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Think with your journey Hank? It's a comedy podcast and which two brothers answer you dubious questions. No answer your question. Give me to be surprised.
I'll bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, what is the elephant in the room? I just want to say for the record that we will be answering some dubious questions in this episode. Yeah no we usually do.
We usually sometimes I'm like I don't know that this question is asking from the perspective of a real situation or one that was just made up but either way I'm going to do it because it's a good question. Alright what's the elephant in the room John? Three, two, one, the F-signature. Wait what?
Walt Disney signature? Hank just made a video about Walt Disney's signature that is much better than it has any right to be. It is a really fascinating video and actually Hank this is as close as we've ever come to having the same elephant in the room because I felt like that was a more version of the Anthropocene review. It was a little bit of an episode of the Anthropocene Reviewed in five minutes with lots of graphics.
I had a really good time doing it but have not stopped being obsessed with it. I did not get to the bottom of it and I have been since the videos come out. Some people have given me more information and I've started to be really interested in talking to some people who are in their mid to late 80s because I need to talk to them now before all the good information they have is gone. Hank is going to get to the bottom of how the D in the Walt Disney logo came to be if it is the last thing he ever does.
Maybe it may well be the last thing he ever done. Just working at working hard. And your elephant in the room is your own podcast. I mean why not John?
Why not? Well yours is your own most recent video so I'm not going to apologize. There is a new episode of the Anthropocene Review that just came out. We're taking a break after this episode so go listen to this one now because there won't be a new one for a while.
The most recent one is about a 17,000 year old cave painting of a hand stencil and the Taco Bell Breakfast menu. Did you have a good VidCon John? I did. I had a very nice VidCon.
I really enjoyed myself. It was really lovely and I thought in many ways it was the best VidCon ever and I'm hugely grateful to the team who put it on and worked so hard to make sure that it was a safe fun event. You know it occurs to me that we should have made this whole intro with in mind the fact that now is now and in fact this episode may come out in months. Well the new episode of the Anthropocene Review will be the new episode of the Anthropocene Review for like a couple months.
Okay we don't know when this one's going to come out because we recorded two this week because I assume we're going to be busy doing something and somebody decided to schedule us for two podcasts. I'm going on vacation. This first question comes from Kelly who writes Dear John and Hank have either ever gone for a high five where the person you tried to high five didn't reciprocate or didn't realize what was happening and left you hanging. I always have so much anxiety about this to the point where I don't even go for high fives anymore since the stakes and my hands are often too high.
Great. Good. Very well written Kelly. Do you have any advice on what to do with my hands if I find myself in a non-reciprocal high five humiliation situation or am I doomed to remain hanging high fives?
Kelly. This I mean this happened to me at VidCon at least one time. Yeah. And I like what I did was I went too high just as just as Kelly said and people were confused by what I was doing and they were like that looks like not the thing you should do.
Are you raising your hand? Would you like to be called upon? Yeah and and then I was like no high five me and so I like which was not the most elegant solution to be like is anybody going to do the thing because I'm sitting here and I can't it is it's opening yourself up to a certain amount of vulnerability and when you're in that situation saying like high five me dang it is I think okay and I think that that's showing like a certain amount of confidence. No because what if somebody doesn't like applying their palm microbes to your palm microbes I don't want to put anybody under pressure to exchange palm microbes.
Well I mean any any initiation of a high five is putting people into that pressure. So what you just said is no one will ever high five again. Well I'm not saying no one should ever high five again. I'm just saying the hands are overwhelmingly the filthiest part of the body.
You could you could I'm up here for a high five and then you go elbows and I'm like yeah elbows any any recognition or the the fist bump that howie mandel does I'm a big fan of the howie mandel fist bump. I actually have a solution to this problem Hank I saw it happen live in an NBA game and it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. You know how after a free throw a lot of times like the players high five regardless of whether they make the free throw just as a way of kind of you know just ritualizing the process in an attempt to make free throws work better. No I don't.
Okay well that's a thing there's a lot of high five thing after free throws that's all you need to know for this. This one time I saw a player like went for a high five just as all the other players like turned around and was left just holding his hand up and what he did I thought this was brilliant was he brought his other hand up and he high five himself and then he put both his hands down and he just he was like I got you it's a wonderful example of self-care and it's a wonderful example of like positive self-talk like they don't want to high five you well I know somebody who does buddy it's yourself. Yeah I mean I have a similar thought which is like you're up there you're hanging just fist pump yeah that also works just be like whoosh this next question comes from Francisco who asks dear Hank and John my wife and I recently moved to a new state for work opportunities I have made a good impression on my boss and have been entrusted to house it while he and his family go to Australia for two weeks I assume for VidCon Australia where two where five days in my wife has locked us out the neighbor who supposedly had a spare key informed us that they never received a key help love the podcast sincerely sad Francisco well you've been I've assumed that you've been sleeping out on the rocks in the front yard because I think that they have zero escaping not not along because these people are very respectful of the water situation wherever you live and so you've been on the rocks waiting for this podcast to come out which I appreciate greatly I don't know if I ever told you this before Hank but this happened to a friend of mine but it happened immediately after their three-year-old son closed the door oh god so they went to open the door and they realized that the door had locked behind the kid and for like five minutes they watched the kid just like you know live in complete freedom and so like the kid walked to the refrigerator like open the refrigerator door and like rummaged around and closed it at the whole time they were like Jeffrey Jeffrey Jeffrey Jeffrey open the door open turn the knob turn the knob turn the knob and like the kid couldn't but then of course like the kid freaked out you know like it's like fine for five minutes and then it's a complete freak out situation and in the end they had to take off their shirt wrap it around their fist and punch a hole in their glass door in order to get back inside because they couldn't bear to wait for a locksmith so the situation isn't that bad hopefully yeah ideally you just call a locksmith and you're like listen I don't own this home but the owners are in Australia and trust me it's cool yeah yeah you're I swear you're not breaking into this very nice house just for me right it's true yeah I promise I've been in a similar situation where I was asked to to cats it and uh and and needed to break into a house because the the place they had not left the key where they said they were going to leave the key and there wasn't key and luckily one of the windows was open and I just cut through the screen and snuck in that way wow but if there's no way in you got it you got either locksmith you got a break a window man yeah it's unfortunate but I don't I don't see I don't see another solution unless have you tried the chimney don't try the chimney good god almighty what a terrible idea I mean this is the thing houses are built to not get broken into like it's the whole point right not the whole point there's like also you keep the rain off and stuff but but in general people like to make their houses difficult to enter if you if you would not like other people to enter them this next question comes from jasmine asked dear john hank when I was in college and upperclassman showed me a tumbler blog she ran about a mutual friend let's call him Ian in it she and some of her friends basically talked about Ian like he was a fandom they would write posts on why Ian is awesome discuss which girls they shipped him with etc oh wow it was a little odd but overall the blog was mostly harmless however about a year after learning about this blog I started dating Ian actually we've been together for several years now the problem is I've never told him about this tumbler should I on one hand there hasn't been a post on it in years and neither Ian nor I kept in contact with the girls who ran this blog on the other hand I'm not sure how Ian would respond to learning that such a thing exists and that I've been keeping it from him for so long marriage feels like it might be in the cards for us so should I just keep the secret from him for the rest of our lives and if I did tell him yes how would I even bring it up any duties advice would be appreciated infinite jess oh nicely done infinite jess I okay john I have a very specific set of feelings about this blog was not about Ian correct this blog was about the idea of Ian it was about like they had like you create mythologies around people when you're in social spaces yeah I did this in high school all the time where there were people who like I saw peripherally and saw from a distance and like my friends and I would make up like whole stories about their lives that weren't true and we knew they weren't true this blog is not about Ian you know who Ian is they did not know who Ian is you don't have to tell Ian about this but but 10 years into your marriage that's when you tell Ian no like I have a 10-year anniversary present for you there's something I've been hiding for the last 20 years 15 years I I had I also had something like this in high school there was this kid who went to our high school and everybody really loved him he was a great guy and people made made stickers you remember that Andre the Giant has a posse sticker that was popular in the early 90s we made stickers of this guy and then we put them all over the world actually like even look at how man what would it be like to be well I guess you know now because people do post put your stickers in places do they yeah there's a there's a bunch of pizza John stickers in the pizza restaurant I guess there are pizza John stickers out there and the answer to what is it like is it's pretty weird but I also like but what would it be like to be a high school student to have people like you well I think the big difference was that I still think I get like 50 cents for every pizza John sticker that gets sold whereas I don't like this kid ever made dollar and I highly doubt that Ian was paid for his likeness on the stumbler my feeling about it is that it's fine to keep it a secret because it's not about Ian but it's also fine to tell him I don't think that he'll be like shocked or freaked out I think he'll be like oh that's weird and not about me right it would be it probably is a sort of thing to have come up rather than something to bring up because if you bring it up it sounds like it's a big deal and I don't think it is yeah I agree I don't think it would be a big deal if it were like some bullying burn book thing but it's not yeah Ian is awesome and we have made up a whole mythology around Ian and all the great things that Ian is and then it turns out that Ian is awesome so no worries right but also normal also a normal we don't know that for sure at no point in Jess's letter to she say that Ian is not an amazing amazing person who deserves to have many tumblers written about him all right Jess we I'm gonna hold you accountable now and say we should find out more about Ian I don't need to know everything I do need to know everything Jess I want you to write me a book length introduction to Ian okay it's official John asked for that no actually I'm gonna take that back I don't want more than 200 words but I want it to be extremely comprehensive that sounds more like it this next question called from Paula who asked to your hand good John I just started a job a new adult job right out of college on the fifth floor of an office building I love it but there's a problem the elevator in the office building is extra remotely slow because of this I have to stand awkwardly next to people I don't know for minutes that is a slow elevator what makes it worse is that there is no elevator music so we stand there in silence is there something I should do to make the elevator ride less awkward should I make small talk with the office mates even though I never see them outside of the elevator help me I if I could I'd climb up the wall of Paula very good Paula well I mean you could climb up the stairs yeah that that was gonna be my suggestion as well have you have you considered the stairs because the great thing about the stairs is that you get a fair amount of exercise and you don't have to encounter strangers or if you do encounter them it's in a weird situation where you're sort of out of breath so you're not expected to speak right this is this is like a legitimate thing that I want to point out as someone who climbs stairs every day at the office or at my house I I'm like stairs are no big deal and then when I hit like the third flight if I'm in a hotel or in the convention center or something I'm like okay that's not nothing yeah I just am doing this still so five floors is a lot like it's not like I'm not saying you should be able to turn but but a month into this it won't be a big deal and it'll be faster than this low as everything elevator the only other alternative I think is to on your cell phone play Kesha's woman every time you get into the elevator oh or any song really then you're just then you get known at the office as the person who plays elevator music for us but I think it's whatever it should be the same song every day hey let's throw out some songs that would be good songs for Paula to play every single day on her five minute elevator ride in the morning margarita really solid I'm a believer by the monkeys sweet home Alabama very specific I don't know where the office building is I mean it's much better if it's in Maine than if it's in Alabama yeah I um no money no problems by notorious bng uh living on a pair by bongiovi very good that might be the best we might be done now that's it it's living on a prayer by bongiovi Paula every single day walk into that elevator and then just the booming noise of bongiovi it's because because you are you're halfway there you're on your way up um probably by the time you get to that part of the song you're halfway there right exactly the best part about living on a prayer is that it like begins with that like thumping drumming so like yeah that's like the moment the elevator closes it's just like all right i'm just gonna play it for you actually it's coming hold on wait for it oh does it have a yeah right as the door closes and everybody's like oh oh well okay well if we're doing this now day 672 of taking the elevator with Paula that's their doubt better than expected um i haven't had so much fun on diorhaka johnson's we found out about Ross bagnajian junior in the chipmunks do john do you know that that song uh do you know what it do you know what a double dactyl is i don't know what a double dactyl is it is it a kind of uh dinosaur it's a no it's a rhyme scheme oh it's a it's a rhyme scheme that tends to be used to just in poetry but living on the prayer actually has uses double dactyls do you know that living on a prayer was on that bonjovi album slippery when went which was the first cassette tape i ever owned uh it was my third favorite song on slippery when went behind my favorite song when i was nine years old wanted better alive um oh man wow and my second favorite song you know nine-year-old you give love a bad name oh oh that song was great i love that song i did not understand the theme of in third grade when i first uh listened to that album i imagine you also did not understand the theme of slippery when went in fact i did not understand it until just now when you said it i apologize i want to go back in time to when i thought it was a reference to recently washed floors uh no it's just that's because he gets so sweaty on stage next question great moving on i mean it was it was so good until it all went bad oh dear john and ink this question is from hannah dear john and hank as i was rolling around the streets of san francisco i realized something when you press that little button that says something along the lines of press to walk it doesn't seem to hurry up the process of changing the green light to red for pedestrians then i thought that maybe the number of people that press the button tells the machines if they can change the light but even if it impresses the button it still changes what is the point of this button dubious answers are appreciated hannah sure like here's just a straight up we had a bunch of fun just now so we're gonna have straight up answers they do different things in different places so in some places it's purely psychological it's like if there's not a button people are like when is the like it a change for me and so they just put a button there and it doesn't do anything like a closed door button in almost every elevator except in europe where i found out that you actually oftentimes have to push the closed door button which was a very huge surprise for me and i was sitting there in the elevator being like why i'm not going anywhere anyway there are also uh some buttons that are there for like uh vision impaired people so you push the button it will tell you it will give you updates in the situation until you wait or to walk um there are also buttons that actually do have an impact but and those are at intersections where the light doesn't change unless a car pulls up or unless somebody pushes the button and in that case oftentimes the button push will give you a longer light cycle a longer green for the cars going through the light and also you get that walk time where you instead if you didn't push the button you have a very quick green for just the cars that would not be quick enough for pedestrians so in short it's just like life sometimes you press a button and it matters and other times you press a button and it doesn't matter and you press the button the same way regardless and yeah you never know you just you just do what you sort of do what the pin-off to kind of telling you to do okay hank did you know that slippery when wet the bonch movie album i'm sorry to return to it but i'm not done yet so 3.4 million digital copies like once digital music became a thing enough people still love slippery when wet to buy 3.4 million digital copies of it i mean and as i assume that people had already purchased a tape and possibly a record and possibly a cd and then this is like the fourth time they're buying slippery when wet yeah it's so good that we have moved past this era we don't have to do this anymore we just pay our ten dollars a month for google play music or whatever youtube music for spot-fives i mean it's good for us i don't know that it's good for john bonjovian richison sambora the part working members of bonjovian john actually did you know that richison boar i have terrible news for you was not a member of john bonjovian spand anymore shut the front door are you serious it happened it happened some time creative differences i'm sure oh my god he left the band in 2013 how am i just hearing this breaking news well i i also didn't i just i just found out myself i have to admit thank we have another question this one comes from troy and by the way if we sound different that's because it's a week and a half later john's memory card got corrupted so we had half a podcast and now we are cutting in the second half the podcast it's true that my memory card got corrupted but just for the record it is not because i ate the memory card which is what happened last time my memory card got corrupted so in a way this is progress this was just an old-fashioned technological failure not me trying to eat a pretzel chip that turned out to be a memory card this next question comes from troy who writes hello that's how the email begins i work as a bookkeeper for a very well off small business and have been for the past two years i thought my wage was pretty decent given that i don't work many hours but recently the owner has gotten me to add his wife to the payroll and her pay is much higher than mine i asked what exactly she was doing as i've never seen her around the office and he said that she was going to take over some of the audit work he does which is very little and not worth the pay that she's getting oh troy this has nothing to do with value and everything to do with taxes basically is it right for me to negotiate a higher wage and use another employee's rate of pay as an argument to increase mine since i do the payroll and know what everyone else makes or is it wrong since that kind of information is supposed to be confidential i haven't fallen yet troy oh good name specific sign yeah john is right that this is a this is all about tax loopholes and uh and it is a little bit a little bit i don't know how above bord it all is it's very common it's very common for businesses that are owned by one person or by a couple to put both people in the couple on the payroll as a way of shifting the advantage yeah there's a bunch of advantages and also like you can put more into your retirement accounts and all this stuff but yeah it is very very common thing to do i would argue that it doesn't have anything to do with the value of your work troy and i don't think i'm generally it's a good idea to use information that should be confidential to negotiate your salary that said if you do think that you deserve a higher salary you should go and negotiate it i think that's i'm all for that i think people should do that more often i think if you add a lot of value to the company that you work for go in and make the case yeah and the worst thing that can happen is that the they'll be like oh in the situation we're in right now we really want to do that we're you know and then maybe you'll know a little bit more about how the company works and um and hopefully hopefully everybody realizes that that's not an antagonistic experience it is a um you know it's part of how uh businesses have to work exactly this next question comes from nicole who asks dear hank and john it's currently the day before my birthday and i had walked into work to see gifts from my co-workers sitting on my desks you have multiple desks that's amazing i politely thanked them talked about my plans for my birthday and then just went to work i'm really happy they gave me something but i found myself in a dilemma should i open their gifts right away or should people wait until they're in private to open gifts i used to think it was disrespectful to open birthday gifts in front of people but i don't my co-workers didn't think i don't appreciate them please help as i sit awkwardly next to a small pile of birthday gifts just short of a dime nicole oh that's good oh man nicole i mean uh the quality of first specific sign-offs on this podcast have never been higher um also the quality of your workplace like i feel like is this a prank like never have i ever been in a workplace where someone had a birthday and they received a small pile of gifts yeah me neither we're like hey maybe you'll get a cake maybe there will be a balloon maybe some will bring in cookies when i work to bookies that's because we all wouldn't want cookies when i worked at bookwise the rule wise that on your birthday you had to bring in your own damn cake really yeah because otherwise you got to remember when everybody's birthday is so you get just as much cake but it's the responsibility of the birthday owner to bring in the cake i thought it was a great solution anyway you are not under any responsibility whatsoever to open up these presents during work hours as a business owner i feel very strongly about that you open them up afterwards and then you send notes you send thank you right so that people know that you appreciated the gifts i mean it would be a like a very and like i don't know where we are right now i don't know i like i'm completely in left field i don't understand your workplace i don't understand this like we have a very supportive tight knit workplace but this would never happen and i can't imagine any situation that's not like a baby shower where an adult is surrounded by people as they open gifts it's like it's such it's super awkward surrounded by like that in a baby shower it's like your closest friends at work it's like this is it like okay everybody stand around while i find out what kind of bobblehead or action figure i was given by tony over and accounting i don't know what is done what do you get what you get from co-workers here's a here's a can of liqueurois i don't understand i got you a digital download of slippery when wet hahahaha good call back to onto a week and a half ago thank you we should venture by the way hang that it's been a fascinating weekend to have since we last recorded this podcast it surely has which is the biggest news by far um aside from the amazing moving tear jerking rescue of the wild boars soccer team in tailand which is just beautiful and the best of humanity and reminded me actually of your book hank because your book also explores the way that how great humanity can be at its best aside from that the big news of course this week is that i am now a character in the marvel cinematic universe as a result of the appearance of my book the fault in our stars in antman in the wasp which i can only assume was a subtle and very generous apology for the fact that the first antman movie absolutely destroyed paper towns of the box office when they came out the same weekend i mean it is it is uh it is antman but john you made antman cry yes the eighth largest franchise in all of marvel i mean the eighth largest franchise in all of marvel is still like it's like the tenth largest franchise in all of everything that's true that's a good point and i should add that i'm very grateful to have become a character in the marvel cinematic universe rather than in the d.c universe which is right now my very least favorite universe i mean oh man the things that are happening in the in the d.c character universe from michael cohen on down continued to be fascinating but not in a way that i want to be part of uh i think that we are in a transitionary moment where we do not know what to do with the tools that we have but eventually when we figure it out things will be okay right john i mean silver was very bad short-term news for the world in the 17th century and i i mean i guess it got better today's podcast is brought to you by twitter twitter i guess it will get better it's podcast is also brought to you by the book of in the book of in it's a book about everything to do with e and don't share it with Ian please and of course today's podcast is also brought to you by the self-life the self-life why high five someone else when you have your own microbiome to high five yourself with and also this podcast is brought to you by slippery windwet john hadn't thought about that one very hard and now he has oh i just want to go back just want to go back in time to a more innocent age john yes we have another question right it's from Mindy who asks dear hank and john i need your help i'm so confused about football scarves yeah why are the scarves so short i feel like you know the answer to this question you must have the answer to this question john i would like to support our new minnesota united team go lunes that's adorable and the marketing suggests that i should get a scarf but when i look at football scarves they seem really short as a nitter and a person who lives in a cold place i believe that a scar should be nearly as long as the wearer is tall which allows for adequate coverage of the face and neck and head football scarves aren't anywhere close to this why nanu nanu Mindy so Mindy great reference to a sitcom that nobody listening to this has ever seen hank before you can issue of soccer scarves nanu nanu reminded me of all the comedians which reminded me that last weekend i saw yachob smirnoff in real life in concert in branson mrs at the yachob smirnoff theater in branson wait there's a yachob smirnoff theater correct does he does he have like a standing engagement he is for many years he had a standing engagement there for like 25 years so those of you unfamiliar with yachob smirnoff he is a russian-american comedian who came to the united states and i think 1977 from the soviet union speaking no english whatsoever and built a small empire around being this like soviet dissident comedian and his catchphrase was america what a country and he's very funny and i have to say today yachob smirnoff is 67 years old he's playing in branson i would say the median age for the yachob smirnoff show was 74 we were definitely young people in the room and it was great he did a great job he still has it um he told a lot of the old jokes he told a lot of the new jokes and i i really enjoyed myself i was a little dubious going in but like i enjoyed myself so much and it made me think so hard that there may be like a yachob smirnoff review in the Anthropocene Review at some point that's how much i liked it and that's how interesting i found it anyway to get back to your question mini that was the whole thing that's it i just wanted i just wanted to tell you that hey a lot has happened in the last week and a half and i want to bring you up to date i like i like that a lot and i would like to interview yachob smirnoff and be like what was what's it been like to go to do the thing you did because i just i want to know how to transition you got you got to have so many transitions in in a career as a person who is uh uh in in the public eye and i need to know how to do that because i feel as if i have experienced some already and they come with difficulties yeah and i are deeply deeply interested on how people deal with being on what i call the other side of the mountain like when you're on your way down the other side of the mountain how do you make it fun and meaningful one of the ways that i make it fun and meaningful hank just just to give you a piece of advice is i remind myself that there were lots of things that i did not like about the previous side of the mountain it's true anyway to get back to your question mini which was about football scarves the reason is that most football teams do not play in minnesota and most people do not need scarves that are as long as the person is tall so i think there's two reasons for this one is that you know in in england and france and elder places where football started in the early 20th century shorter scarves made sense because they were cheaper to make they required less stuff and they were adequate for the covering of the neck and then the second reason is that the football scarf is partially intended as a thing that you hold up above your head and it needs to be the approximate width of your arms when they are held above your head in a y like you're doing the beginning of the ymca in the village people song right and so that is the proper length for a football scarf and i know that it isn't great minnesota but you've got to remember most of us aren't in minnesota so when you're when you're at a football game and you have your football scarf are you wearing your football scarf like a scarf or is it just like sitting on your lap getting ready for you to shake it oh i think if it's cold you're definitely wearing it as a scarf and then if you're not wearing just like draped over like is it just draped or is it wrapped i drape it unless it's properly cold and then i wrap okay so here's the situation yandy you need two scarves you need a regular normal scarf which you appeared to probably have plenty because you're a knitter and also you live in minnesota and then a route like you've got your scarf on and then you have your football scarf that just drapes across it's like wearing a like it's like wearing a pin that says like i like the lunes but it's a scarf and it's like it's there to let people know and it's it is a purely decorative scarf it appears that's exactly i think that's a good way to think about it just double scarf the situation nobody in minnesota ever regretted having a second scarf in winter absolutely yes have two scarves you like you're not going to complain about having another piece of fabric but john business idea really long scarves for the minnesota united team it's like you and i we're gonna make dozens of dollars it's not the worst business idea you found the last week and a half but it's actually i was going to say but it's also not the best but actually it is the best all right this next question comes from tristan who writes dear john and hank but mostly hank i discovered brotherhood 2.0 through eco geek a very long time ago wow a very long time ago back in 2007 thank you for sticking with us all this time tristan every now and then i check in on eco geek to see if it has been updated the last two updates are both in january of 2017 and 2018 respectively after the name changed to complexly for your company i figured eco geek would fully die but what is it with this weird zombie state for something that you used to care so much about b&p tristan parties and peppers pumpkins and penguins fried and prejudice it's what i would i always think what somebody puts b&p um yeah i i mean there when when i transitioned out from from being somebody who was working day to day on eco geek because because the videos things had had taken over so much that was in part because like i had so much stuff to do it was also in part because like i wasn't as enthusiastic about that project anymore because um blocking was changing and there was a lot of consolidation going on and people uh and it was sort of like i would either have to like put like make eco geek a blog on a bigger network or i was going to have to not do it anymore and also like i was kind of the way to get people to click on articles felt it was just too much too much clickbait for me to to make it feel valuable so there were things i didn't like about it so i kind of gave it over to some of the other writers and i was like keep keep this up if and when you want to and it is still really remarkable to see it there and also that like the design of eco geek uh hasn't you know 10 years later looks not super stale yeah but i think that's mostly because the internet has come all the way back around like bell bobs are back like for a while it did look stale but now like we're back to white mostly empty pages and i'm like eco geek looks pretty good these days oh man well i um yeah and i think that's largely the situation um and and also in general like you got it like there are parts of life that uh will come and go and um and and it still exists though because of part of me is always like we should be doing something with this there should be an eco geek youtube channel or something because i still do obviously i care a lot about the topic still yeah my feeling has always been that some things on the internet and some ways and other things and other ways and it's like life sometimes it goes out with a bang and sometimes with a whimper and i don't mind things continuing to be there and to live in small ways i know i understand the urge to want closure or to want an ending for things but i guess one of the things i like about the internet is that things often don't end in that straightforward way that feels more true to me yeah yeah hey before we get to the all important news from rz and as you will then i want to ask you one last question it's from megan it's a big one it's complicated it's hard to get into but it's also a beautiful question dear john and hank who is mr. rogers megan oh no i know well but um if you're a young person you might not know who mr.
rogers is except in so far as all the kindnesses that your parents have ever shown you come directly from mr. rogers um that we have a little book that sits on our downstairs toilet this is a bunch of mr. rogers quotes and and if you should get that book and just have it on your toilet because it's way better than looking at twitter why you're going to the bathroom there's also a great mr. rogers documentary uh just come out that's really really powerful and moving and kind of a balm in these times mr.
rogers was a children's television host on public television who also was a source of kindness in the world mm-hmm yeah just a really thoughtful empathetic person a uh you know a i don't know i don't know how i don't know how he happened but it's it's a it's marvelous that he did because um i know even now like we are starting to watch mr. rogers with orin though of course he doesn't get what's happening most of the time but like kathryn and i are like this is this is great thank you mr. rogers i feel better about stuff and also like that was some good advice and i'm like this is for this is for children but i am really i need this right now not like i need it like to bomb my soul like i need this advice right no i i completely agree i mean mr. rogers remains extremely relevant i do think that in our secular world one of the things that we need that we are struggling to find or haven't quite found yet is a version of sainthood and obviously saints are not perfect people and mr.
rogers was not a perfect person but if you're gonna have a saint i think you could do worse yeah i mean it's really it is nice to have people that you can definitely look up to can i tell you mr. roger's story hink yeah yeah mr. roger's worked in pittsburgh and is it about the car that got stolen it is you told that story on the podcast okay can i tell you mr. roger's story hink yeah this is a different one so mr.
roger's worked and lived in pittsburgh that's where they made the show and the fault-n-ner-stars movie was filmed in pittsburgh and mr. roger's mr. mcfili from the show remember mr. mcfili the male guy oh of course mr.
mcfili happened to find out that we were filming the fault-n-ner-stars and i don't know if it was him or his nephews and nieces or kids or granny or what somebody was a fan of the fault-n-ner-stars and mr. mcfili came to the fault-n-ner-stars set and was so kind and lovely and wonderful to us and gave us all this mr. roger's stuff for our kids and daniel tiger which is the show that mr. roger's studio is makes now and we you know have being able to take that stuff home to my kids was such a wonderful memory and i am it was just a wonderful little tiny thing sometimes people can do little tiny things that you know make a big impact on your life so thank you to mr.
mcfili and thank you to mr. roger's and now hank now it is time for the news from marzand mcfili i can't believe you met mr. mcfili oh he was so nice too man is that like very joss is that like the coolest celebrity encounter i've ever had i mean honestly maybe no no for me it was uh meeting going to the rock jonson you met join the rock jonson he handed me an mtv movie award not to brag i was not really meeting i mean i uh i looked at it i saw his bicep up real close my eyes were maybe four to five inches two did you did you tall guy i don't know if you told i was just hunched over real bad because i was nervous i thought this says but also you got to remember his biceps go like all the way up to his shoulder you know it's real weird to me that i i had i did have a hard time sort of processing yep uh that hulk hogan is sick seven i have a little i would have a hard time processing that except I once was on a plane with Hulk Hogan, so I know exactly how tall he is. Have I never told you this story?
You meet too many people. I've seen almost every celebrity on a plane. Every celebrity who travels via commercial aircraft I have been on a plane with. So Hulk Hogan, I was on a plane with Hulk Hogan.
I was seated in coach and he was seated in first class, but A, he stood for the entire flight. Like the moment the fastens he felt signing off, he stood up and he stood facing the rest of the plane, just like staring out at us. And the most amazing detail, Hank, is that unlike most celebrities, he was dressed precisely as Hulk Hogan. Like he was not wearing sunglasses, he was not trying to disguise himself in any way.
He was like, yes, it is Hulk Hogan on your plane, me Hulk Hogan staring at you for the next hour and 15 minutes. Well, when you're six, seven, you don't want to sit down, you want to stand up? You know the celebrity I've been on a plane with most often? Oh my, is it John Green?
What's happening right now? It's Snoop Dogg. I've been on a plane with Snoop Dogg four times. What?
Four times. At that point you're just like, okay, I guess we're friends, right? I met Snoop backstage at a thing once and we took a picture together because I guess his kids like my books or whatever. And he was very nice.
And everyone I've talked to about Snoop because I've sat next to his manager or people several times. They also be highly of him. But he does a much better job of disguising himself than Hulk Hogan, that's all they'll say. Ah, so maybe I have sat next to Snoop.
It's very possible, very possible. I think at some point we promised that people some Mars news, so I'm gonna do that instead of like, who's John been on a plane with before? You guys can't wait for my new spinoff podcast, people I've shared a plane with. So yeah, so the news of Mars is, so there's a meteorite, a beautiful little meteorite.
In fact, it's called Black Beauty. That's what they call it, the scientists because it's a pretty little Black meteorite that's from Mars. And this, you know, we have previous models of how Mars formed and when Mars first became sort of like the crust formed and then rain fell. So there's sort of this window between which, like there was definitely liquid water on Mars and then it's not being there.
And then when it started being there, it's basically the moment when there was a crust. So that is the window during which life could have happened. And so knowing that those dates is important. And the models, the mathematical models we have for how Mars would have formed indicates that the crust formed pretty late.
Later, like later than this now, this new evidence is showing us. So it's kind of like a hundred million years before the crust formed. It would have been more like 20 million years according to an analysis of this meteorite, which scientists did science too to sort of say, like, okay, this rock is a very old rock from the surface of Mars. And we can tell from, I think the zircon crystals in it that this rock formed just 20 million years after the formation of the solar system rather than like a hundred or 150 million years after the formation of the solar system, which was our previous guess.
So that's pretty big news. And it does, it has a pretty big impact on how we're imagining the sort of window of potential life on the surface of Mars. That's really interesting. So is it possible that there was life on Mars like long before there was life on Earth?
Well, yeah. I mean, that sort of the hypothesis is out there that like if there was, if we do find some evidence of former life on Mars, we could, we'll be able to tell whether that life shares a common ancestry with us. So was that life, and if it doesn't, it will actually be really hard to figure out if it counts because all the things we have to test for life are all based on our chemistry, but the idea that life could have gone from Earth to Mars, and that like all the Mars life just got knocked off of Earth on a meteorite, or that it came from Mars to Earth, and we are in fact all descendants of Martian microbes. Right.
It would be really neat. I would be amazing if after all of these decades of work to get humans to Mars, it turns out that we were Martians all along. And if that is the case, John question, does that mean we've already been to Mars so we got there before 2028? Hahaha.
If definitive proof is discovered that we are all Martians, at some point, before 2028 or after 2028, we will either continue to keep the podcast named Dear Hank and John, or we will change it back to the Hank and John. Yes, yes, that is a chance. But I mean, I want proof. I don't mean like climate change is real proof.
I mean, proper proof. Hahaha. That was just very clear. That was a joke.
That was a joke for Hank. That was a joke for Hank. And climate change is real, and that was a joke. Okay, the news from AFC Wimbledon.
Hank, there is so much news from AFC Wimbledon. We've lost all of our players, and we've gained entirely new set of players and we've played some friendly games at which these new players have had to encounter each other presumably for the first time. Yesterday, Neil Ardele said that he is still trying to sign, wait for it, seven more players. Oh my goodness gracious.
The season starts in like a month. Neil Ardele would like to have at least seven more signings for AFC Wimbledon this summer. So that is from South London Press in Mercury, which I think is South London's leading AFC Wimbledon newspaper. Alright, so I just want to introduce you to some of our new players.
First off, we have a new goalkeeper. It's a shame because I really liked George Long. He was great, but our new goalkeeper is named Tom King. Which lends itself to lots of puns.
So congratulations, Tom. He's excited to... I think he's on loan. He is on loan from Millwall.
We've had a lot of players on loan from Millwall over the years. We've had a good relationship with Millwall. They've provided us with some of our best players. So I'm all for it.
I'm excited about Tom King. We also have a new striker. His name is James Hansen, and he is a big, big lad. He's 30 years old, he's six feet, four inches tall, and in the past AFC Wimbledon has done well when we've had huge strikers who are difficult to deal with the most famous being of course, Ottawa and Fenwa.
But there are lots of other examples as well. So that's exciting news. We've got a new midfielder whose name is Mitch Pinoc, all I know is that on Twitter he calls himself Mitchy Pins. Really?
That's... Mitchy Pins. That sounds a lot like something you'd make up. I mean, I...
I agree with you 100%. It does sound like something I would make up. But his name is the Earp Hrreys of the Week Mitchy Pins. Mitchy Pins!
Anyway, I really hope he scores a lot of goals, because I want to say the words Mitchy Pins all the time. I don't even know if it's good news or bad news, but that's his name, Mitchy Pins. And we also signed a player on loan named Tenai Watson, who is a defender of Blade for Reading. People are excited about him.
People are fingers crossed, I guess. I have no idea if he's any good. He's young. Then he looks driven based on the one picture of him that I've seen.
So, yeah, that's the deal. We've got some new players. And there was also an interesting Meet the Manager event, which Neil hardly was asked a bunch of questions about last season. And one of the things that he said is that he was upset that some kind of clicks formed, and that he felt like the team wasn't on the same page, and that some of the players who've been released or moved on, he felt like were maybe part of that problem.
So now hopefully we'll have this sort of unified squad who all buy into the plan. Our preseason results so far have been excellent. We beat Reading. Pre-season doesn't really matter because a lot of times teams are starting not their best players to see who's good or who plays well together or whatever.
But we beat Reading 4-2, and Joe Pickett scored a goal. Or as I call him, Joey Piggs. Questy App, I can't think of Questy Apps. I'm not ready for this.
All season long. It's never going to stop. Every week, no matter who scores, I'm going to report on the exploits of Mitchy Pins, no matter what. Anyway, so that's the update.
We've had a good pre-season. Things seem to be going well, but it's entirely new players, so I don't know whether to be excited or terrified. John, I think that you should be excited. You guys are spending your cash, and I think you're doing it wisely.
Now, it's time for the phrase of the week, which I can definitively say you didn't say, because you said it last podcast and I still know what it is. What was it? Something about treadmills? It was treadmill shuffle-in, which was Camus dance move.
And I did say it last time, and I got away with it. It was incredibly impressive, but unfortunately the memory card didn't work. So I apologize to Camus Sigantra dance move who donated that for the project for Awesome. And even though you did say your phrase of the week last time, I don't flip and remember it.
What is it? Double Dactyl from Sierra. Thank you. But I will say that I did not, that Slippery Wind Wet or whatever song I was talking about back then does not have Double Dactylson.
And I lied to you, and it was very hard for me to keep lying to you. But I did that and powered through and didn't bring up the fact that I was lying, which was hard. Right, so the Double Dactyl Rimes game does not appear in any song on Slippery Wind Wet, Bunch of His Classic album. However, there is a Double Dactyl Rimes game example on Wikipedia involving our favorite president, Benjamin Harrison.
Wait, what? What? What was that was boring, and I got a lot of trouble for saying he was boring, so I'm going to read you this poem that I did not write, and I do not agree with its theme. It is a poem by John Hollander.
Higgly-piggly, Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President, was, and as such, served between Cleveland's and saved for this trivial idiosyncrasy didn't do much. Wow. Wow. Wow.
That's very weird. That is a very weird convergence of something dumb and silly and something dumb and silly. Suddenly having a large overlap on this podcast. Speaking of which, we have a Project for Awesome message from Boyer to read to Jess.
Boyer, thank you for donating to the Project for Awesome. Jess, this is your message. The Post Office isn't hiring in Fairbanks, so I guess you have to move back to Iowa now. Is that like a code?
Did I just send the Russians a message from Donald Trump? Don't use us this way. There's lots of ways to communicate on the internet now. Seriously, Michael Cohen, what did I just tell?
What did I just tell that Russian pop star who organized the meeting at Trump Tower? Anyway, if you're a real person, Boyer. And Jess, I hope that that message meant a lot to you. Or alternately that the Post Office starts hiring in Fairbanks because it is a lovely town.
Alright, John. Thank you for making a podcast with me. Thank you everyone for listening to this podcast which is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. It's produced by Rosie Anna Hoss and Sheridan Gibson.
Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjourno, the music that you're hearing right now and the beginning of the podcast is from the Great Gunnarolla and as they say in our home town. Don't forget to be awesome.