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137: Manhole & Me episode artwork

Apr 23, 2018 46 min

137: Manhole & Me

from Dear Hank & John

Why am I in Seattle? Why are bricks stacked that way in walls? Is nihilism hilarious? And more! Email us: [email protected] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

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137: Manhole & Me

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Hey, so something worth knowing is a benefit for the nonprofit organization that makes Crash Course and SciShow Complexly. It's September 16th, 2026 in Los Angeles, California at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. Please join us. It's going to be incredible.

Friends have complexity like Mark Rober, Katie Max, Simone Yech, and more will share inspiring talks about what makes them hopeful and join Hank Green on stage for fun, interactive discussions. Complexly has been creating free educational content like SciShow and PBSEons and Crash Course and Bizarre Beasts for nearly 15 years and 6 billion views. But this year, we've become a 501c3 nonprofit and we're doing something worth knowing as an in-person event that benefits Complexly and our impactful educational media. It's the first ever Complexly in-person event and it's a fundraiser to support our mission of inspiring curiosity and lowering barriers to knowledge building because curiosity builds understanding and understanding builds a better world.

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 this! Nope, it's wrong!

That's correct. I'll do what I... We should make a new rule that if you mess up the intro, I get to do the intro. But that's not how it works.

People will be so confused. Oh yeah, how would they cope? Probably our listening numbers would plummet as people would be rocked to their cores by the fact that I was doing the intro. Alright, do it.

Hello and welcome to Dear John and Hank. Or as I like to call it and is actually the name of the podcast of your Hank and John. It's a comedy podcast about death in which two brothers answer your questions provide you with doobies advice and bring you all the weeks news from Mars and da-da-da-da-da! AFC Wimbledon.

Hank usually in the podcast this is where I would ask you how you're doing. But instead we are introducing a new segment in our podcast that we're both very excited about called The Elephant in the Room. Every week Hank and I are going to count to three and say what we think the elephant in the room is. Here we go Hank.

One, two, three. Michael Cohen. What did you say? James Patterson?

The author? No, I said James Madison. James Madison, who is an author of The Federalist Papers. Last week I said it was James Monroe and 500.

More people wrote in about this than listen to the podcast. There was a campaign. The whole James Madison subreddit got involved. There was a change.org petition.

It was a really extreme situation. I am deeply, deeply sorry for saying that James Monroe wrote some of The Federalist Papers. It is one of the most embarrassing mistakes of my entire career right up there with saying that Benjamin Harrison was not an interesting president. When we all know he was the most interesting and important president of all American history.

Hank, why is Michael Cohen the elephant in the room this week? I don't know. Just a lot of people are talking about him on Twitter. Oh yeah.

He seems to be the elephant in the Twitter room. He's definitely a highly tweeted figure at the moment. He also has a Twitter. Although, I mean if I were his lawyer I would really recommend that he stop using it.

It seems like it seems like necessarily it seems like a lot of the people involved in this don't really love taking legal advice including the lawyers. Yeah increasingly Hank I really only have one piece of advice for the president for his lawyer for all of our listeners stop tweeting. Oh yeah. I would love to take that advice and I won't.

John do we have any questions for our listeners this week? His first question comes from Isaac who writes Dear John and Hank one of my most prized possessions is the signed by Hank periodic table that I got as a sub-group award. Subbable was a company we started that was eventually merged with Patreon. I'm currently having a party and someone pointed out to me that the table is now out of date as many elements have since been named.

The idea that you're emailing us during your party? Yeah I presume so. Do the party. No we've got a lot of emails this week from people who are currently doing things.

Maybe the theme of the week. Anyway the idea that my favorite wall decoration is now inaccurate causes me minor and persistent psychic discomfort. It can't be that persistent because you're currently at the party where this cut pointed out so it can't have been going on that possible solutions to this problem include reversing the naming decisions of the IUPAC to match my poster. I think we've hit it.

I think we've found the solution. I'll just write write a letter. Alternately reprinting the poster or stickers to add new and future elements. Any dubious advice would be appreciated?

Isaac. Actually Isaac we already reprinted the poster with the new elements. We did that with KTHA. We put it together.

We thought about doing stickers but it turned out that it was surprisingly weirdly hard to do sticker replacements for it so we didn't do that though I still like the idea of doing a sticker pack of the elements that they created because it's real good. So Isaac what I'm going to do for you is I'm going to assign one of those and I send it to you. Oh that's very nice of you. I thought you were going to be like Isaac what I would encourage you to do is buy a new one.

Yeah no I'm going to. Here's what's going to happen Isaac. Just give us your bank account number your social security and your mother's maiden name and we'll make sure that everything's taken care of. Oh you'll get a poster all right.

Isaac you're going to be buying a poster for the like every week for the rest of your life. It's just it's happened now. No I'll get in touch with you. This offer does not necessarily extend to all people who have a poster that is incomplete because it was correct at the time of printing but I do feel like since there has been this this persistent psychic discomfort that has lasted as far as I can tell through some period of a party I do want to do want to reach out to Isaac and make that right.

This next question is about A.S.C. Wimbledon John who asks Dear Hank and John but I assume mostly John I'm currently at an A.S.C. Wimbledon game this is people are at things waiting outside for the doors to open and I'm extremely anxious I'm a 20 year old girl and everyone here seems to be adult men it's probably because a guy asked me a question and when he heard my American accent he gave me a weird but negative look and now I feel like I should go my question is how do you make yourself feel comfortable at a place where you feel you don't belong too stressed to feel blessed Colleen well anytime you're doing something for the first time it's going to be weird especially if you're entering into a culture that you don't necessarily know well there are a lot of women at A.S.C. Wimbledon games but if you are in certain parts of the stadium it can feel pretty male heavy and I'm sorry that you felt anxious I hope that you ended up going to the game anyway based on when you sent this question I believe that you were at the game against Fleetwood which A.S.C.

Wimbledon lost so I'm sorry about that but look they've lost a lot of games this season Colleen so I hope that's a comfort to you. In general Hank when I am in Colleen's situation I do exactly what Colleen did which is I look at my phone and I try to think of something to do with it that's pretty much it I think that it's important to recognize that like this isn't a thing that isn't real you know obviously it only exists in our minds it only exists in culture but culture in our minds are very real things and that in our daily lives we generally end up in places where we feel very comfortable and that is very nice it's like a really great position to be in and then when you are in a place where you don't feel like you're part of the culture and you feel a little bit like am I observing am I intruding do I belong here do these people think that I'm just watching them because I think they're weird how do I how do I even interact it within this social space I don't understand any of the norms and that like having those experiences can be at least a piece of information for you to help understand when other people are in situations like that in areas where you are comfortable so that is a thing that happens to a lot of people that happens to all of us sometimes but I think that I for one I'm very lucky to not have that experience very often but I think that a lot of people have it all the time and I know that like there are you know there are a lot of refugees who live in in Missoula who have been recently resettled and I just think about that all the time with those families how they are constantly in a situation where they don't really understand the norms don't really understand you know the language in a lot of cases but but even if they do that you know just like how does all of this work and what am I supposed to be doing and how do I interact with this culture as a constant stress and so that's weirdly your experience that AFC World and Game may give you some insight into other people's experiences. I do hope that once you got into the game my experience anyway is that once you get into the game and you're sitting in the stadium I know it's stressful walking in my hope is that once you got into your seat you had a really good time despite AFC World and losing and you were able to enjoy the really high quality third tier English football and that it was fun please follow up and let me know how it went and don't go to a game for the rest of the season because you might be bad luck. All right this next question comes from Christina who writes Dear John and Hank I'm a teacher and I was ordering books in my classroom while also pre-ordering Hank's new book an absolutely remarkable thing which comes out September 25th.

Christina you're crushing it with your question already. One of the books in my classroom was also a pre-order and I noticed that it is set to be released on the same day as Hank's book. This may be wonder is that just a strange coincidence or is there an ideal day for books to be released each year that publishers shoot for? Also I ordered all the books through Amazon Smile with the foundation to increase World's Ex-Michaise and Charity.

Thank you for that Christina who signs off para aki a considerar que esta estado asde chegar which I'm sure is totally well pronounced Portuguese on my part. Do you know what that's sign off means? It says right here it says stop here and consider that you will reach this state too. So this chapel of bones where that quote comes from is a chapel that is actually made out of human bones in Portugal.

Our parents visited there because of course when mom was in Portugal she wanted to see the chapel of bones. She's you know I come by it honestly and the translation that my mother gave me to this quote that has really stuck in my head so much that it was in the first three drafts of turtles all the way down was here are the bones that wait for your bones. Oh that's not I mean from the little bit I know of Portuguese that's nothing like what that says. Yeah I mean I'm sure mom yeah mom arted it up of course she did.

Who can blame her? Who can blame her? Here hello I am a bone and I await your bones. I mean I think that is such a beautiful quote especially now that I think that mom came up with it.

It's so I love that quote these are the bones that wait for your bones like I just I really did like I tried to like horn it in to turtles all the way down and finally Julie was like this just has nothing to do with the book. They're young people and they're all healthy they're fine. Anyway my new book these are the bones that wait for your bones will be out in 2021. I like it.

I'm very excited for your lovely bone book. Yes as far as I know September is a good time for books to come out because it gives them some time to be thought and talked about before people buy each other books for Christmas. I think that's what's up. That is correct also for some reason there is a day of the week on which books come out that day of the week is Tuesday and it's very unusual for a book not to come out on a Tuesday and so books tend to get congregated because there are because there are only so many Tuesdays especially there are only so many Tuesdays in the fall and because a plurality of book buying happens in the last two months of the year it makes sense to have your book be kind of in the cultural conversation during that period.

Interesting. I John since you're now like a big super fancy cool author and you're a big deal and all that. I agree. How about what if the next time when your book the bone's waiting for your bones body boy comes out you're gonna you say you're publisher.

All right now I know this is gonna sound crazy. I know this is gonna sound weird. I know this is gonna upset you. Yeah but let's do it on a Wednesday.

Yeah no I did I tried that with turtles all the way down. I said I don't want to publish it on October 10th. I think that's a weird day. I want to publish it on October 12th on Thursday and Julie said no and I said why not it's the stupidest rule and she was like no because if we say we're gonna publish on October 12th everybody's gonna open the boxes on Tuesday because that's when they open the boxes.

So there you go I have tried it and I failed and I feel like my star is not rising so I had my shot and I and I took it and it didn't work. Great. This next question comes from Diana who writes Dear John and Hank why are bricks stacked in walls the way they are? Why are they staggered?

I always assumed it was a structural thing but the walls at my college just have bricks all lined up. So what gives? We're all gonna die Anna. Oh really good name.

Thank you John. It is so much more structurally sound to line the pricks to stagger the bricks. That's why bricks are always staggered. There's different staggerings that are sometimes used but occasionally during like the 60s to the 80s people were like you know it would be cool since we don't actually need these bricks for structural reasons.

We make them all lined up. So these bricks are not structural bricks. They are they are a facade and if there's if they aren't then there's something else going on because when you line them all up like the mortar is the only thing holding them together and these stacks and mortar the mortar is less sturdy than the brick. So yeah it's a facade and it's just to look good but it looks worse.

I don't know if it looks worse but it does look weird. So I recently for reasons I can't even begin to get into found myself in a situation where I had to destroy a small brick structure so that I could use those bricks to line a path that I cleared through my backyard because I've been spending a lot of time outside as a therapy strategy. Anyway the one thing that I learned is that it is definitely way better to stagger bricks. I'm not a mason but it's almost impossible to take even like a 120 year old building.

It's hard to take apart with with staggered bricks. Yeah no I mean it's there's a reason why bricks works and why all brick buildings look the same ish. In fact you don't even need mortar like for a long like if you want your building to be up for a long time of course you want to have mortar and even things out but you're gonna lay bricks together and just like do it and they will stay that way for an awful long time. Really?

Well I mean if you come at it from the top and like push down from the top yeah but that will walk down but like they they hold themselves in place. I don't know that I trust thanks for T-SUN bricks but I mean what do I know I'm somebody who thought James Monroe wrote some of the Federal newspapers. Yeah no I'm an expert on everything John all you got to do is say it loud enough. Oh man that's a really good summary of the patriarchy.

This next question comes from Natalie who asks here Hank and John since humans can be allergic to dogs cats horses etc can dogs cats horses etc have also be allergic to humans. What happens if you adopt a kitten and find out that it's allergic to you serious dubious advice needed you believe me Natalie. No that I mean that's that's a Russian reversal on a level I have never got my head around before I'm blown away by that. What can animals be allergic to humans?

Yeah they can John. Really? Yeah animals can have all the same allergies that and more that people have. It is unusual for humans to be allergic to humans though I think that that also can happen it can be a fairly dangerous condition but my cat is allergic to pollen and like when the spring comes around which is happening right now she starts to like coffin it's sad but yeah very rarely dogs and cats have been found to be allergic to human dander and in fact also dogs have been found to be allergic to cat dander and cats allergic to dog dander.

So yes it's a thing that can happen it tends to happen a lot less frequently in dogs and cats than humans and I think that your your guess is as good as mine as to why that is my guess is because humans are just bad at being organisms. We've taken we've taken it too much into our own hands. Right that's so true I was trying to explain to Alice recently that humans are animals and she just will not buy it. She's not having it.

It's the dumbest idea she's ever heard of she's like she keeps being like you're you're kidding you're being silly and I'm like no we are humans are animals Alice just stop being silly dad and I'm like no I promise I'm not kidding humans are animals and she's like we don't have hair. You gotta show her a hippo. I'm sorry backup how would you like a hippo make Alice believe that humans are animals because they don't have hair what are you talking about right but I mean like I don't care less like people yeah we got a great idea I'm going to show Alice a hippopotamus I'm going to say see Alice humans are clearly people here's our recent ancestor a hippopotamus. Okay maybe maybe start with the chimpanzee.

That might be a better case to make like Alice look at this chimpanzee if you see any relationship between that and yourself rather than Alice as you could see from this hippopotamus you are clearly an animal. I mean she I was going for her argument that we don't have fur and certain either do hippos. All right this next question comes from Dylan it's a somewhat serious one you're right dear John and Hank my long-term girlfriend recently broke up with me and after having something of a nervous breakdown I found myself flying from my small liberal arts college in Ohio. I wonder if Dylan went to I wonder if Dylan goes to my college to Seattle Washington for the weekend this would not be so weird except that I have never been to Seattle have no friends or family in Seattle and was not aware of having had any particularly strong inclination to visit Seattle before the breakup now I found myself living in a hostel with two very friendly Australian snowboarders and a dog named Snappy but I still don't know why I'm here any insight would be helpful neglected to bring a raincoat Dylan oh gosh uh Dylan um yeah I I think that you may have made a may have made a perfectly rational decision honestly sometimes you just need to pick up and like look at world the world from a new place and don't stay in Seattle forever go back to college but but yeah have a have a fresh perspective for a moment yeah I think what you're trying to do here Dylan is called the geographical cure and it never works but that hasn't stopped me from trying it over and over and over again so I think it's great try the geographical cure it's it's good for you I remember after my big college breakup ink I drove to Baltimore and I went to the Baltimore Museum of Art and I stood in front of all of these impressionist paintings at the Baltimore Museum of Art and just wept and I'm sure everybody thought I was so weird and then I got back in my car and I drove back to college I was I was gone for about a day and a half just walking around Baltimore feeling extremely lonely and it sort of helped to just be in a completely new different weird dislocated place that somehow reflected the sense of dislocation that I felt inside of me it probably cost like 150 bucks in total but you know cheaper than therapy yeah I don't I don't have any data on whether or not this actually can help can help deal with grief but I do see a lot of people doing it and I think that as long as it does not become sort of like a long term is like a skate like like trying to ignore the fact that that anything ever happened and try and reboot everything again it's not gonna hurt to try and be like okay let's let's just let's go get it let's go get a fresh let's go hang out with a dog named scrappy or chappy or flappy whatever it was those are all great dog names I think we might have just discovered Hank's secret superpower what what give me give me 20 good dog names right now go notebook Jennifer pants yes yes tambourine love it candle man hole nope you there we got there okay so it turns out it was looking really good for a minute but it turns out Hank does not have a secret superpower that allows him to name dogs somebody send me a picture of your dog manhole in your house if you get a new pattern you name it manhole i'll send you a free poster by far the worst dog name and like everything before that alvin is a great dog name pants is a great dog name you are you're on such a role even candle is a great dog name because it doesn't make any sense i love it but then i mean you just went in the worst possible direction oh man it's bad i got happy to be very nervous John i started to get like sweaty i got the meat sweat so i was like oh gosh shouldn't be put on the spot i don't know why what a dumb thing to get nervous about oh man today's podcast is brought to you by manholes manholes saving the world from sewage one large steel cylinder at a time it's more of a disc but okay good point it's definitely not a cylinder i mean i got just an extremely narrow it's a very thin cylinder yeah it's very thin cylinder i'm standing by my you know what forget it James Monroe did write the federalist papers and i'm not backing down if i weren't anything from this president it's to stick with your guns and you don't need to use mortar to build a brick house it's a conspiracy this house this podcast is also brought to you by very thin cylinders like coins and and symbols uh what else i love the idea of when you're like hey um how would you like to pay for this with dollar bills or with those extremely thin cylinders what are they called what are they called oh man and of course brought to you by the iupac the iupac it's time to re rename those elements or just no we don't want them at all anymore we can't we print it up here at a table so many times you can't just throw new elements at us and finally this podcast is brought to you by nervously looking at your phone when you're in a situation where you do not feel comfortable thank goodness that we have that now instead of like smoking a cigarette or just staring blankly at the sky like we used to have to we also have a project for awesome donor Sarah from st cloud Minnesota who wanted us to read this message to Jeanette Jeanette i'm so happy you've become a nerdfighter and i can share my excitement for all things nerdfighter with you i didn't get to choose you being my sister but you're my best friend and i would choose you to be my sister every day oh my god i'm gonna cry i even forgive you for screaming and nearly giving me a heart attack when we saw the turtles all the way down tour bus in st paul which john kina knows is not mini-appellus dftba yes sir if i've learned anything in the last six months it's that st paul is not mini-appellus and james minro did not write any federalist papers i'm glad i'm glad you're learning stuff jon just moving through the world making sure you know things about things oh man i mean i you just you love that moment at the beginning of an event in a room full of people where you can say like hello mini-appellus and it's just met by absolute silence because people from st paul minnesota are extremely polite and then a pause and then one person saying st paul this episode of your hand can jump into your by shopify there are a lot of things that stand between i have an idea and this is an idea that actually exists in the world and people are buying things from me and that is what shopify makes it easier when you start with shopify the tools to design and launch and take payments they're all there from day one you don't have to build a whole machine before you can start building the business and this is important because you also have to like look good and with shopify's templates you can get a site set up really quick that looks credible and professional without needing to code or duct tape a bunch of different tools together and when things look real that works on my brain to be like i'm doing a real thing it also works on other people's brains to be like this is legitimate shopify also has one of the best checkout systems on the internet it's built to help customers finish the purchase effectively and efficiently without a bunch of roadblocks returning customers can check out with a single click that means less friction and fewer abandoned carts and a smoother experience for everybody that stuff gives you confidence early on and gives other people confidence in what you're doing you're not wondering whether the payment 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One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels the days are a little more relaxed my kids don't have to wake up at five in the morning and I find myself reaching for the same comfortable go anywhere pieces again and again which is why I keep coming back to quince I often wear either a long sleeve or a short sleeve button down from quince and it fits well and I never have any complaints in fact sometimes I get compliments about it I was at the airport a couple days ago as I often find myself in airports and someone said I like your shirt and I said thanks it's from quince quince is 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable easy to throw on in the summer upgrade your rotation needs starting at just 34 dollars their tees are soft enough to live in all day and the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when those summer nights cool down so that's why I'm wearing quince this summer and you can make your summer wardrobe easier by going to quince.com slash deer hank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too that's qunce.com for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash deer hank. This episode of deer hank and John is brought to you by Factor imagine for a moment that you are absolutely immersed in some work where you're creating something beautiful or useful or useless and ugly but you love it anyway and you look up and suddenly you have a feeling and that feeling is that it is 2.30 pm and that you did not eat lunch what are you going to do are you going to get meal delivery that's going to cost too much and maybe be a bit of a mistake or are you going to go to the cupboard and just eat several fistfuls of peanuts because those are my two choices unless I have a factor in the fridge you can get smoky barbecue chicken breast with potato mashed cream corn and peppers you can get creamy lemon pepper chicken with veggie rice peel off broccoli and carrots this has the fiber I need it has the protein I need and it has the deliciousness I need what about garlic herb roasted barramundi with potato zucchini and burr blanc sauce I don't really know what that means but it sounds delicious what about a black bean taco bowl with corn salsa and cilantro crema a delicious high fiber high protein meal that no animals had to die for any of those can be ready in two minutes fresh never frozen over a hundred rotating weekly meals including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian factors shops perhaps cooks and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love this spring head to factor meals dot com slash deer hank 50 off and use the code deer hank 50 off to get 50 off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only wild supplies last until September 27th 2026 see website for more details this next question comes from Kenya who asks deer hank and john if I fill a pool with water how long would it take for the pool to be made entirely of new water molecules assuming that I am adding new water when the pool gets low from evaporation I asked my boyfriend he told me that this wouldn't ever happen or be measurable because of the rate in which water molecules move but I don't like that answer please help Kenya I like it I like when you don't like an answer you just like I'm gonna appeal to a higher authority these podcast guys right who are experts in water evaporation so it's a smart podcast to reach out to you don't want to go to your local water evaporation podcast you need to go to something broader yeah my assumption hank is that and correct me if I'm wrong is that if you're filling the I would say never it definitely is not never so in the long term if you're filling from a like just eventually what will happen and I'm talking about you know on geological scales here is that as the water evaporates it will leave behind minerals like all the ions and stuff that are dissolved in the water it's gonna leave that behind it's gonna start coating the side of the pool until finally eventually you're long dead by this point but the pool is just full of salts of just like magnesium and fluoride and sodium chloride and all of all this stuff so yeah you're gonna you're gonna end up with that with that if you're just a pool full of like chalky powders crisp crystalline something but before that happens before significantly before that happens the last molecule that was originally in a pool will evaporate and that is a thing that you can only determine statistically and you will never actually know when that happens also this would be this would change dramatically based on where this swimming pool is what the temperature is what the ambient humidity is so if you like obviously if it's like a pool in Arizona where it's very dry and hot it would happen much faster than if it was in like seattle where it's cold and wet so yeah that is the answer to your question we don't know but eventually there would be no original water molecules left and eventually it would be so full of ionic salts that you wouldn't be able to put any new water in wow that's kind of mind-blowing speaking of that hand you're into the bonneville salt flats in northwestern utah no it is a subject of the next episode of my podcast the Anthropocene reviewed and i was there a couple weeks ago and it is astonishing it's otherworldly part of the big scene on the white planet in the last jedi who was filled there and you can really feel it it looks and feels nothing like earth to me it was so surreal to be surrounded by that much salty ground that was once 500 feet under salty water weird and cool i would love yeah i would love to check out it's worth a trip plus nearby is west windover nivada which has a number of excellent casinos uh well you know me i hate that a lot oh i know it's so i i really wish that that we could share the incredible pleasure of three-card poker at a casino but we're just never going to be able to know it will be you enjoying yourself and me feeling as if my very uh the structure of my identity is being torn apart tiny piece by every card that comes down is just another piece of just straight anxiety trigger i went to a casino with hank once in las vegas and he played a game called casino war that might have the worst odds of any table game yeah it's basically you draw a card and the dior draws a card and whoever's card is higher wins the money except like there's a lot of ways that the dior is advantaged but hank won on his only bet and then he looked at me and he was like i think that's i'm good that's that's how i feel about like in general i feel like the point of casinos is not to win money but to win at all and so if i'm up i'm like why would i keep doing this i beat the casino i made 50 cents yeah i mean that is that is not my worldview it's just oh god i do not like gambling i mean i think the mayor of west window for devada came up to me at the end of my stay and said sir you're welcome here anytime oh no god not really but it was like that he could have oh god this next question it comes from easton who asks dior hank and john i have a problem until recently i thought i had a normal name problem is i realized that my name is cursed about a month ago i was writing my name and it seems strange as i looked at it in detail my full name is easton gunner lane but when you say it it sounds like i'm telling somebody directions like go easton gunner lane all of my friends have now realized this and can't stop nagging me about it how should i deal with it should i embrace it and be proud of it or change it like the emma situation dubious advice is uh dubious advice is requested as always i was almost named weston easton wow it would have also been exactly the same problem i just don't think easton sounds like easton no yeah i i think that uh i think this is fine i actually had a friend who was in a very similar situation who's raised her whole life had no idea that her name was a mandolin like a mandolin the instrument and she found this out in high school like somebody was like oh like that's clever and she was meant to her parents and she was like did you do this on purpose and they were like yeah and she did she went through 16 years of her life not knowing that they did do it on purpose yeah they did it on purpose i don't think that easton's parents necessarily did no easton in this situation i would just say to my friends like i'm sorry but my name doesn't sound anything like easton gunner lane my name is easton lane and just let it go definitely do not change your name love your name i love having a name it's a little bit different and even if it is a little bit of a pun that's okay that it's okay for your your name to also have this alternate identity as a as a fun little dad joke yeah and easton it's so nice to have a googolable name you know that only belongs to you the way that hank green does and john green doesn't yeah yeah poor john green my parents really figured out that that was that was the wrong call well they couldn't have foreseen google of course to be fair to them if only they had a foreseen google given you a more googolable name and also invested a thousand dollars in the company in the first year that would have that would have all been good for us yeah no then we would have been lucky yeah but as it is hank oh how we've suffered we're in no position to complain oh yeah all right hank let's answer one more question before we get to the all important news from mars and incredible shocking overwhelming tear jerking news from afc Wimbledon uh a question comes from jane here writes dear john and hank occasionally on the pod john will say something extremely bleak like that he has abandoned optimism and though it sounds earnest and sad and serious to me hank will be laughing the whole time i don't generally have problems interpreting tones so what's going on here is it an impossibly dry joke is hank laughing at john's paint to take left to stay long the sting of nihilism i'm an anguish over this jane v i i'm laughing as partially a defense mechanism and partially because i want it to sound like john's making a joke because i don't want people to to be sucked into his whole of nihilism i want to have their be laughter the soundtrack of laughter to make it seem as as if it isn't all terrible and and you should and the abandonment of optimism is in fact just so little joke john's making when in fact i don't think it is uh on some of it is an extremely dry joke because i really do believe as one of my core like really my only core belief the only thing that i'm i think i'm sure of is that hope is correct and that hope is true and that hope is the way to approach consciousness and life and everything else and so i am on some level kidding whenever i say like oh i'm abandoning optimism because of this or that that said like it is true that i'm always and i think lots of people like lots of people i'm always battling against nihilism i'm always trying to lean against it i always feel it closing in on me and so i think part of why hank laughs honestly is that he's been hearing me say this and struggle with it since he was like three i should i should write some short stories about about young john though please god don't please don't that would i mean if you want to really mess up our relationship that would be a great way to do it okay i'll think about it hey what's the news from mars or should we get straight to the incredible news from a of c Wimbledon uh let's do the news from mars first and since since it's so less exciting maybe um so space x is working on its gigantic rocket the bfr stands for big big falcon rocket probably might stand for something else depending on who you ask uh and the big falcon is going to be uh capable of getting to mars it's going to be one of the biggest rockets ever developed it is a massive cool thing and they have uh figured out probably where they're gonna be making it so uh you need a lot of space to make a big rocket but you also need to be able to move it to where it's gonna end up being so sometimes that means you assemble it like very close by and then you uh and then you you basically have a vehicle that it's only this one rocket um and then sometimes it means that you want to make it somewhere where there's easy access to a port where you can put it on a boat and you can take it anywhere basically like any of a number of places and that is the way that that space x wants to do it so that they can launch from multiple locations um potentially you know like in the space x is like long-term vision from dozens of places all over the world um they want to be manufacturing this thing at the port of los angeles which is kind of a nuts decision to me because and of course lots of decisions that space x has made have seemed nuts to me but turned out to be good decisions but because it takes a lot of space to make a rocket a big rocket and usually you would want to do that where land is cheap and the port of la is not a place where land is cheap so they're going to be leasing land at the port assembling the rocket there and of course that's nice for the employees who can live in a city instead of middle of nowhere but uh you know uh may or garcedy just announced that this was happening in his state of the city's speech that they're leasing part of the port of la to space x to to assemble the bfr and uh that'll mean maybe faster production faster moving the rocket from the place where it gets made to the place where it's gonna launch from and uh that's exciting and uh you know i think the kind of aggressive decision that the a person who wants to get to mars before 2028 would make it does it feel to you like there is any real possibility that this bfr will be sending anything to mars before 2028 yeah no actually it seems very likely to me that either the bfr or afalkan heavy will be taking a payload to mars before 2028 that payload will not include humans but we got we got across our fingers that eelon's doing is doing this thing and boeing's doing its thing and all and nasa's do it its thing but you know you know how it is i i mean i know what our podcast is going to be called in 2028 that's what i know the news from afc will then hank oh my gosh so as we're recording this uh it's three days after afc will then's game against wall saw it was a game it wasn't a game that wimbledon had to win exactly but it was a game that if wimbledon didn't win it became became difficult to see how we were not going to get relegated uh it would have put a lot of pressure on us and at halftime we were down to nil and i will remind you that wimbledon has not come from behind this season wow hard stop so it looked very bad at halftime i stopped watching the broadcast on my ifollow app and started listening to radio wdon because i literally could no longer bear to look directly at the thing and what happened in the second half is that lyle taylor won a penalty and then kicked the penalty which was saved but joe piggett managed to get the ball in the back of the net on the rebound and then it was 2-1 and then lyle taylor scored a fantastic half volley off of a very long kick from our goalkeeper george long and then it was 2-2 and this is a critical moment hank it's 2-2 in this game wimbledon have just come from behind from two nil down to tie the game 2-2 and they're celebrating all the players are celebrating except for captain berry fuller you can go and watch the highlights on youtube and see what i'm talking about the captain of the club berry fuller while everyone else is celebrating he picks up the ball and starts running back uh to the center of the pitch as if to say like that's great that we came from two nil down to tie 2-2 but what we need to do is win this game and it looked like wimbledon weren't gonna win and then in the 95th minute in the last minute of stoppage time lyle taylor was taken down in the box by a wall saw player that meant that there was a penalty kick dean parrot who was injured for much of the season stepped up to take the penalty kick absolutely snooker the ball into the top left corner it was a heck of a penalty i mean christiano rannaldo doesn't kick penalties that well under a huge amount of pressure last kick of the game afc wimbledon come from two nil down to win 3-2 and that takes them from 46 points to 49 points three points away from what has every year for the last 20 years been enough points to stay in league one unfortunately because of the how tight the table is it's possible that this year 52 points won't be enough so afc wimbledon have four games left in their season they need to win at least one of those games or get three draws probably to stay up but they may need even more than that so huge end of the season coming up but that win against wall saw i mean it really if we stay up this season we're gonna look back at that moment as the moment that made it possible i wept i was i could not control my emotions after that comeback it's just been it's been such a difficult season and you know we've been down in those relegation spots or near them for almost the entire season and to get that win when it was most critical it just uh felt amazing yeah well um that's great news and i'm very i'm very excited for you guys to stay up and in league one i hope that that happens is that the kind of thing that if it happens it'll be easier next year is it easier second year than first year well it'll be the third year next year if we stay up uh well i know it doesn't yeah yeah the playoff final was two years ago it it i agree it's gone so fast tank i feel the same way but yeah it'll be our third season in league one it it it doesn't get easier is the short answer i mean we'll continue to do our best hopefully there will be a little bit more resources that we had a nice third round ethic up tie at at Wembley against Tottenham which hopefully you know will will be enough of a payday that there's gonna be a little bit more money in the budget next season but there's already a lot pretty it's pretty clear that lyle taylor is going to move to a team in the second tier of English football next season and that i mean where do the goals come from yeah because they've all come from lyle so i of course you can't you can't tell tell a player you know not to not to move up a league when he has the opportunity to do so yeah so i if i mean what what lyle taylor said last week really stuck with me he said i this team isn't going to go down not on my watch and he clearly understands that you know his his Wimbledon time is coming to an end but he wants to make sure that Wimbledon doesn't go down on his watch and i i really appreciate that so it's exciting it's terrifying i have to say Hank i really appreciated your tweets the fact that you you've been following the last few games of the season has meant a lot to me and and i know lots of people out there in nerdfighteria are following along too so thank you and hopefully hopefully we're gonna scrape out enough points all right john it's time i think to determine if we can determine each other's phrases of the week great i didn't use mine oh but i used it last week so and talked about it extensively and so you should totally be able to get it is it the dc universe nope it's not the dc character universe it was the bees knees oh weird okay okay that's what it was though i'm sorry i forgot to use it i'm so bad at the phrase that we i lose i even gave you a reminder halfway through i want to apologize to all my friends and family and also to james minro and james mattison josh you just talked about the frickin bees knees of penalty kicks you could have said it i know i just got so caught up in talking about the game anyway i want to say thank you to kristina minnesis for giving me that phrase of the week that i used last week but failed to use this week i have no ideal what your phrase of the week was god john you're so bad at this you didn't even pay attention okay it took me a second but i do definitely have a guess okay i think it is one of the pet names that you suggested and i think it is manhole no no but you're very close you're very close it was in that section of the podcast after i had to list all of the all of the pets people will have identified this because it's a ridiculous phrase that was extremely hard to incorporate i said that i got sweaty and i referred to that as having the meat sweats it's funny because when you said that i thought i've never heard xay the meat sweats before but i totally know what he's talking about so yeah whatever i i went that slide by let me submit by the way that it is far weird here that you thought that an acceptable pet name is manhole but it is that you said the meat sweats yeah no i think that i think that was a really good guess job and thank you to brian thompson for submitting the meat sweats i'm so glad that i was able to slip it in you're a great work uh brian and great work thank you for potting with me hank thanks everybody for listening we're off to report our hit podcast on patreon this week and ryan's which you can get at patreon.com slash here hank and john but don't worry you can donate without getting our terrible this week and ryan's podcast as well yeah this podcast is edited by nicholas jankins it's produced by rosianna halsrow hossim shared and gifts in our head of community and communications is diktoria bongorno the music that you're hearing right now in the beginning of the podcast is by the great gunner rolla and as they say in our hometown don't forget to be awesome

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This episode was published on April 23, 2018.

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