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Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. Welcome to Dear Hank and John. Doors off the first thing of the Dear John and Hank live and in-person.
It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions. Give you a advice and bring you all the business from both Mars and A.S. to Wimbledon John. How do you do?
My father-in-law had a great dad joke. Well yeah. He had a really good dad joke at Thanksgiving dinner and I was thinking maybe you could just use that one. Which one was it?
He said if you've heard this one before please hesitate to stop me. Which I've found. It's clearly something he says a lot. Yes.
Which makes it sort of a meta-joke because if you've heard this particular dad joke still. Right. And then also I found it very confusing. Oh no.
It was unable to listen to the first part of the story because I was thinking about what the heck that meant. That's what I love about it. I love it because it's the truth of what people are really thinking when they say if you've heard this one before stop me. Which is I really want to tell this one.
Yeah. And my desire- Well also who's gonna stop them? No one's gonna stop them? Yeah.
So listen if we sound a little weird other than the fact that I have a frog in my throat and I don't mean that metaphorically. I want you all to envision that. So listen if we sound a little weird it's because Hank and I are in the only space that we could find where we could be alone. And it's a pretty echoey little- We thought about doing it outside but it's cold.
Yeah. I mean I guess I would describe where we currently are as a as a large shed. Its original purpose was as a potting shed for like plants. So I would describe our current location as a shed with a window.
Yeah. It's got a window and it's got all hard walls and force. It is opposite of what you want when you're recording. They tell you to record in a really small space like a closet that's full of textiles soft.
We are in a very small space. In that sense we have succeeded but there is- It's just too big enough. Nary a textile to be found. Yeah we have to build a little tent around ourselves.
This is how they do record radio app. So yeah this is- It sounds familiar. We're bringing you that kind of high quality radio lab vibe that you've come to expect from Dear Hank and John. A lot of people would have to work really hard in their audio software to create the very reverb you're experiencing right now.
Exactly. When- The room tone. When people are like trying to convey the vibe of a mid-2000s really low quality podcast they have to work so hard in pro tools to do what we're just doing naturally. Yeah look at us.
We are ahead of the birds. Thanksgiving has been lovely John. Thank you for hosting us in Indianapolis. Yeah it's been great.
And I love to watch mostly it's just seeing the cousins. Because it's so great. What was- We had a lovely Thanksgiving. There was absolutely no drama at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
Conversation was easy and fun but I always think about Thanksgiving's past where it hasn't always been the case. Do you have any memories of childhood stressful thanksgivings? Oh probably. But I don't connect them to the holiday though.
Oh I had like Thanksgiving dinner stress memories because when we were kids we'd always have to go around the room and say what we were thankful for. And I feel like dad's dad our grandpa would always like say that he was thankful for something that was a little bit that he wasn't thankful. You know? That was like a passive aggressive version of gratitude where he would be like well I'm thankful for my health.
What I have of it. Yeah and I'm thankful I'm thankful for this son and I won't mention the other one. Yeah that kind of vine. Yeah.
I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings you might be listening. Believe that. You don't know that Hank. One of my big fears is that they have podcasts in the afterlife and it's only the podcasts we're making.
Right. Like wouldn't that be terrible? You get to heaven and like everything's good except for the only media that's available is Dear Hank and John's. Yeah they do it that way intentionally so that you don't.
So that you don't spend all your time consuming content. They got like five episodes of the new tips. They got the worst answer received reviewed and then the rest of it's just the entire library of Dear Hank and John. That's all you got.
Yeah. You're just like oh god I missed the McElroy's. We just had a nice we just had a nice few minutes of using croquet mallets to destroy ice. Yeah destroy the upper surface of a pond.
That was a I mean I felt like the kids could have done that for hours if we left. Yeah we made a lot of some fingers. That was very cold. And Orin looked like he was gonna go in and any more.
Yeah he does not have he does not have the edge of pond balance that one one really needs to be smashing ice with a croquet mallet. And then leaning over to grab the pieces out of that I'm like wow God I'm gonna be really mad at me when I'm rushing with this blue legs. Henry was really funny about it because Henry was like you know I was about that age when I fell into this pond while hitting ice with a croquet mallet and let me tell you it was cold. I was like I was always in like the mental scenario planning like if you fell in now what would I do?
Yeah if you fell in now I mean to be clear the pond is a foot deep and it was gonna be fine. We were close enough to warm. It would have been fine. It would have been it would have been a father failing.
Yeah yeah yeah you don't want to be in that situation. No but at the same time you do want to destroy ice with a croquet mallet and that is the great dilemma of being a dad. Alright Hank let's answer questions from our listeners beginning with this one from Justin who writes Dear John and Hank I have been stuck inside of a marshals for 40 minutes. You've come to the right place.
Yeah if you want to talk to somebody who knows where it's like to be stuck inside of a box store for a long time. Yeah Hank Green is the expert. I have that expertise. I also have seen that one movie where the guy gets stuck in Target for a night and he falls in love.
Oh sure. Was Natalie Portman or is that a separate movie about a person who gets stuck inside of a box store? That's all I remember about the plot. I don't remember any of the characters.
I feel like it's a problematic movie but I can't remember why you know. No it's that kind of thing. Google auto filled it for me. No no this one is a stuck in Target movie.
I remember vividly that it's a Target. This is weird that this is set to come and fame and media. It's called Where the Heart Is. No no no that's not what I'm thinking about.
This one is called Career Opportunities. It was written by John Hughes and it was it had Jennifer what's your face in it? Conley from Beautiful Mind. And if that's what you think of for Jennifer Conley.
Wasn't that didn't she win an Oscar for that film? I don't know. I believe she did. So that's why I think of her because she won an Oscar.
I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking to see if she won an Oscar awards and nominations. Most known for Labyrinth.
That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. She's not in this movie John. She is in the movie Career Opportunities.
Well if not in her top nine. Well of course it's not. It's the movie it's called Career Opportunities. I'm the only person that's the one talking about the other movie that she thinks you won an Oscar.
A beautiful mind that she did win an Oscar for it. Oh You're right that's her fourth. Yeah she won an Oscar okay. She's also won Snowpier sir.
None of this is relevant to the Career Opportunities discussion. I'm hoping to have. Okay. All right.
Here's the movie Hank as I remember it. I'm going to try to pitch it to you having remembered now the fact that they're in a target and what the title is but nothing else. Yeah. All right.
So there's this guy and I think he's like working in target and he's the night cleanup boy and then the this girl is like stuck inside of target. She like ends up there somehow they close the store without her noticing and she's sort of like spoiled and crappy and then they find out that deep down they're kind of the same person. Why didn't they just let her out? And then I think they run away to California because she has like a hundred thousand dollars on her.
Oh yeah. And then I don't remember how it ends but it ends they end up happily ever after and there's some corruption involved. Maybe her dad is the mayor and he's a bad I don't remember. Where the heart is Natalie Portman isn't stuck in the Walmart.
She just figures out how to live in the Walmart. Oh okay. After being abandoned by her boyfriend when she is 17 years old and pregnant in Oklahoma. Oh wow.
Secretly was into the store. Eventually this attracts media attention with the help of her friends. She makes a new life for herself in the town. Everybody sort of is like you know we actually think you're pretty great Natalie Portman.
Wow. So is it good? I don't I mean look I am so unaccustomed to media these days. This is what I learned during Thanksgiving.
Yeah. Anything gets me. I haven't watched a full movie in four or five years so just reading that synopsis made me like start to choke up. I want the commercials during the basis day parade.
I cried four times. Okay. Some more facts about career opportunities. Say real quick.
It's 83 minutes long. This movie is apparently not as good as I remember. John Hughes who wrote the film called it a huge disappointment and part of the reason that he kind of like left Hollywood and abandoned it all to go to a reforestation project in his native Illinois. Yeah.
And said suddenly I'm a commodity if Home Alone hadn't come out my name wouldn't be on career opportunities four times. So it was sort of the thing that caused him to sound and the director himself. The director himself did not seem to like the movie very much. The only the only person who really is a huge fan of it is a 11 year old me.
Right. All right. So there we go. That is the not the answer to the question.
That was only the first it wasn't even a full independent clause into the question. I've never seen this before. Okay. The Wikipedia page for where the heart is.
Yeah. Includes a section called Differences Between Novel and Film. Oh wow. I wish that man comprehensive how I wish that section were in every Wikipedia article about a novel.
Really? Adapted into a film. Well, I find that I am often blamed for things where I'm like, yeah, people will be like, I hate John Green books like this one thing that happened. And I'm like, that didn't happen in a John Green book.
That happened in a movie I didn't write. You'll survive. I will. That's a great point.
Hank. Thank you. I'm grateful for my health. What I have of it.
In the novel, Mary Elizabeth Hull dies in a fire at the library in the film she comes to the complications of her alcoholism. It's a pretty big difference. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought that this was a lighthearted film about a girl who gets stuck in a Walmart.
I think that's her that's her like mom that she I don't know. All right. Let's move on, Hank. Can we stuck in a marshals?
Justin is stuck in a marshals. That's in a marshals with you. And one of our big ambitions for Justin is that he not die either in a fire or from complications of alcoholism related to being stuck in a marshals. I've been paralyzed by the selection of luggage.
Wait, I think I'm just understood the way in which you are stuck in a marshals. I need advice hard or soft side luggage. Am I even at the right spot? I thought you were actually stuck in a marshals.
You're not actually stuck in a marshals. You're just confused by luggage. Should it be expensive, cheap, or somewhere in the middle? Please help.
The staff is starting to look at me like I'm being a rational. Pumpkin some thing. This is not your fault, Justin. This is society's fault.
We are all being irrational because we're being posed with too many choices, especially around luggage. Here's the thing, Justin. And I find this with jeans. I find it with a lot of things.
Either you get something that is really good that you know is going to be good, or you get something that's cheap that might be just as good as the good thing. So let me give you an example in terms of luggage. One time I flew to New Orleans, and I thought that my luggage was flying with me. But it turned out that my luggage was flying to a place that I was never going to find it again.
And as a result, the nice walks of Delta, not spawn, but want spawn. That's the full hashtag. The nice walks of Delta were like, we're really sorry we lost your luggage. Here's a large check for all the stuff that was inside.
I'm like, this is not going to be found. This went into the engine of the plane. Exactly. We are pretty sure that your suitcase was dropped from an airplane at 35,000 feet.
It is not owned by a farmer or a homeless. It's content art spread across the ocean. We apologize. Here's $1,100.
And so I went to Target to buy a new suitcase that I could fly home from New Orleans. I was like, they're not going to get me this time. I'm going to get a very inexpensive suitcase. So I got a suitcase.
For some reason it's Jeep branded with the car. It's a Jeep. It's a Jeep. It's a Jeep.
It's a Grand Cherokee. But it's a suitcase. And I was like, man, I don't have a special loyalty to the Jeep. The thing is it's not a Jeep.
It is a Jeep Jeep. It's a Jeep. I got a Jeep. And it was only $39.
I mean, you want to talk about it? That's a Jeep Jeep. Yeah. It's pretty cheap.
It's a pretty cheap Jeep. So I got this Jeep Jeep. And I was like, this is just getting home from New Orleans. And I no longer even believe that my luggage woke up with me.
So I'm packing up this $39 suitcase thinking, ah, this is probably going to be in the ocean pretty soon. And that was, I know the date. It was January 30th, 2012. That was the day I bought it because it was right at the end of the Fall Nars' door.
And I packed up that Jeep suitcase. It did make it back to Indianapolis. And it is by far my favorite suitcase all these years later. That Jeep Jeep suitcase.
I was just looking at the suitcase. I opened it up. There was a bunch of peeps in it. And I was like, wow, that's a neat Jeep Jeep peeps.
Ooh, that was very challenging. Hopefully, June of Cutout the part where I said it wrong. Hey, hey, hey, hey, June of Cutout all the parts where you said it wrong. But eventually got to neat Jeep Jeep Peeps, which is really good.
Thanks. It's worth the wait. John, I hear her. I also, I have my luggage stolen once.
And I now own a bunch of things that I got at Target because I had to get luggage. And every time I look at them, I think about how much that sucked. And I just, I got a negative vibrate. So that's one way I've gotten luggage.
Here's another one. First, you start in 2007, you become a YouTuber. Yeah, that's actually how I got my other piece of luggage. And then eventually, YouTube starts sending you luggage.
Why does YouTube send me luggage? So YouTube sent me a piece of luggage. It's a nice hardback. I actually like it less than I like my Jeep Jeep.
But I do like it. It's nice. I will use the Jeep Jeep nine times out of ten. But one time out of ten, I'll use the YouTube one.
The problem with the YouTube one is that they emblazoned my name on the top of the screen. And so Sarah used a piece of black electrical tape to cover my name so that it's not quite so humiliating. And now I like it. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't use it for the wise time.
Oh, I like it. YouTube logo. And it says, hey green. I use it all the time.
Oh, I like the black electrical tape. That's how you know it's good look. That's how you know it's yours. I know it's mine because it says hey green.
Yeah, but I don't want, I do not want that. So the short answer, Justin, is that we don't know. Yeah, I'm not actually a logo. I'm an expert at being stuck inside of a box or well, you came to the wrong podcast.
All right. All right. All right, John, this next question was from Brendan who asked dear Hank and John in my 20 years of life, I have found that I am easily distracted by things and as such, I will often forget to do other things. I found that setting reminders on my phone can be helpful.
But then I am looking at my phone, which attempts me to do more distracting time wasting things. How do I remind myself to do the things that I need to do without using my phone brain cells and brevity Brendan? Well, I'm sorry, I was on my phone. I got to tell you the truth.
What was the question? He was it. I'm here with him. I know that that was a lie.
Man, you got to Hank, you got to let me have some movie magic now and again. Okay. Let me get any other recording of the podcast. Man, I am an actor.
Okay. And when you try to limit my performance by trying to make me hue to what actually happened, it harms my ability to be an artist. All right. Yes.
And yes. Then I parted. No, that's a bad example of yes, and you have even it's not like you to limit my genius. And I'm hurt.
I feel like I should tell you the truth, which is that you've hurt my feelings by calling out your lies. Yes. Yeah. Isn't that always the truth though?
When people lie, like they try to turn towards something where it's like, man, why did you hurt me by calling attention to the fact that I just lied? Have I ever told you the weirdest moment like that I ever had in my life? No. Where I was sitting on my porch, my back porch, which is like how I shared where I was in my background neighbor.
We were all renters. And my landlord was over like doing the lawn. And he said to my background neighbor, did you rip out all the flowers in the back? And he was like, the weeds?
And my landlord was like, no, there's a bunch of flowers. And he was like, there was some weeds back there. I pulled up. And they got there were flowers that were planted from the wild flowers that were thrown at my wedding.
The flower seeks that were thrown at my wedding. And then the guy who pulled up the flower and said, well, now you're making me feel bad. And I was like, I'm going to go inside. Why are you making me feel bad?
But there's, yeah, there's legitimacy to it. He is making you feel bad. Yeah. And also like, I, at that point, I would not have said that.
No. Because like one, that's not like you don't live there anymore, buddy. That used to be your house for you to start anymore. Yeah.
Yeah. You're housing anymore. Yeah. Well, I would say like, how if I had thrown the wildflower seeds from my wedding, I would have said, oh, that's a real bomber.
Those seeds are from my, I might have said, I might have, I might have, I might have, because I might like when you're in that space of anger and resentment, it's hard not to express it. Yeah, yeah. But I also might have been like, well, now you're making me feel bad about pulling up those weeds. Yeah.
And like we had a different definition of what a flower is. And that's a big, that's a big, deep thing. Like what is a weed? Yeah.
It's a category. And like every other category, it's the theme of Dear Hank and John, there's not a one to one relationship between categories and language and reality. Yeah. Some people think something's a weed.
Some people think it's not a weed. That's so true. And it's true, not just of plants. This guy, this guy, I did disagree with him on almost everything.
So I was, I was once to side with my landlord because he had said several really objectionable things to me in the past. I'm going to give John an example. We're going to cut it out. Yeah.
The story hand just told me made me somewhat less sympathetic to the neighbor and more sympathetic to the landlord. I have my, my loyalty has shifted. But look, that was a, I was a separate incident. Yeah.
But my loyalty has shifted. So Hank, I'm going to pull this back to the question, but I'm going to point out that the tangent we just went on is a great example of how easy it is to get so easy to get distracted. So easy to get distracted and to move away from the question in hand, which is how do I not get distracted? Do you see that squirrel?
There's a bird there too. Oh yeah. That's a little, you know what that is? That's, you know what that bird is called?
No, it's called it. That's a chickadee. That was a chickadee? That was a chickadee.
Yes. And you're wrong being wrong about a bird? Chigadee. Chigadee.
I just heard you say it, but that wasn't a chickadee. It was, it was not, it was at least twice as big as a chickadee. Well, and it did not have a chickadee cap. Maybe you've got your little, had a crest when they chickadees don't have it.
Maybe you've got your weird little miniature chickadees in Montana that you think are the only chickadees on earth. You've got a big boy here. I'll tell you for a fact, that's just a big, big old chickadee. They call it a bigadee.
He's a chonker. How do you not get distracted? The, I mean, do you know how I do it? How do you do it?
I say to myself, if I don't do this right now, it will not get done. And then I make that decision. Yeah. And sometimes I make the decision, this will not get done.
Right. And it will, and it will happen at a later time when I am reintroduced to it, probably by someone who I'm letting down. Yeah. I mean, my basic strategy is to try to do what's in front of me.
Yeah. But it's really hard. Yeah. Because what's in front of you can change very rapidly.
Yes. But if you open your phone. I feel like, well, my way of dealing with that is to really try to minimize the number of pickups associated with my phone. But I am sympathetic to the listeners question in the sense that, if you need to look at your phone to figure out what time your disappointment is, then you're on your phone.
And once you've picked it up, it's hard to put it down. I can't, I cannot do one thing. And I can't, like, I almost never take my phone to do something and do it. Right.
Because before I get to the thing, or I'll do it, but then I'll be like, well, while I'm here, I wonder if it's my turn in scramble. Yeah. I don't know if you have the voice person that you can talk to. Siri?
Yeah. Well, the question is here. I don't know if they do. Yeah.
And it might not be Siri. It might be Mr. Roboto, the Android mascot. Oh, that's pretty cool.
That's my, I made that. Oh, okay. I was just saying that. But, but in that case, I can often make a reminder, because you don't actually have to open your phone.
Right. And just use the button. Right. Remind me to take my medicine in two hours.
Yeah. Yeah. It's so hard, though. Like, the other thing I try to do is if I don't like unlock it and like the, so I found my phone right now, what's going to come up?
A text message change, which is nice. Oftentimes it's Twitter. And Which case I'm gone. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have Twitter on my phone, thankfully.
I love. He's literally doing it. Like he was like, I just wanted to see if I got it. People have been talking about me.
Okay. Stop. Stop. Seriously.
It's, it's almost people are sharing mushrooms. Oh, my God. You know what? It's like, Hank, I'll be honest with you.
It's a little bit like watching somebody. No, don't say it. It's uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable to see you say, but if I open Twitter, it's all over.
And then you, it was all over. Like you check out. I could like the energy in the room change to a Twitter energy. Yeah.
It was that was a weird thing to witness. I feel like, that's how it works, man. I entered the metaverse. I was surfing the web.
That was the most freaked out I've been about technology in a couple of years. And I've like just, I read the age of surveillance, I was like, that was me surfing. You saw my neurons go, it's a different set of neurons involved. I saw your energy change.
And then when I saw your energy change, I felt the urge to pick up my phone. Now we're talking about it, which is weird. I reached for my phone. Yeah, you did.
Oh, God. Look, it all gets much, it gets much easier to deal with when you let go of the idea that we are in control. Like, I am in control sometimes. I don't know that it gets easier to deal with because I don't respectfully, I don't know that you're doing a better job of dealing with it than I am.
I don't mean doing better than being an internet person. I mean, being less stressed out about it. Oh, okay. Well, I, how I learned to stop worrying.
I love the bomb. I want to worry about it. I think I don't want to just give in. I think that's the improper response to be like, well, what are you going to do?
All right, time to check your scene is in control of my life. Time to see my consciousness to the internet. I would like to try to stay concerned. I feel like that's the last last great hope I have.
All right. Do you see all the dead lady bugs on the ground, by the way? Yeah, as much. Yeah.
So do you see the little vacuum cleaner in the corner? If you want to see more dead lady bugs, the only reason I have that little dust buster is to pick up dead lady bugs before, you know, I like, I often write in this little shed, tiny cold shed. And sometimes I'll just be writing and I'll be like, I cannot stand the dead lady bugs anymore. And then I'll clean them up.
But man, for some reason, this is the central Indiana capital of lady bugs. Particularly that much? No, no, I see live ones all the time. That's how they die, Hank.
First they live. In fact, isn't that the definition of something that is dead? Doesn't have to have one's lived. You often call Mars a cold dead rock.
So if that's the case, it did, it was once alive. I'm convinced of that. Yeah. But is the moon a cold dead rock?
Ever since humans landed there? We brought life. Put some bacteria on that boy. But we dropped a couple bacteria on that thing.
Oh man, they got those bags of poop up there. There's bags of poop up there? There's bags of poop up there. Oh, they didn't work good.
Yeah, it's a cold dead rock. It used to just be a cold rock, but now it's a cold dead rock. Is the moon cold? It's half havesies.
Sometimes real hot, sometimes real cold. Yeah, yeah. I've had relationships like that. Oh, you know, the fact that we laugh at our own jokes so much, it's really how comedy works best.
Yes. That's you see the pro stand-up comics doing that. I really think that one was a good one. I don't know if you thought it was funny when I did it.
Yeah. It's always the great stand-up comics have to use their own laughter to remind the audience that it was a joke. Someone's laughing. This next question, we have no idea how to not get distracted.
This next question comes from this is the theme of today's episode. We don't know. It's hard. Patrick writes, hey, John and Hank, if I want my remains after I die to be preserved and eventually fossilized, where would be the best place to put them?
Ideally not dead yet. All the best. Patrick. All the bogg.
Really? Yeah, places like that. Dry, cold places. What about boggy places?
Like a nice bog. If you could get into a peat bog, then that definitely works. But you got to get in the right part of the deoxygenated part of the peat bog so you could get injected down in there. You need some kind of a...
Yeah. Be great if there's like one of those things they have in the bank that goes, oh yeah, sucks up the deposit slip, but then for dead bodies and just like shoots them into peat bog. Yeah. And then would the idea be to be fossilized so that later people could look at you and learn about humans in the 21st century or would the idea be to be fossilized so that you become oiled?
Because that's my dream. I would like one day to provide 32 miles of travel to one minivan. I don't know if I could get that much out of you. You got to have a dream, Hank.
I'm not curious. I'm not. Yeah. Because we would have to wait like several million years, right?
It would be a while. Yeah. Well, yes. We're using like dinosaur trees now.
I'm just wondering how many calories are in a gallon of gas. Great question. And I'm sure one that Google knows the answer too. So there are about 30,000 calories in a gallon of gasoline.
Okay. So and I think you probably got 30,000 calories in you. I'd like to think I do. After that Thanksgiving dinner.
How many calories in a person? That's that mean though. Thanks for doing that on my Wi-Fi network. Great.
FBI is going to love that. Yeah. Yeah. You got like four gallons of gas in you.
Great. All right. You could get that in any of any of our hundred miles or so. Awesome.
Great. What was the question? I don't remember. That's a fascinating stat.
All right, Hank. This question comes from Grace. You're all the question. It doesn't matter.
I'm almost 18 and I'm coming into young adulthood and I'm finding that growing up means spending more and more time alone. I have my license now so I tend to get around on my own rather than with my mom and dad. And I find it quite lonely. How can I get used to doing things on my own that I used to do with company?
DFTBA Grace. Grace. At first it's hard. But like so many other things.
Eventually, you learn to really, really love it. Like I'll give you an example. When I used to feel really anxious when I would go out to dinner by myself, you know, I would be like what are people thinking? Yeah.
But then I would bring a book and I would be like, oh my god, I can't believe I got this great meal prepared for me and I didn't have to talk to anybody. I did that the other day. I went out to lunch by myself to like a place with a like a weeder. Oh wow.
For the first time in my life. Yeah. And? It was a bit much.
I was still a little uncomfortable. Yeah. Now there were there were four other people in the restaurant and they were all alone. Yeah.
That kind of help. Yeah. But two of them were sitting at the bar and like talking to the waitress like a bartender. And so like that that like, you know, that's what that's the situation you're in.
But you know, I got I did it and it was delicious. And I love lunch. It's maybe my favorite thing. Yeah.
No. My favorite thing is family. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. My second favorite thing is dinner. Then lunch. There's so many there are so many not hatches out there done and none of them are chickadees.
Well, it's a bunch of them. I'll make a sort of broad observation to you Hank, which is that every single nut hatch you're seeing is a chicken. Yeah. It's a chickeny.
That can offside down up the trunk of a tree pecking it. That you have you met a chickeny? That might be. They are different birds.
They are evidently different. They're really far away. And the only reason that you think it's a nut hatch is because you have tiny little Montana chickadees because there is nothing for them to eat. So they are like they're like hummingbird sized because how could they survive?
Whereas here we are in a beautiful hardwood forest and the chickadees can become fat and happy and huge nut hatch sized. Also, many of the things you're identifying as a nut hatch are in fact falling leaves. That's not what you said. There are so many nut hatches.
There are a bunch of falling leaves. Okay. All right. Anyway, it reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Indiana's chickadees.
Indiana's chickadees. The shonkiest chickadees. This side of Mississippi. The podcast is also brought to you by our grandfather who is grateful for his health.
What he has of it. Today's podcast is also brought to you by the stand up comedians who laugh at their own jokes for so long to remind you that you should laugh at them. The stand up comedians who laugh at their own jokes. Now see that is Robin.
Now, you know what that one is. Okay. Now this podcast is also brought to you by Career Opportunities. It sent John Hughes to the woods.
It turned out to be the opposite of a career opportunity. Hey, we have a project crossing message to read from AJ and Victoria to Dear Baby. This is a great project for awesome message. I want you to prepare to tear up a little bit.
Dear baby, welcome to the world in all its beautiful shades of gray, in all its nuance and complexity. We can't wait to see you grow, to help you explore your curiosity, and to teach you to hope and love. We want to show you a world where mothers and babies like you are safe and healthy no matter where they are born. And because we are human, we selfishly hope you learn to love science and art like us.
No matter who you are, we love you. We have no doubt you won't forget to be awesome. Love your parents. Oh gosh.
That's a really good one. So beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us. Welcome to the world, baby AJ and Victoria.
That's what I'm calling the baby. AJ and Victoria Jr. Alright, hey, 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 to code or duct tape a bunch of different tools together.
And when things look real, that works on my brain to be like, I'm doing a real thing. It also works on other people's brains to be like, this is legitimate. Shopify also has one of the best checkout systems on the internet. It's built to help customers finish the purchase effectively and efficiently without a bunch of roadblocks.
Returning customers can check out with a single click. That means less friction and fewer abandoned carts and a smoother experience for everybody. That stuff gives you confidence early on it, it gives other people confidence in what you're doing. You're not wondering whether the payment system is going to work, you're not wondering whether customers can get through the process, Shopify handles that foundation so you can focus on the thing that you're actually trying to do.
It's really kind of amazing to me that Shopify is a tool that works from the first day your store launches when you're just starting to get customers all the way up to being the size of Good.store or dftva.com or being the size of like Mattel and Gymshark. When you build a Shopify, you're building with tools that already work at every scale. All you need is the idea Shopify handles the rest. 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 website for more details. One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels.
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Nicole writes, here's John Hank, how do we know that the universe is expanding? How can it even expand if matter can't be created or destroyed? What is expanding? Also, what is causing it to expand?
What the heck is expansion and how is what we're expanding into just nothingness? Many for your thoughts or even maybe a Nicole. Wow. Wow.
Got work at the end there. That was a solid goal. I think so like so so so as far as what's causing it to expand like a lot there are a lot of questions in there. Yes.
The most important one is that we know that it's expanding. How do we know that it's expanding? Because once you we know that it's expanding, it's like that's basically what we know. And then we have a lot of guesses about why and how and what is causing it and dark energy and we're confused.
But we know that it's do you know why we know that it's expanding? Can you feel like you've been articulate that? Yes. There's been a sudden influx of birds into the tree just as a flight.