is it so you're gonna take your friends and you're gonna go on a fun little adventure just like go someplace but you have to drive to and then get the like I don't know just a playground in a nearby town hang out there do the things that you like to do and then be like oh I gotta go and drive away and leave them there I mean that would have been like a kind of like a funny rom-com idea in 1997 pre-uber but now they would just be like three minutes behind you okay okay yeah okay so I'm like a Toyota G-cell you just be like I'm sorry Jane picked me up in the Toyota Tercel and we're coming back we'll be at the dorm three minutes later so this is even better this is better this is better for all kinds of reasons you get the uber and leave your car say I'm gonna leave the car so do you guys can go home I'll just get an uber home because I gotta my my python is really hungry and then just slash the tires of the car so they have to stay with the car but they can't leave oh yeah that's a really good way to ensure that your friendship doesn't get ruined by this new relationship just one of the tires let's just like it let's just nail it's gonna nail in there and they'll be like oh it's just a nail and then they have to work together absolutely resort to subterfuge yes that's a great plan no that's a terrible idea Hank Helen here's the thing man this is actually a really obvious situation your friends don't actually have feelings for each other they're testing you they agreed to pretend to have feelings for each other and to go to you separately to see how you would react it's a bit yeah you have to reverse prank the prank you've got a reverse prank the prank so what you need to do is you need to go to your friend let's say your friends are named Joey and Bob you need to go to Joey and you need to say Joey Bob told me something very very serious he told me that no backup Hank let's say your friends are named Joey and Chandler you need to go to Joey and you say Joey I have the most amazing news Chandler has feelings for you and then you go to Chandler and you say Chandler I have the most amazing news I am in love with you what is that way you've got a full friend situation right that's a proper love triangle way better yeah because this isn't even a love triangle this is just like it's not it's this is a love line it's it's not even a plot Helen yeah I mean I still so what's the most romantic thing you can think I've done what's the most romantic situation you can get in with you your friends you go shopping for a fish that's very romantic at a fish store and then and then but you only have enough money for one fish but then you realize as you're leaving you don't you don't need the fish so you give them the fish and then they haven't shared fish and it's basically like being married right that's how love blossoms um I have a couple problems with that strategy as well I you don't like any ideas well I've got okay so let's let's take a the bold choice here I think is for Helen to go to both Joey and Chandler and say you guys are crushing on each other and I think you should pursue this but I need to stay your friend no matter what no that's not good all right the reason I'm sympathetic to this problem Hank is that I definitely had this happen to me a bunch of times in college um like one time I was on a road trip with my two best friends to the Grand Canyon and we would like sleep in like 30 dollar a night hotels and then eventually like I realized that they like one afternoon I like saw them kissing at the Grand Canyon and I was like oh yeah no that explains why like I'm in one hotel room and they're like they're in the other I see what's the what's the actual thing you do is like you pick one of them and you say I'm pretty sure that if you go for it it'll work out right right because the next time they Joey comes to you and says like I really have feelings for Chandler you can just say listen I'm not positive but I suspect that if you talk to Chandler about this Chandler's gonna reciprocate if you're like hey we should go to the to the to the fish store and then it's a date and it's going it's moving that's not a date that's not a date I have a weird you have a weird definition of dates you want to one of your first dates with Sarah was to target you know very romantic see and this is better because there's fish I think they have fish at target actually not my target now maybe maybe it's maybe they may have fish at Walmart anyway I'm not sure we got a query and fish I don't want to get in trouble with the anti-equary and fish people they do have um fish fingers to target all right so now we're just in trouble with the vegans let's answer one more question from our listeners before we get to the incredible news from AFC Wimbledon I mean I oh god all right I'm so excited all right Hank yeah it's your turn to ask a question you ask it is is this final question John comes from Sarah who asks dear Hank and John when we say it's raining what is it mm yeah it is that's an upsetting thought to me I mean it's just the experience that I am inside of like the the bubble of reality that I sort of consider to be applicable to me at the moment is that it well I mean here's the thing like what does it mean to be like it is midnight what is midnight time it no it it is the thing that I am in right it's the it's my entire conception of my world that is applicable to me it is midnight it oh man it yeah I just don't think it means anything I think um I think like no because you could just it's just a way of saying raining but if you just say raining it doesn't feel like a sentence raining yeah you do you need a sentence and so you need a thing and you need a verb and you need a adjective and so so you need to what you need the adjective to apply to something um and that is it but I think there's actually there seems to be a phrase for this it's called a dummy pronoun oh yeah it's just a grammatical construct of English is what I'm reading which requires that ascendants have a subject so if you didn't need a subject for the sentence you could just say raining but since you need a subject for the sentence of some kind um you have to say it is raining and the thing that's raining is right just like you said like the universe around you like the your world in your world it is raining just as in your world it is midnight or in your world the sun is shining or this makes it is sunny this makes me think is there an amount of like individuality that is that is based on linguistics like knowing that that like an occurrence has to be happening to a thing and that thing is this dummy pronoun it but that it has to do with the world as I perceive it like does that affect how I see the world oh totally so Hank you may be uh familiar with the hot new book Turtles All The Way Down it's actually been number one of the New York Times by Solar List for eight consecutive weeks it is an actual book and not a construct correct it's it is not a dummy pronoun it is a book uh but uh I kind of wrote that book in the wake of this sort of extended period in which I felt that I was not a um like a singular noun and I I felt like all of the definitions that had been provided to me of self were completely inadequate in the face of my own experience with like the relationship between my consciousness and language and the relationship between what people were calling myself and the things that myself was supposed to be or be able to do and I mean my conclusion coming out of that period um which is a little bit what the book is about but mostly just like my personal conclusion coming out of that period is that um thought and self and like constructing self there's no way you can really construct self separate from thought and there's no way you can really in my opinion anyway in my experience no way I can construct thought separate from language like I can't I can't find a way into myself that makes sense except via language so it is raining is like a reflection to me of like the selfness of my experience it there where is it it's there it's here it's within it's it's in me it is in me okay now it got weird hey do you want to say the news from mars first or can I say the news from a sequel yeah I'll give you some quick news from mars so uh right now uh as of as of when we're recording this podcast some different temperature differentials have spawned uh dust storm at mars's north pole uh dust storms are I think that happen fairly frequently on mars but occasionally they will have there will be these gigantic uh like sort of planet-wide dust storms that can last for a very long time um you know like hundreds of days on the order of and uh we actually haven't had those for a while and that's very good because these dust storms will a lot of dust around which can get into the equipment of our rovers it can also block out the sun so the rovers that are powered by solar panels have a harder time functioning um so it's nice that we have had a break in large dust storms but it's possible that as since you know it has been a while since we've had one that another one is sort of on the way and maybe even forming right now so there's big old dust storm um and uh and hopefully uh it will not be one that affects too much of the areas where we have our rovers that's what's happening on mars right now john oh I really hope that the martian weather stays good for our rovers that would be oh it's so hard I mean think about working for nasa in this situation it seems to me is that you control for all the variables you can but the stakes are so high and you can never control for all the variables yeah yeah and and like that it's crazy that like weather is one of them because of course we are aware of of like when we plan a wedding we're like well we should probably have a place where we could do it indoors if we have to right yeah uh you cannot when you have like every three to four years there's a global martian dust storm that will impact the ability to do the mission that's you know three or four years is you know like the life of the curiosity rover so far so right um it's nice that we've had this little dust storm drought yeah no thank goodness for dust storm droughts well thank the news from afc Wimbledon I have to say it's just incredibly exciting which is that earlier today as we are recording this it was announced it's all over the english newspapers that afc Wimbledon have been given final permission to build their new stadium at plow lane returning to their historic homeland as you know hank for the last 25 years Wimbledon fans have been singing this song show me the way to plow lane i'm tired and i want to go home i had a football ground 20 years ago and i want one of my own and today they got final final approval to build that stadium to go home and it is an incredible moment for this club the stadium is going to seat between 11 and 20 000 people i think 11 000 people to start but it can be expanded to hold up to 20 000 people which would probably be enough to support a premier league club i'm just saying and uh it's it's a really wonderful moment the construction will begin fairly soon now that um now that they've been given final permission it is a 25 million dollar project that's a lot of money a lot of that money has been raised a lot hasn't and uh but they're hoping that this will be done the new stadium will be finished in time to play the 2019 2020 season uh Wimbledon back in Wimbledon back at their spiritual home it's just an amazing story of what fans can do when they come together whoo uh congratulations on this very exciting um and it just seems like uh things are going good for as a woman right now even even though you guys are still pretty far down at the bottom of the table yeah i mean for the like long-term health of the club and for the long-term well-being of the club the stadium is such a big deal because it allows you know it allows the club to be to have the kind of budget that you need to be in league one or the championship because you know they won't have the smallest stadium in the football league anymore as they currently do but yeah it's definitely it's going to be a difficult season i mean 20 games into a 46 game season and only one spot above the relegation places is definitely nerve-racking but uh i am hopeful i really am not least because we've got that Tottenham money coming in from the third round of the FA Cup all right john what did we learn today on this episode of dear hank and john we learned that hank is weirdly unafraid of snake cuddling and we learned that there are 600 species of birds in california and also we learned that the california quail is not just california state bird but also maybe california's next governor and finally we learned that sarah eats popcorn one popcorn at a time and also i now just also learned that the portal of popcorn is apparently popcorn done i didn't know that well there you go oh well thank thank you for pauteing with me thanks to everybody for listening i hope it's been a good 2017 for you uh even if it hasn't necessarily been the best year in a macro sense i hope it's been a good year for you um and uh thanks to everybody again for listening and you know pretty soon i'm going to be reaching out to everybody asking them for uh several million dollars for the cfc wibbledon stadium project so if you are a billionaire out there listening to your hank and john i've got a good place where your money can go without it saving any lives or curing any diseases all right podcast is produced by rosiana hollth rohasen shared and gifts and excited by nicholas dinkins our head of community and communications is victoria vanjarno the music that you're hearing right now and at the beginning of the episode and also at the beginning of this weekend ryan's our podcast about ryan's it's available only to our patreon patrons we really thank you to our patreon patrons uh we'll put some pictures of the california quail up there uh is by the great gunnerola and as they say in our hometown don't forget to be awesome