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Tickets to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your question, give you a advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John. What do you call 2000 mockingbirds?
What do you call 2000 mockingbirds Hank? Two kilomockingbirds. God, it's terrible. Thank you to Shawn if you're suggesting that opening bit.
Shawna wrote Good Morning, Brothers Green. One of my favorite bits that Hank used to do on vlogbrothers was tell terrible jokes since your both fathers might have suggested that you open with some dad jokes. My brother's name is Ryan for real. Shawna.
Shawna that was a great opening bit suggestion. We got so many wonderful emails thanks to all of you. I also wanted to highlight Corrie's. We might try this one as well.
Perhaps this isn't funny enough to be the opening bit for a comedy podcast, but I thought it would be awesome if you guys opened the pod by simply sharing something good with us. It could be a joke, a bit of good news, a fun fact. Anything that might lighten up the inevitably miserable, unawesome week that it is going to be. Well, Corrie, that's a little bit unnecessarily negative.
A little bit maybe. So what should we call that? What should we call that bit, John? What is that?
Maybe we could call that bit one good story. So some weeks you're going to get dad jokes, some weeks you're going to get one good story. Hank, I actually have one good story this week. It's not really uplifting, but it's weird.
Okay. Okay. So there was this couple named Jerry and Rita Alter who lived in a tiny town in New Mexico called Cliff and they had a secret. Rita Alter just died.
Her husband died five years earlier and their secret was, Hank, that 31 years ago, they stole a Willem de Kooning painting worth an estimated $160 million and then hung it in their bedroom for the last 30 years. Ah, so that did they not show anybody? It was just for them. Did they steal it with the intent?
I guess nobody knows because they're dead now and no one will ever know. How did nobody know that this was there? But they lived in a three bedroom ranch house worth like $110,000 and they had a $160 million painting hanging in their bedroom. Guys, okay, I've pulled up the story myself.
They look like a lovely couple. They look like your average American couple from the 1970s or 80s in these photos. They look like they could be our parents, John, and they seem quite happy and they've got wine in both of the pictures. So they like wine, but also they like stealing $160 million paintings.
I love it. I mean, obviously don't steal $160 million painting. People listening to this podcast. No, I can give you one piece of good advice.
It's that. Well, but if you do, if you do, then definitely just die without having sold it. Absolutely. Let it go back into the universe.
Don't try to sell it and then have the money. Do it just like just wait and then you'll be dead and then nobody will know. Do you want? She must know.
She's just like, please, no one go into my house until I die. I don't want to go to jail for the last extra like the last two months. Jerry Alter was also a writer hand and he wrote a story called The Eye of the Jaguar in which two people steal, wait for it, an emerald. That's how they never find you.
They steal an emerald. They take it out of a museum and bring it to their house and the story concludes and two pairs of eyes exclusively are there to see it. Oh, oh, damn. Wow.
Okay. What I need to know is if they also had an emerald. Right. I mean, they want to be such an emerald house.
Maybe they have an emerald too. So I've read the part of this article now and they so the person who figured this out saw it like an antique shop and it's like, or they own the antique shop where it ended up and and they were like, actually, I think this is real. So they called the museum and they were like, they basically told the receptionist. I think I have a piece of art that was stolen from you and then the receptionist asked what piece and he said the decooning and she said, hold please.
Oh my god. All right. So this painting has now been delivered back to its rightful place and it was definitely them that stole the painting and they just held onto it for 30 years so that they could have their two pairs of eyes enjoying their emerald. What a weird world, John.
Yeah, I'm not sure that that technically qualifies as good news, but it's the news that you got my friends. Let's move on to some questions from our listeners. This first one comes from Audrey who asks, Dear Hank and John, my oldest friend just told me that her favorite painters are the pre-raphaelites. Should I still be friends with her?
I don't know how to get past this paintings and pain, Audrey. John, you're going to have to have this one because I don't like that as far as I can tell the pre-raphaelites. I have no idea. No idea.
That's the Renaissance? No, it was a movement that wanted to go back to a world pre-Raphael that is before. Oh, so they weren't before Raphael. They were like, everything was good back then.
Raphael ruined everything. Exactly. So they were 19th century artists trying to harken back to a better time, which there's a long history of, of course. Nothing seems better than the past due to it's being fixed.
Yeah, it's much less scary at least. There's no way that the world is going to end in 1854. It's just not going to happen. Right, exactly.
Everything seems survivable on account of it having been survived. Look, I think that there are times when you can judge your friends for their taste, and there are times when you can't. And to me, this is one of those times when you don't need to. It's not the same thing as liking, I don't know, what's something that's really reprehensible, Hank.
Infowars? Great example. It's not like your best friend said that their favorite artist is, I can't even remember the name of the host of Infowars. Well, that's lovely for you.
I wish I lived in that world, but I'm not going to say his name, John. I have no interest in it. Thank you. Thanks.
I'm looking forward to not learning it. Okay. So I think you've just got to, you got to roll with the punches on this one, Audrey. It's going to be okay.
All right, Hank, this next question comes from April, and it's one of immediate concern. Dear John, and Hank, how does the Eiffel Tower's bathroom work? I was up there a few days ago, and I cannot stop thinking about how on the second floor they were bathrooms, but nothing underneath them. Where does it go?
In Paris, April. Oh, well, I've never been there. I've never been, do you ever used a toilet in the Eiffel Tower, John? It is actually inaccurate for you to say that you have never been to the Eiffel Tower.
I've never been up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. And indeed, you don't need to, as April points out, the bathrooms are on the second floor, where we have definitely been together. To the second floor of the Eiffel Tower? Yes.
Or all the way to the top. Did I go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and forget about it, John? I don't know if you went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I know I sure as hell didn't.
Okay, then we probably didn't. Boy, if I have, then I really shouldn't put anything on my bucket list because I will just forget about it. Well, I guess everything's fleeting, John. I guess someday I will forget everything because I will have died.
I mean, it seems like we've switched bodies for this episode of the podcast. So I guess I'll answer the second. So I guess I'll answer the science question. The way it works is that while there is nothing directly underneath the bathrooms of the Eiffel Tower, there are pipes that go from beneath the bathroom and then kind of like go along the sides of the tower and then go down into the ground.
That is the way it works. That's why there is a bathroom there, but at least as I can recall, there's not a bathroom like on top of the Eiffel Tower because that would have been more of an aesthetic challenge. Maybe. I mean, the nice thing about being up high is that gravity takes it all down.
And that's really what you're relying on with with with pipes is the water pressure in the sucking and the rolling and the gravity. So yes, otherwise, there are so many people who go to Eiffel Tower, they must be making a glass of waste. And you don't want to see how high up the Eiffel Tower would be if it just like kept being raised upon the pile of human human leavings that were not piped away. That's really that's great.
Thanks for thanks for that image. I'm glad that I get to go forward in life having to imagine that. I don't remember very much about being at the Eiffel Tower, but I'll never forget that. Well, I'm not really curious how how many visitors to the Eiffel Tower would just have to poop when they arrive.
Well, I'm sure well. I'm sure Eiffel Tower to just be completely buried in poop. Like how long would it take? Oh, I don't know.
I'd like to see some stats on that. I think that's an interesting question and an important one to answer. We should probably put aside everything else that we do with our lives and focus full time on that. Hank, do you know that there's a picture of me taking just outside the Eiffel Tower?
I didn't actually get to visit it, but while we were doing press stuff for paper towns, we went outside the Eiffel Tower to take a picture. And the picture features Cara de Levine taking a rose and touching it against my cheek. And she looks extremely put together in high fashiony. And I look like my schlebi self.
And it's Sarah's favorite picture of me. And she insists on putting it up amid the rest of our family pictures in the family picture hallway. You and your children, your wife and this fashion model. Exactly.
Except for one picture of Cara with her arm around me touching my face with a flower with the Eiffel Tower in the background. I found it. I found it. I'm looking at it right now.
That is very weird. It's so weird. It's a very weird photo. Oh man, it's on Pinterest.
Like when Cara was taking the picture, she was like, this is so weird, but she's so good. Like she's such a pro. She was like, sure, whatever, I'll go to the Eiffel Tower and touch you with this weird flower. Oh man, that's a weird photograph, John.
You look lovely. You look very nice. Thank you. That's my I was wearing my best suit by a wide margin.
That's better than any suit I own by a wide margin. That's for sure. I'm gonna have to get a suit. I mean, yeah, I have I told you this before, I think a lot of times, but I'll tell you again, you need to buy a suit.
It is a good investment for a person who has your job, but I feel like that's not the oh man. I just found the picture of her touching me with the rose and it's so funny. It's funny. Yeah.
Oh man, it's a little bit on the patreon. You can go to patreon.com slash D or handcon John. You don't have to pay or anything to get access to this sweet, sweet picture. Very, very lovely and very weird.
Oh, there's also a cute picture of Sarah and me with Cara and Nat in the background making funny faces. I'll put that on the patreon too. These are adorable. It really was a super fun time in my life, even though that particular day I had to spend 14 hours in a hotel basement answering questions from people who only spoke French.
It was still a great trip. This next question, it comes from Beth who asks Dear Hank and John a few weeks ago, I obtained a vintage school desk from my in-laws garage sale while picking it up. They mentioned that there was a freebie item inside the desk. That's exciting.
That item turned out to be a random tooth. Oh, in case in gold. Hey, nobody knows who the tooth originally belonged to. Only that they must have had poor dental hygiene due to the state of the tooth.
My question is, what should I do with this tooth? I don't want to put it in the box where I have all of my baby teeth. Okay. Of course you don't do who on earth would suggest that.
But I want to give, but I don't want to just have it lying around either. Any thoughts or do me advice would be helpful. Beth, John, what do you think about having your baby teeth still? Do you do have in a box your own baby teeth?
I have a couple of my own baby teeth and I did recently take them out to show them to Henry who's losing his teeth now. You know, losing his baby teeth now. And I was like, you know, this happened to your dad too. And Henry was like, this is gross.
Why did you keep these? And then that made me think, this is gross. Why did I keep them? But Beth, Beth, we're not talking about you keeping your teeth, which is fine.
A different question altogether. We're talking about you keeping a stranger's tooth that you inherited from your in-laws via purchasing a school desk at their garage sale. You didn't you didn't inherit this from your in-laws. You inherited it from a desk.
You inherited a tooth from a desk. It's just you found some trash. No, no, you found some trash covered in gold. You need to sell the gold and throw away the tooth.
However, that works. I don't know. I assume you just go to one of the 10,000 places that say we buy gold in all capital letters. Yeah.
And you're like, look, this one's wrapped around some trash. Do you want it? I actually think the best thing that you can do in this situation, Hank, is when you have a garage sale is just put it inside of something random, like put it inside of your Teddy Ruxpin. Yeah.
No teeth inside of Teddy Ruxpin. That's fair. No, you just glue it in like a molar so they don't notice it when they first get the Teddy Ruxpin. But then like when Teddy Ruxpin starts to talk, he opens his mouth.
Oh, no. It's just one tooth in the back. There's no batteries in the type of you say, oh, you need to get batteries for it. And then when I open the battery compartment, it's just teeth, just teeth like 80 teeth.
That's what you do with your baby teeth. You glue them into your Teddy Ruxpin. And then you sell the Teddy Ruxpin for like five bucks at a garage sale and you scare a child for life. Okay.
Well, the great news is that you've got some gold, you've got some gold wraps trash and that's way better than just trash. So that's not nothing. Hey, Hank, do you think that the people who are in this podcast even know what Teddy Ruxpin is? It occurs to me that Teddy Ruxpin might not be a going concern.
Oh, sure. Let's let's do a quick Twitter poll, John. And I'll let you know at the end of the podcast how many people know what Teddy Ruxpin is. I mean, Teddy Ruxpin is old enough that he ran on cassettes.
That's all I'm saying. He is a tape based toy. John, I am old enough that I ran on cassettes. So let's not be to me.
Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Just doing the Twitter poll. I'll let you know what I'm done. All right, we got another question.
This one comes from Rachel who writes, Dear John and Hank, my close friend just told me he was planning on asking out one of our other friends to put it lightly. Our entire friend group has been waiting for this day for a year and a half. So I'm nothing short of ecstatic. Okay.
There's one small problem. I can't tell anyone and I'm awful at keeping secrets. I'm so bad at keeping secrets that I can't keep my own. I've known about this for an hour and I've only told two people.
That's that's not good, Rachel. Well, is it us? Is it? Are we the two people?
No, oh, we are the two people. Okay, good. Rachel, Rachel, you're doing great. You're doing great.
We are the two people. Now I get your joke. How do I not ruin the surprise? I can't contain myself, not from friends Rachel.
Rachel, I think what if there was a thing where there was like, it was a website that was like secret keepers and then you go to secretkeepers.com. Don't go there because we don't know this domain. I don't know what's there. And there's somebody there who can listen to your secret and be like, Oh, tell me more.
That sounds exciting. And then you can just get it all out and tell this. But this isn't my problem when it comes to keeping secrets. My problem is I forget that it should be a secret and I just say it.
Well, that's obviously not Rachel's problem. Rachel desperately needs someone that she can talk to you about this secret. Well, she found us. So that's good.
We're providing that service not in like a really sort of rapid back and forth, but at least there's some communication going on. But yeah, maybe there's there's got to be somebody out there, some stranger who will listen to your secret and have you listen to theirs. Yeah, maybe just go to the mall and walk up to a stranger and say, Hey, can I tell you a secret? That's a bad idea.
That's bad advice. I take it back, Rachel. Don't do that. Don't do that.
You're just like getting a getting chicken McNuggets. You're gonna get a chicken McDonald's and you're like, you're like, can I pay with credit and they take the credit card and you're like, Hey, can I tell you a secret drive through? And they're like, may I take your order? And you're like, Yes, but first, may I tell you a secret?
Jim is about to ask out Pam. Here's my order. I order you to listen to me right now. I have to tell you about 10 minutes of your time because I need to tell you about this Pam and Jim situation.
Do not waste the time of service employees telling secrets. What if there's a horse? Because a horse can't say your secret to anybody else. So what if there's a horse somewhere nearby that you can talk to?
Is there are there any nearby horses? Rachel, I'm going to expand Hank's answer just a little bit and say, are there any nearby mammals that are non-humans? So if you don't have a horse, which there's a pretty good chance you don't, maybe you have a cat or a dog and you can go to your cat and you can be like, Hey, manhole, can I tell you a secret? Pam's about to ask out Jim.
I want to tell everybody, but I'm just going to tell you manhole because everybody knows your name, your cat manhole. I think we got it, John. I think we nailed it. Hank, good names for good names for cats.
Go pants. Good name more. Fidget keep going lighthouse. Yep.
Polar bear. Yes. Straw. Dang it.
Dang it. Polar bear. How can you draw probably isn't a good one? How can you know so many good names for cats, like pants and polar bear and then also be the person responsible for straw and manhole is cat's name.
John, I mean, okay, fine. You try. Names for cats. Go.
Mr. Wiggles. Okay. Lady Macbeth.
That was great. The Tudor monarchy. That's not good. That's not good.
That's distracted by Lady Macbeth. You're going to just add Tudor. That's a great cat name. Yeah.
John, you want to do a serious question? This one's from anonymous who asks dear podcasts if through her person. Her name is Rosie Anna. I was born rich, like 1% of Americans rich.
I don't mean to sound gross or boastful because it's actually something I struggle with. So here's my question. I hear friends, colleagues, family, sometimes joke that my accomplishments were only available to me in the first place because of my parents, my education, my career, my relationships, etc. I'm afraid maybe they're right.
Part of me just wants to accept my lot in life and move on, but I also feel like this is deeply unsatisfying. So what's the best way to get out of the shadow of my parents triumphs? A mouse. Here's the thing.
They are right in the sense that you do benefit tremendously from having privileges and from growing up rich and you have to accept that. Yeah. I mean, it's such a it's we do want to believe in our agency and that we are responsible for the outcome of our lives. And that is in many cases, true.
That is the case. That is fact. Like, we make decisions and we make good ones and we work hard, but it is not the only part of the picture. It's not the only piece, but understanding that that's not the only piece, I think is important that you have advantages that you didn't necessarily earn or that you don't deserve and getting away from the idea of like, of like my responsibility, like how much am I responsible for what I have, how much agency have I had in that and how much do I deserve what I have getting away from that, I think is really important and focusing more on what can I do, what have I done, how can I make myself healthier and happier and also how can I make the people around me and my society healthier and happier with the resources that I have and seeing it as not this like weight around you that says like, Oh, no, I have to I have to have this thing that differentiates me and that also to some extent people might judge me because of into like, this is not a weight, it is a resource and I should be using it to do the best thing that I can do.
Does that make sense? I mean, to be frank, Hank, this is something that both our kids are going to grow up with. They're not going to grow up tremendously wealthy, but they're going to grow up much wealthier than most people. And so it's something I've thought about and I it's also that we grew up in a very privileged situation relatively speaking.
And I think that deserving is the wrong way to think about it, because you don't deserve the good things that you get in life. You also don't deserve the terrible things that you get in life. Like the fact that Hank grew up with a tremendous set of privileges does not mean that he deserves to have ulcerative colitis. I think deserving is just the wrong way to think about it.
And instead, as Hank said, thinking about it as resources and what you can do for your social order, for the people around you, that's the way to think about it. So anonymous, all we can say is whatever you are in life, try to use your resources thoughtfully and carefully. Yeah, and it sounds like it sounds like you are already thinking about that stuff critically, which is, you know, good and better than a lot of people do. Hank, I've got another question from anonymous.
They send in so many emails. Dear John and Hank, I'm not 18 yet, but I have recently been thinking about the Electoral College. If you don't know what the Electoral College is because you don't live in the United States, don't worry about it. If I am a Democrat that lives in Colorado or Wyoming, does my vote even matter?
Or if I'm a Republican living in California, since these states never reflect a significant amount of people from the opposite side of elections, does my vote go away? As it is in the minority, should I move to Ohio just to have more of an influence? George and Democrat anonymous. First off anonymous, there's a pretty good chance that being a Democrat in Georgia is going to be super relevant in presidential elections, if not in the next cycle, then like maybe two cycles from now.
So don't move, please. Secondly, I think that what gets lost in a lot of these conversations is that while the person who is president is very important in United States politics, it is not the only important thing. It is not the only important elected office. Local offices, Congress, the Senate, these are so important.
And if we had a different Congress, we would have a different country. And so that's what I would say. Wherever you are, it makes sense to vote. Even if you know the candidates you're going to vote for are going to lose, it still makes sense to vote because it still sends a statement to the people in power that their power is less secure than they believe it to be.
And if you don't vote, all that says is I don't exist in this district. According to myself, I am willing to be anonymous in this district. I am willing to be anonymous in my community. I'm willing for my political voice not to be heard.
And I don't think that is a good strategy. Any elected representative knows, and they might not, because of a lot of division right now, they might not be able to like represent this accurately or do a good job of it. But they have to know that their job is to not represent just the people who voted for them. Their job is to represent all of the people who live in the place where they are.
And it is much easier to do that if you see that there is a diversity of people in your place. And that's true nationally, it's true locally and it's true on state level. And so having a diversity of voices at the polls is extremely valuable. And that feeling that it won't matter for me to go out and do this, that can be that can suppress that that instinct for the can suppress people from going to the polls if they think that their candidate is just going to lose.
But that results in even further polarization of the system. Yeah, exactly. So please, I know that you're not 18 yet, Georgia. Well, you're not named Georgia, you just live there.
We don't know. I'm sticking with it. I know that you're not 18 yet, Georgia. But when you are, I hope that you will register to vote and vote.
And everyone out there who lives in the United States or any place where you're lucky enough to be able to vote for your leaders, I really, really encourage you to register to vote. If you live in the US, you can go to vote.gov right now, make sure that you're registered, make sure your registration is up to date. And if you're not registered, get registered now because there are big, extremely important elections in November. It's true that there is no presidential election.
But nonetheless, the elections in November are tremendously important. Indeed. And I also want to say to everybody out there who's named the same name as the place where they live, that must be weird. Like all the people named Georgia and Georgia, all the people named Orlando and Orlando, that's just got to be weird.
That's all the Washington's in Washington. Yeah, there's got to be tons of them. Yeah, the Oregon's in Oregon. I don't know how many Oregon's there are in Oregon, but you know, I bet there are a ton of decodas in the decodas.
Oh, yeah, tons. Virginia's in Virginia. What is the state, Hank, where there are the fewest people named the name of the state in the state? I'm going to guess it's Wyoming.
Yeah, just because there aren't a lot of people in Wyoming. And that's also not a very normal name. Yeah. Yeah, like I bet there's a lot of Cheyennes in Wyoming, but I don't think there's a lot of Wyoming's in Wyoming.
I bet you're right. I was going to go with Alaska, but Alaska's actually a pretty common name, especially because you made it a name in a book and now multiple people are more likely to name people that. It is a much more popular name, certainly, than it was in 2005. I don't know that I made it happen, but it is a weird coincidence.
I'm not sure that we want to conflate correlation and causation, but I did recently look at a baby naming website and there are more people named Alaska after the publication of that book than before, which is a weird thing to think about. I think you did it. I think you did that. I mean, I used to remember when I when we were trying to name our kids, I spent so much time on baby name websites.
Yeah. And then it is a big deal. You don't want to you want to name your kid the right name. That's for sure.
Okay. So, okay. All right. I've got some actual stats here for you.
In 2004, three babies per million were named Alaska in the United States in 2017, 49 babies per million were named Alaska in the United States. So again, I don't know the extent of looking for Alaska is responsible for that, but it is it has gone up by a factor of 15 or so. And after this Hulu show, John, everybody's going to be named Alaska. Well, we'll see about that.
I mean, some people say it's going to be the new Emily or Claire. I don't even what even is the most popular name. John, can you tell me because apparently you know about a website I don't know about how many kids in America are named Wyoming. Yeah, absolutely.
Wyoming is not in the top 10,000 names for either boys or girls. I found a website saying that Wyoming is the 17,433rd most popular name for a girl, which how many babies are born in America every year? Because I feel like that's probably like last. That's just like there's one.
Everything is tied for 17. There's always one every year. There's one way. I think that's a beautiful thought.
I think it's not by the way. It's not a bad name for a boy or a girl. I feel like if I met somebody and they walked up to me and they were like, Hello, my name is Wyoming Johnson. I would be like, I mean, that person's probably up to something interesting.
Orcat. This next question comes from Pia who asks, Dear Hank and John, what would happen if we put the earth into a big box and block all the sunlight from it for just one second? My friend says it would damage the earth considerably and we'd be really in trouble. But I feel like that's a bit dramatic.
Like surely the earth would survive without one second of light. Love the podcast, by the way. I always listen to it while I'm doing my morning workout. So feel free to encourage me because I probably feel like I'm dying right now.
DFTBA Pia. Move it Pia up down. Oh, that's right. Up down left, right forward, backward.
Those are all the directions. Obviously, Hank is trying to encourage you to remember how to do the Contra video game code, not how to work out. You got it Pia, keep going up, down, down, right B A B A start. Great job.
Pia, keep it going. Keep it going. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. Good job.
I know how to work out. John, what was the question? Oh, I think we'd be fine. Yeah, we would be totally fine.
One second. One second of no light. We would be okay. Yeah, I mean, I think that I think that that level of variation, I think it might be somewhat of a big deal.
You might see a little like a maybe a measurable drop in global temperature that day. But yeah, no. By far, the biggest issue with this idea is the construction of this big box, which would consume all of the earth's resources. And also, it would only be around for one second.
And then what are we going to do with it? Just going to crash back down to the earth. It's going to fall down. It's raining particles of giant cardboard.
I don't know what we made it up. We can't figure out what to do with gold covered teeth. How are we going to possibly figure out what to do with an earth sized box? What's it made of?
Also, we didn't need to build a whole box. We could have just blocked the sun. That's not that big. Yeah, you know, this would be a big issue for it would be me because if all light on earth for one second went away, I would be really freaked out for that one second because when there's even like a brief dimming of lights in a room that I'm in, I'm always like, Sarah, did the lights just dim?
Are the lights? Did you feel like the light just flickered? Did the light? Can somebody confirm for me that the lights flickered because I'm scared that I'm having a stroke?
I was really, you know, the solar eclipse happened fairly recently. And I remember over over Montana and I didn't experience the full eclipse though. I really wish I could have and really need to make it happen someday. But just going outside and watching it through my eclipse glasses, I was shocked by how cold it got during the eclipse.
And I guess like, of course, this makes sense. The sun isn't radiating on me anymore. But the temperature dropped like 10 degrees and the eclipse was never full. So it still looked like there was a sun in the sky, but it just like got chilly.
It was really cool. No, it's wild, man. It's wild. It's weird.
Such a weird thing. We're so different on that death laser up in the sky. I know. Thank God for that death laser.
Which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by the deadly laser sun. The deadly laser sun, it's making you look old. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Teddy Ruxman. Teddy Ruxman now featuring old human teeth.
This is also brought to you by I don't know if you've heard about a new sponsor, the giant pile of poop under the Eiffel Tower. The giant pile of poop under the Eiffel Tower and the more tourists visit the bigger it gets. Then lastly, today's podcast is brought to you by cats named Tudor Monarchy. Cats named Tudor Monarchy, even rarer than humans named Wyoming.
It's true. I looked it up on the baby cat name list that the census puts out. It's so far nobody. But John also this podcast has brought to you by the last two weeks, but also John this podcast has brought to you by the last week of the PodCon Indiegogo.
So if you want to come and see us do a live Dear Hank and John and live delete this and live answer to seem reviewed, you can go to PodCon.com and there's a link there to our crowdfunding campaign where you can get discounted tickets. It also thinks that are only available during the campaign. We very much appreciate people who are able to buy tickets early. That's why we make them cheaper and also encourage you to do it because it makes it a lot easier to plan a conference and less terrifying.
So PodCon.com, it's going to be lots of fun. Also, we have a Project Rossum message to read from Stuart Baker. Thank you, Stuart, for donating to the Project for Awesome this year to get us to read this on the podcast. Dear Hank and John, I discovered the Vlogbrothers through Crash Course World History.
I enjoy the weekly vlog because of the respect and humility that you bring to the editorial format. You discuss important issues facing our shared world with suggestions on how we might collectively help to end world suck. Thank you for creating the Project for Awesome and the peace of mind that it brings with knowing our contributions make an impactful difference. Well, that is very nice of you, Stuart.
Thank you. I would be happy to read that anytime, not just for money. Absolutely. Let's come back to it, read it tomorrow, but after that, after that.
Yeah. How extraordinarily generous. I have to say thank you to everybody who donated the Project for Awesome to get Dear Hank and John related perks this year. I think they've at last all gone out our tradition of sending out perks seven months late, continues, and will continue into next year.
So look for this year's Project for Awesome toward the end of the year so that you can get perks seven months later. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you 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 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 look good and with Shopify's templates, you could get a site set up really quick that looks credible and professional without needing the 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.
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You can start your free trial at Shopify.com slash DearHank. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash DearHank with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See you website for more details. One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels.
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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 DearHank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too, that's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash DearHank for free shipping and 365 day returns Quince.com slash DearHank. This episode of DearHank 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 p.m. 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.
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Head to factormeals.com slash deer hank 50 off and use the code deerhank50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See you website for more details. This list I've got another question John. It's from Rachel who asks deerhank a John.
I recently went to book con and received a temporary tattoo of the sculptures from an absolutely remarkable thing which comes out September 25th and is available now. My question is where and when do I apply this tattoo? Do I wait for the release of the book or a special day like Labor Day or I do just wear a face tattoo one day to work? Is there some specific part of my body where I should be applying this tattoo?
Thanks. So no one told you life was going to be this Rachel. Well that's our second friends related Rachel. John, I have no idea.
I just wanted to say that because I wanted to plug my book because I feel like my must. I think it's important to plug your book. We should also plug the tour. If you live in say New York or Boston or California or Indianapolis or Chicago or many other places, you should come see us on tour HankGreen.com.
You can go and get tickets and they come with a free book and a great show. It'll be super fun. I'm only on the first part of the tour. So that's the ones that you should get tickets for.
Sorry West Coast. It'll just be Hank. Yeah, it'll just be Hank. So my rule of thumb is to apply a temporary tattoo as quickly as possible and in a place where you would conceivably want to get a real tattoo but not like one of the places where you would get a real tattoo that only you and people who know you intimately would see.
So like the bicep, the forearm, maybe your ankle. That kind of thing. Neck. Yeah.
One time when Sarah worked at an art gallery in Chicago, like when we first started dating, they had a show where the artist made temporary tattoos out of all of the artworks that were in the show and we got all of these temporary tattoos and Sarah had to, as part of her employment managing the gallery, have one of the temporary tattoos all the time. It's a little weird and one of them was, you know the song 99 the balloons. What is it? It's called 99 Loofed Balloons.
99 Loofed Balloons. One of them was a that it was like an illustration of that or like an artwork based on that song, that German song. And anyway, this story is super important to Hank and I'm getting to its point. The point is that one time we were like she was on her upper arm and we were counting the freaking 99 Loofed Balloons and there was a 100th Loofed Balloon.
It wasn't even an accurate artwork about the song that it was supposed to be about. Did you destroy it? Like there's ways to destroy temporary tattoos, John. No, I mean, it's just, I don't really recall what happened to the temporary tattoo, but that whole, it was like an eight week period where she had to have one of the artworks, you know, on her body.
Oh, okay. It's weird. Art is weird. Maybe we should all be pre-rofeulates.
That's not being so weird. Let's just go back to before the Renaissance when everything was normal. Yeah, exactly. The Dark Ages.
When people died of smallpox at 10, just a normal life. But when you didn't, when you survived, you made art sometimes, I guess. All right, Hank, we got another question. This one comes from Devon and it's a very good question.
Dear John and Hank, my work often stalks the Trader Joe's Key Lime tea cookies, which is all fine and well. They're delicious. I have one problem though. My boss has commented multiple times upon finishing one that they are quote, spicy.
Now it keeps me up at night because I don't know if it's my place or my responsibility to tell a 40 year old man that limes are in fact sour. Not trying to sour a work relationship, Devon. This is not a, this is like, I know that this might sound weird, but there's a, there's words have meanings and we can't just go around calling a line spicy. Can't do it.
I'm not going to stand for it. I love this question because Alice calls every food that is not extremely bland, spicy. So to Alice, if something is physically hot, you know, like if it is very warm, she'll take a bite of it and she'll, oh, spicy. And then that's cute.
But this is not a child. This is a 40 year old man. Also, if something is excessively salted, she'll take a bite of it and she'll be like, spicy. Yeah, it contains spices, I guess.
Yeah, the best one though, my favorite one is when she like eats a sweet tart. And I guess maybe this does get to Devon's point. She'll eat a sweet tart and she'll say, it's sugary, but spicy. Well, that's, apparently that's what this boss person is saying.
Yeah. But this is a sugary, this is sugar spice. Yeah, it's possible Devon that nobody like what if I never correct Alice and one day she's in a work environment at the age of 40 and she's like, Oh, these are great spicy lime cookies. I don't think in general, it's very hard.
It's very hard to correct people when they're doing something wrong that seems very obvious. It's hard when it's hard even when you're peers, but especially when it's the person, you know, in a position of authority, it just feels very wrong to be like, look, sir, that's not what spicy is. I don't know what to say. Right.
No, it's the R unicorns endangered problem. The moment somebody says to you, R unicorns endangered, you're in a heck of a pickle. It's like, I don't know where to start with this. Maybe he thinks they're spicy.
Maybe there's like some ginger in there and it's given him a little tingle. Here's what you do, Devon. You get your boss some Sour Patch Kids for, I don't know their birthday or something. And then they eat the Sour Patch Kids and they're like, whoo, spicy, but they look at the packaging and it doesn't say spicy patch kids.
It says Sour Patch Kids. And that's going to be the moment of revelation and you don't have to do anything. Right. Right.
And you also you also get like some some like red hot Cheetos too. And you're like, here's your birthday. See the difference between these two stack hoods. Do you get it now?
And then you just repeat this process every year forever until finally they get it. Yeah. I love it. Also, Devon, I love that you work as somewhere that has these very good sounding cookies.
I I'm very jealous. That's all. That's mostly it. But also, John, can we now from now on just call sour things spicy around our employees so that they think that they have to figure out how to handle this problem.
Because is it possible that this boss knows full well that they're not spicy and is just playing a fun little dad joke here? It's just it's all for a gag. It's possible. It could be a bit, but I suspect that it's just a little bit of misinformation that Sour Patch Kids can correct.
Nobody nobody thinks that Sour Patch Kids are an educational tool until they are, you know? Until they are. No, it really is. It is about how these items are used in our lives.
John, we're going to do one more question before we get to the news from Mars and day of C Wimbledon. This one is from Sunny D, like the juice, I guess. The very, very spicy juice. Dear Hank and John, I was watching some old vlogbrothers videos when you were on tour and you mentioned a question Tuesday video about how every day you both will be abandoning one opinion until you have to come to some true core opinions.
Well, I was wondering, did you ever figure out what those core opinions are? Did you strategy work? It's been a while since I really thought about it and I wanted to reaffirm my values and opinions. I'm just not sure how to go about it.
Like the orange juice, Sunny D. I do feel like I have a couple core opinions that have been revealed partly through the process of trying to give up more of my opinions, although I haven't been giving up nearly enough of them to be fair. The biggest core opinion I have is that hope is the correct response to human consciousness, that like hope is not a delusion or a lie we tell ourselves in order to find a way to go on. It's actually correct.
Human lives have value and that compassion should always be a component of how you approach the world and other people. Another, my core opinions is that AFC Wimbledon is the greatest achievement in the history of the human species. Well, I guess then that we should go into the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, John. I hear that AFC Wimbledon played a game.
Did they play a game? We played a game. We're back. The long, long summer has finally come to an end, although you wouldn't know it based on the weather in London these days.
But yes, yes, Wimbledon are back and not only are they back, Hank, we won our first game in League One. The first time we have won an opening day match in six years. Not only that, we were away from home. Not only that, we were playing Fleetwood, who were a playoff team last year and won one nil.
And not only that, there has been a huge, huge upgrade in the quality of the AFC Wimbledon watching experience for the non-English fan. You can get the iFollow AFC Wimbledon app. It is not cheap to get the TV coverage, but the TV coverage lets you watch the games on your phone or your tablet with commentary. So last year, there was no commentary and there was no scoreboard.
So you just had to kind of remember what was happening. But now it's like a regular TV experience, except with the radio and commentators who are hilarious and so charming. And so like watching it is now also a pleasure. But I watched the entire game and it was joyful.
Wimbledon looked better in my opinion than they looked all the last season. The goal itself was hideous. Joe Piggett, the Maid Stoney and Messi, or as I guess we're going to be calling him Joey Piggs. Joey Pigg scored in the 60th minute and it was a really ugly finish.
He just barely got a foot on the ball and it kind of dribbled into the goal, but they all count the same. And we've been really dominated the game. Fleetwood did hit the inside of the post from like 30 yards out with a beautiful shot late in the game. But I thought Wimbledon deserved to win and we did win, which great.
So off to a roaring start, thanks to a goal from Joe Piggett. A lot of the new players looked good. Mitchy Pinns, Mitch Pinnik looked good. Very encouraging, very, very encouraging first game for AFC Wimbledon.
You don't want to get ahead of yourself. Of course it's a long season 45 games to go. We're going to win the league. You have those points, John.
Well, the news from Mars, John, is super great. There's what's this hope that people have talked about that. Maybe there's enough carbon dioxide on the surface of Mars. In Mars is like sort of like inside of the regolith inside of the ice caps frozen in little pieces that if you could warm it up a little bit, that CO2 would release into the atmosphere.
And then that would create sort of a heat trapping layer that would then warm it up more and more carbon dioxide would be released. And then you would get more and more CO2 until suddenly just a little bit of warming resulted in a lot of warming and it was warm enough maybe and enough atmospheric pressure even that you could walk outside. You couldn't walk outside without an oxygen mask on so that you could breathe the atmosphere, but you could walk outside without like, you know, suffering from decompression or or being extremely extremely extremely cold. So that would be really cool.