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Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and Jha. Nor is everything with you, John and Hank.
It's a comedy podcast where me and my brother John talk about death and answer your questions, bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon and give you to be his advice. I did a different order today, John. I like how you're mixing it up. It's very bold.
It's refreshing. It's innovative. I love it. How are you doing?
I'm well. I'm well. We're recording this podcast on a Monday. It's a beautiful day here in Indianapolis.
Everything is going well. How are you? You say you're well, but you don't sound quite like normal. Well, I'm a little bit tired.
I did go for a five-mile run this morning, which is a little bit exhausting. But no, on the whole, and also I was in New York this weekend, which was also a little bit exhausting. Very fun, though. My longtime publicist and your friend as well, Hank, Elise got married.
So I was there to celebrate her wedding, which was lovely. But I also am a little bit tired. And what is new in your life? Oh, I don't know if anything at all is new.
I had a baby shower this weekend. We received baby gifts. It was lovely. People were very kind.
I believe we sent some things to you as well. I don't know if you've received them yet. I did. I sent you a text message about how very, very nice it all was.
Well, as you could tell from the way it was wrapped up, it was mostly me who did the work. Well, it was very, very sweet gesture. Not just the stuff, but also there were lots of nice little notes as well. So we're really looking forward to it.
Yes. The thing that I'm most excited about is that we got to pass down the little DFTBA Nerdfighteria onesie that someone gave me back in like 2009 before. Sarah and I even knew we were going to have a kid. Can I read you a short poem of correction for today?
Yes, you may. So these days, at least for a little while, we're doing short poems that also take the form of corrections to things we got wrong in previous podcasts. Today's short poem of correction comes from listener Andrew who writes, there are no pokey stops at high schools for legal reasons. Trust me, I work at Niantic, which for the record, since we're making corrections, is pronounced Niantic.
A short poem of correction from listener Andrew who is employed at Niantic, or possibly Niantic, I still maintain that nobody knows for sure how it's pronounced. It's named after a ship that fell into the bottom of the ocean. Is it really? Oh, yeah.
I believe so. I'm not actually positive about that. Now, great. I've already introduced an opportunity for a new correction.
Is it an anagram of the Titanic? One of these days we're going to get everything right in this podcast, but not today. It does look like it's an anagram of Titanic, except that it doesn't have enough teas in it. Yeah, I'll just ask too many ends.
There's a couple things keeping it from being a proper anagram of Titanic. All right. Maybe we should move on to some questions from our listeners, Hank, as we got to get ourselves into the portion of the podcast where it's okay to be wrong. Yes, right.
The dubious advice portion of the podcast with the only thing that we are endangering is the lives of the people who take us seriously. By the way, do never, never follow our advice. I hope that we've made that clear over the years, but there's just there is no worse idea. Well, John, I can see in our shared Google Doc that you're highlighting all kinds of stuff.
So maybe you know what you're doing. No, that's how I just that's just how I read. I highlight as I read on the internet. Do you not do that?
I do as well. I try not to do it when we are sharing a Google Doc, though, because then it can be kind of confusing. Okay, yeah, I see you doing it. It's actually super annoying when you do it.
But when I do it, it's very helpful. Okay. Hank, our first question comes from Mimi who writes Dear John and Hank, where are all the dead birds? After 20 years on this earth, I've only just realized I never see dead birds, but I see live birds everywhere.
Where are the dead birds? Any help would be appreciated, because their absence has become vaguely panic-inducing to me. Hank, I mean, I got to say, have you ever been to a grocery store because they're full of dead birds? Just so many dead birds.
Dead chickens, but I like any restaurant that Thanksgiving is centered around a dead bird. We basically praise them. Yeah, there's a whole restaurant just for dead birds. I don't think she's talking about dead birds that you eat.
I think she's talking about, you know, songbirds and blue herons and most of all pigeons. Well, I, yes. So pigeons die in crevasses. And so they find a little place to go die.
And I know this because we have one of those places at our old apartment where there would always be a dead pigeon. And they like take the dead pigeon out and then there'd be another one. It was like, this is just the place where pigeons go to die. It was like a pigeon graveyard, perfect little spot.
They just loved to go die there. But in birds, I think, get eaten a lot. So small birds, if there's cats around, they will get taken around hidden by the animals who eat skunks and raccoons also will eat dead birds. But also live birds, if they are not feeling well and are slower than normal.
So there are lots of things that will eat them, take them away. But also I think that a lot of birds actually, they go and die and they find places to be alone to die, which is interesting. So also, if you are a person who looks to find dead birds, there are lots of places where you can go look, particularly buildings where they fly into windows and will sometimes land on ledges that are higher up and ground level. And they'll just be full of dead birds if you want some.
Yeah, I mean, I actually happen to know where all of the dead pigeons are. There may be some tiny subset of them that are in a crevasse next to your old apartment, but almost all of the dead pigeons are underneath the Western brown line train stop in the city of Chicago. And I used to wonder where all the dead pigeons, you know. And then once I moved to Lincoln Square neighborhood in Chicago and started walking under that train stop every day, I learned that all the dead pigeons, thousands of them are under that train stop.
And I think you're right that animals eat them. That's the other thing that happens to them. But mostly my belief, Hank, is that a lot of birds, when they die, their bodies and their souls both disappear from the earth at the same time and are placed into another worldly realm. But I don't have good data on that.
That's just kind of what I suspect. But as far as the dead pigeons go, maybe I don't know if you live in or near Chicago, but regardless of where you live, if you're in the United States, when a pigeon feels that they are approaching death, they begin a great migration that ends underneath the Western train stop on the brown line in Chicago. So anywhere in the United States, continental US, that's where all the dead pigeons go. But as for the other birds, I believe that their bodies and souls are taken to another worldly realm.
Hank, should we move on to another question? Okay, John, this one is from Anonymous who asks, dear Hank and John, as an American Muslim high school student, I'm often asked why I don't celebrate Christmas as the people telling me this believe it is no longer a religious holiday. I often like to give funny and mischievous answers to these questions. However, I cannot seem to think of many for this particular question.
Can you help me out? John, can you help this person out? Yeah, I mean, first off, if it's not a religious holiday, how come there are so many people telling me that it's a religious holiday? Like, what?
Okay, so can we, if your second is not a religious holiday, can we recognize the first syllable of the word? Yeah, I mean, first off, right, let's, let's, we need to find a word for it other than Christmas, if it's not going to be a religious holiday anymore. Secondly, the answer I would actually give to this question, Hank, is that even if Christmas is not a religious holiday, it's a terrible holiday. I guess, you know, I have a long standing opposition to Christmas.
I think it is a like a weird and totally ineffective and inefficient mishmash of different like mythologies that make no sense when they collide together. But the biggest problem I have with Christmas is that I have a serious problem with gifts. So what I would say anonymous is I would say like, I don't love gift holidays because they are economically inefficient because they result in me getting a lot of things that I didn't want and giving people a lot of things that they didn't want. And so what I do instead is not celebrate this holiday regardless of whether it is secular religious because it is cray cray.
I just disagree with you on some of the things that you have said. I think that gift giving is not an economic activity. It is a surrogate for the showing of appreciation for other humans and love. And that's well, then it should be, it should always involve gifts that cost nothing or very little to make that are like made by hand with the sweat of your brow and with love rather than like picked up at Target at midnight on Christmas Eve.
John, this is America. The clearest surrogate for value and appreciation that we have is obviously the US dollar. Well, then we should only give dollars for Christmas. Actually, I wouldn't have a problem with that.
If you either give a present that you worked hard on that some kind of like craft or handmade thing that it captures your love for someone or you give them cold hard cash, I have no problem with Christmas. Unfortunately, what almost always happens is that you pick up a copy of Connect 4 for somebody at Target at midnight on Christmas Eve and you're like, remember how you like board games that are really easy? And then they're like, no, I don't remember that. That wasn't me.
I wasn't me. Oh man. I don't feel like I have a particularly good solution for this somewhat complicated problem. In fact, Christmas is, there are a lot of ways in which Americans have come to feel that Christmas is an American holiday and not a religious one.
And that is actually fairly separate from the truth, despite the fact that we have a hard time actually recognizing that. Yes, I totally agree with you on that. I think it's really important to understand that Christmas is not an American holiday because Christianity is not the American state religion. It never was.
This country wasn't set up that way. And it never should be. I'm also sure that in an anonymous life, this is one of many examples in which they have to grapple with a country that expects you to be a certain kind of way to be properly American, which is of course deeply offensive and wrong. And again, it always has been.
The United States was never this idea that the US was at one point like a quote unquote Christian nation is just ludicrous. It's just not true. There was never that time. It harkens back to a past that doesn't exist, like so much radical regressiveism.
It harkens back to a past that didn't exist. So it is very frustrating. But if you're trying to deal with it in a funnier mischievous way, which I applaud, I would just say that I'm opposed to gift giving. That should shut down the conversation.
Religiously, I just think it's an economically bad idea. Yeah, actually, you know what, Hank, I want to just I want to really quickly back up a little bit and be serious here for a second and say that I'm not always opposed to gift giving. I'm just trying to have fun on the podcast. Like, for instance, I don't know if you know about this, but I recently received a gift of 378 Snickers bars and it meant the world to me.
So I do want to I do want to just pause and say how grateful I am to my friends at the Mars company for the gift of those 378 Snickers bars, which truly is the gift that keeps on giving because no matter how many I eat a day, there are still seem to be a lot. Very sad for you when they finally run out. We got another question. It's from Dayo who asks Dear Hank and John, whenever I hang out with friends, I act in a certain way.
I crack jokes and I get all hyper, but when I'm with a different group of friends, I kind of notice that I act very differently from how I am with my other friends. I'm more mild than wild. I'm worried that there will come a time when all of us will hang out and I will lose control over who I am and my identity or they will think that I'm fake because of this. Also, I find myself admiring people who act the same around everybody, their personalities never seem to falter.
Am I being fake? How do I find out who I am independent of my friends or other people? How does anyone truly quote to be themselves? Well, at the end there, we got to a question that is unanswerable, but I will say that I'm just like you.
I am totally a social chameleon and when I'm with one group of people, I act the way that they do and I feel like I just try and fulfill people's expectations and I find that to be fun and I find that to be part of who I am that I act different ways in different situations around different people. I don't think that's a contradiction at all. Yeah, I don't know Hank if you listened to Invisibilio, but they had a great podcast about personality and the way that we think of personality as this monolithic thing that doesn't change, that doesn't respond to circumstance, when of course that isn't the truth, that isn't the truth about people. We all contain multitudes.
We're all shy in some circumstances and not in others and angry in some circumstances and not in others and that personality is way less stable than we believe it to be because the idea that it isn't stable is kind of terrifying. Right, yes. And Deio definitely feels that feeling and I think that we are often told to be ourselves and that can be very difficult when we are trying to build this conception of who we are and then who we actually are defies that expectation. Yeah, how do you do how do you deal with that, Hank?
Like how do you make sense of like a self that feels like it can't get pinned down that you can't really identify what makes you you. By the way, I am asking this because I'm writing about it and if you could solve the problem for me, that would be a great answer. I read a so probably the first like real novel I read, I guess I should say that Jurassic Park is a real novel, but the first difficult novel I read was Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson and there are a number of characters in there that are this way and that and that is in a way that was very appealing to me as a young person and I think this is also true of a lot of books that I like that was that was praised as as a skill that people were using to their own advantage and the advantage of their society and different characters, some of them were using it primarily to their own advantage and some of them to the advantage of society and so that made me feel really like kind of proud of my ability to change in different situations. There were definitely times where I felt ashamed of it when friends would be like, why are you acting different?
Why are you not acting like yourself? And realizing that yes, because I was in a different social situation, I was acting different than they were used to and so I certainly have felt shame about that and that I, you know, and like I'm faking to some extent. But I think that it's that like the me who I am is a fun game to play and I can, I should and can, I can and am able to, I should be able to and I am able to adopt different ways of being and that's something that I can be proud of not something that I should be afraid of. So what makes you you is essentially nothing or is like or the unis of you is constructed partly by you, partly by forces outside of you and that's just something that you're able to accept.
Well, it's the thing that I consider to be me to be to be a big part of who I am. And also I have like there are things that I don't ever like that I that aren't personality that I think define me more significantly than my personality, like my values and like my philosophy of how I should live and how the world is. And those things when they get called into question are a lot more uncomfortable for me. Okay, that's actually very helpful.
Thank you. Let's move on to another question. That was totally selfish series of questions, but I enjoyed listening to you talk about it anyway. This one comes from Peter who writes Dear John and Hank, have you noticed that Hank and John would fit pretty well in place of the words Stacy's mom from the song Stacy's mom, Love Peter.
Yep, it is true. But I can't help but notice that John and Hank would also fit it just wouldn't rhyme anymore. John and Hank have gone on. I don't actually know the song.
Well, you did a good job. Yeah, we're John and Hank, have got it going. And that doesn't make any sense. So it's pretty much has to be Hank and John have got it going on.
I mean, could it be John and Hank have got a yellow tank? John and Hank have got a yellow tank. Yep. Yeah, that's pretty good.
I mean, I've always wanted, I guess I prefer a purple tank. If I'm gonna have some kind of tank, I want a big beautiful purple tank. All right. Well, I am looking forward to the fan art.
I'm also looking forward to the John and Hank have got a purple tank t-shirt. Oh man, oh good. Just real quick, I'm gonna look up the lyrics to Stacy's mom. And I'm gonna let you know, oh my, the video is predictably, here we go.
I mean, I have to say this, just reading the lyrics here on the Google Play Music site, I can't help but feel that this isn't the most sophisticated pop song ever written. But it would basically be Hank and John have got it going on, repeated four times. And then Hank, can I come over after school, we can hang out by the pool. Did John get back from his business trip?
Is he there or is he trying to give me the slip? Oh my God, it's like this was written by an algorithm. Oh, fountains of Wayne. I mean, it's a don't get me wrong.
It's a great song. But like so many pop songs, it completely falls apart when you try to read it as poetry. Okay, we should move on because now that I read the rest of the lyrics, I realize that I really don't want that song to be about you and I at all. I think it would have to be fully from the top down restructured for Hank and John.
Yeah, we'd have to wear it for sure. So let's move on to another question from one of our listeners. All right, this one's from Dana who asks Dear Hank and John, I have a slightly death related question for your comedy podcast. I feel like the phrase live each day like it's your last has been haunting me.
I keep hearing it in media and conversations and it makes me wonder, how is that possible? If I knew it that today was going to be my last day, I would want to spend the day having awesome adventures and doing new things with my family and friends. I would not want my last days to be spent like my days currently are Wake School Study Sleep Work Repeat. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy life.
I just don't necessarily enjoy it on a daily basis. How does one actually live each day like it's their last? Is it possible? Why do people say this?
Yeah, I mean, there are lots of cliches that I think contain terrible advice, but this might be the worst one because of course, if you were actually living each day like it was your last, you wouldn't be having a bunch of awesome adventures. You'd spend most of the day weeping and desperately trying to make sure that you said goodbye to all of these people you loved. And also, is my, are my affairs in order? Is there anything that I can do to make matters a little bit better for the people I love after I'm gone?
I just think it's the stupidest idea. Like if you live each day like it's your last, for one thing, you're going to be really sad most days. But for another thing, you're also going to be like, I have the same problem with Carpe Diem Hank, because if all you do is seize the day, this day is the only day all I have is the present, then you're never planning for the future, which is a big problem because there is almost always a future. Like it almost never is your last day.
So like you wake up the next day and you're like, boy, I really probably could have prepared slightly better for today. I, well, first, I think that you are correct that if you live each day like as if you are going to die tomorrow and you know this fact, then you're going to spend every day calling your family and they're going to be like, oh my god, no, you're not dying. Secondly though, I think that yes, the seize the day is more the expression that is trying to be gotten across, not that it is your last, but that it may as well be. And you are right that only one out of like 30,000 days will be your last day.
And that's pretty good. Oh, no, more than that. More than that. Yeah.
And I think you should celebrate this fact. I think that like, if you, if you in all likelihood have a future to plan for at least part of your day should be spent preparing for that future, like school is a good example of this. Like I found college to be pretty fun, but I was also conscious of the fact that I was in college partly so that I could, you know, enjoy adulthood more and I don't regret that investment of time at all. No, I like to live each day as if I will live a long, long time.
And I just looked it up because my rough math I was not sure of. And it turns out that John, it's the less than less than one in every 30,000 days. And on average, one in every 27,375 days will be your last if you live in the US. So but you could, you could get 30,000 days.
It's not like a completely unrealistic. Oh, sure. Sure. Yes.
Yes. It's often often. Yes. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for 30 grand.
That would be, that would seem like victory to me. But yeah, I don't think that you should live every day like it's your last. I think you should live every day as if you were going to have a long and productive life. The other thing is that if you live every day like it's your last, you never save anything.
Like not just, not just money, but you don't save anything because like, yeah, it's all going away. I just, I don't have that free spirit in this inside of me. Hank, I am the least free spirit I have ever met. You are pretty, you are a pretty confined spirit, John.
But I also, I want to say that I spend a, like a huge amount of my days investing in the future. Like for example, this podcast doesn't kind of go up until next week. And so if I was going to live my everyday like it was, my last, I would not be recording this podcast. So I'm planning for it.
You know, respectfully, I know I wouldn't either. I enjoy it, but I don't enjoy it nearly that much. Oh, yeah, it'll be really good. It'd be like, I said, John just found out he's going to die tomorrow.
So we decided to record a podcast for you. This is, it's got to be a little bit of a, of a more macabre, dear Hank and usual. Which is saying something. All right, let's move on to another question from our listeners.
This one, by the way, you can email us at Hank and John at gmail.com. We always forget to say that, Hank. And yet somehow people find a way, which I appreciate, but it's Hank and John at gmail.com is our email address. Okay, Hank, this question comes from Sydney who writes, Dear John and Hank, I need some dubious advice on a very important grammatical issue.
It's how to shorten the term as per usual. People usually say usual out loud as huge, like as per huge. By the way, when Sydney says people, I think Sydney is referring to her peers who are, I'm guessing, 24 years younger than I am. Anyway, how do you spell the huge in as per huge?
Does this make any sense? I just want to be able to write as per huge without saying in parentheses, I shortened that from usual. I think, I mean, Sydney, you are my hero on every level. I love every part of this question.
I think it's pretty clear. I think it's Y O J. It's not Y O O J. If you write as per Y O J, people will actually pronounce, they'll have to like pause and they'll be like, as per huge.
Is that the double truff saying huge? What is happening with as per huge? No, you got to get to in there. So I'm going to go Y O O S H as per huge.
Nope, that doesn't work either. No, definitely not. It's huge. It's D Y O O J W O G H as per whoosh, that's whoosh.
That's an existing word W O O S H. We can't use an existing word. I said G G H G H. But anyway, okay, I'm going to go with whoosh also works.
I'm going to go with U D G E E the second E is silent. It could be pronounced ugly, but I think that will get across huge. This is an incredibly difficult question. Hank, this might be the hardest question we've ever been asked to answer on Dear Hank and John.
Why O U S H as for you? Nope. Nope. As per huge.
As per huge. You should with a J. You got to get the Y O U Z S H. Use Y O U Z S H.
I mean, that is definitely wrong. I'm looking at it. I just typed it out. It's you're close though.
I think this is also more letters than usual just to be clear. Well, yeah, no, there's definitely no way to spell it with fewer letters than are in usual. No, Y O O J Y O J. What huge but doesn't that doesn't huge sound like Donald Trump saying huge?
It does. It does. Yes. You've got to get the sh in huge.
Is it Y O O S H? That's you. Dang it. As per Y O O J S H as for you.
Why? I don't dislike Y O J S H, although it looks very weird. I agree. It looks very weird.
I mean, I don't think that I don't know if this is going to be entertaining to our podcast listeners, but you should really see Hank and I shared Google Doc right now. It's hilarious. It's just Hank and I desperately typing out things that sound vaguely like as per huge. So somewhat on this topic, Hank, when my books are published in languages with other alphabets, especially in like Russian or countries where there is no J sound, they use a mix of the like D and X sound to make the J of like D John basically.
It's like D John. And so there's like, there's like, shuh sound of the X letter and the does sound of D. And so they usually translate my name in such a way that I can sort of read the Cyrillic alphabet. But I always read it as like this book was by D John Green.
And I think we're running up against the similar problem, which is that the Latin alphabet has no way of saying as per huge, which I'm almost going to suggest to me that even though it's going to make you feel like an old funny duddy, you just spell out usual because I don't think there's any way that we can get to use with our alphabet. What about the O with the O O L O? Like why O O L O J E? Oh, it's brilliant.
It's brilliant. Wait, what are you spelling it? Why O O L O R U J E J E? J E with an O O O L O L O T as per huge.
No, that's still J. But maybe it's still you. Why? OOOM.
I'm hearing is huge. E. I can't type an OOO L O R U apparently. I don't know how to do it.
You're going to Sydney. We figured it out, but it does involve an OOM L O. And I don't know if that's on your iPhone keyboard, but I would go with as per huge. I don't know why I assume by the way that Sydney has an iPhone and types the iPhone.
It's like I feel like I know her, although I don't. But as per huge with an OOM L O is the way. That's the way. Yeah, maybe just OO O O L O U J E.
Oh, that's good. OOM L O O U J E. That's simple. It's fewer letters than usual.
It also it's as per huge. Nope. I don't like the J. I'm going to stick with with why OOM L O U S H maybe S H E.
Well, it's possible that we spend enough time talking about it. Well, I almost feel like we should start a spin off podcast. Where we just decide upon new spellings for abbreviations. I'm into it.
Or how to pronounce things like Hank, do you ever wonder how to like remember back in the day when instead of saying BRB, if someone was going to be gone for a while from the internet, they would write AFK away from keyboard. I always used to pronounce that in my head as AFK. Sure. But I've never known how to pronounce BRB.
Is it Burb? Is it Brub? Burb. That makes sense.
It's interesting when we look at words that don't have vowels that we put in. I talked to linguist about this one time. Is this sort of like what we call a neutral vowel sound? I don't know if we call it that.
But in English it's sort of a U sound like a like burb. And actually if you listen to English very systematically, that's most of the noises we make are these earth noises. And we don't even think about it. But like if I just said about it, that's an A.
But in fact I just said a bound. And it's more of a U noise than an A noise. Who knows why and how linguists figure this stuff out. But I was fascinated to talk about it.
And that is a really great story. I told it. That was a really great story. But it wasn't as good as the 12 minutes that we spent analyzing out right as per UJ.
Oh yeah. I feel like we're probably we're at a low questions per episode right now. Yeah, we have it. This has not been our best work.
Today's podcast is brought to you by our best work. You didn't get it today. Did face fuckers also brought to you by Stacy's mom. She has a purple tank.
And she also has it going on. It's easy to forget that Stacy's mom has it going on because they only remind you about it 16 times over the course of the song. Well, I mean, but she does. But she doesn't tell you because you're so distracted by her purple tank.
It's true. I mean, it's weird because like why do you really want to hang out with Stacy's mom? Is it because you think that she's beautiful or is it because you wish to acquire this purple tank that she's driving around? Who knows?
Or maybe just spend a little bit of time in it. Today's podcast is also brought to you by the western brown line L-Stop in the city of Chicago containing all the world's dead pigeons. And finally today's podcast is brought to you by the noise. The noise.
It sounds like a you noise, but it's really just everywhere and everything we say all the time. 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.
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Returning customers can check out with a single click. That means less friction and fewer abandoned carts and a smoother experience for everybody. That stuff gives you confidence early on and it gives other people confidence in what you're doing. You're not wondering whether the payment system is going to work.
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See website for more details. Speaking of which Hank can we go ahead and answer one more question from our listeners. Oh sure great this one comes from Rachel who asks deer john and Hank are people who have a large internet presence and or have lots of information about themselves available on the internet bothered when fans ask them questions that could have been found on their Wikipedia page. For example, I was curious about how Hank learned so much about science but then I realized I could Google it instead of waiting to ask if we ever met.
Yeah I get that so much people email me long emails that clearly took a significant amount of time to write to find out information that is right there if you just type in just the three words that you were looking for. Yeah but I think they ask you precisely because they don't want to get the information from these sources. They want to get the information from you. Like I have a theory about this that we really enjoy learning from people much more than we enjoy learning from machines.
Like I like to get my news from people. I know that it's biased and I know that it's you know not in particularly efficient systems. It's not the only news source I use but I really enjoy hearing people's take on the news as they're telling me about it. And I think that's like a human thing.
We want to interact with people much more than we want to interact with Wikipedia pages. That said it does sometimes get a little bit annoying but I also don't feel like people should have a response. I mean if it's for like a school report that's one thing but if I'm having an interaction with someone I don't feel like they should have a responsibility to look me up on the internet before we hang out. That's weird.
I know I agree with you but there are times like for example when the dates for when VidCon is are on the website VidCon.com and people email me asking me what the dates for VidCon are and I'm like I just I don't know what to say. Like this is not the efficient way to get this information. If I email you back it will take a very long time. In comparison to the amount of time it would have taken to go to VidCon.com and look at the dates that are on there.
Yeah I agree with you about that stuff. Slightly off topic Hank. Why is your Wikipedia page so much better than my Wikipedia page? Like what devil did you make some deal with in order to get like one of the best biographical Wikipedia pages on the whole freaking internet.
Well my Wikipedia page with gratitude to everybody who has contributed to it is a dumpster fire. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh wow it is nice. Look at this chart.
I know your Wikipedia page has a chart and then they sort of like imported the chart onto my Wikipedia page but it doesn't look nearly as good. Oh no no it doesn't. Yeah I know. Your Wikipedia page is truly truly excellent and I'm profoundly I would be lying if I didn't like say that I am profoundly jealous of it because I am.
Well I'll tell you John I haven't looked at my Wikipedia page in a long time. Though the last time I did I did fix something. I remember being like that's not true. That's not true.
That's not a true thing. I saw my friend Matt DeLapagno last night and I went to his Wikipedia page before I met up with him. He's a great author he won the new very award this year for his brilliant book Last Stop on Market Street. But I was meeting up with Matt.
I just wanted to remind myself whether his first book had come out the same years mine because I remembered that but I wasn't sure if I was like misremembering it. So I went to his Wikipedia page and that led me to another Wikipedia page about one of his books where the first sentence was something something something and the book was also selected as a New York Times public library book for the D's nuts. That was it. Somebody went to the Wikipedia page just out of the word D's nuts replaced the word teenage and that was it.
That was it. That was what they chose to do with their one wild and precious life. Here's something that looks like that looks like Wikipedia vandalism but is not under the brother 2.0 section of my Wikipedia page it says that our videos feature lots of different things and the final thing and the list of things that those videos featured was intercourse between giraffes as the thumbnail for videos. Yeah that's not something I'm super proud of but it is true.
They did decide to put that right there at the last thing to show you it really sticks in your mind. Well what can you do Hank? Life is full of uh life is full of regrets and it's hard to regret those videos because they got like 40 million views. I mean John I gotta get money for Snickers somehow because not to be said and then be for free.
It's true Hank it's not like they grow on trees or just arrive at your doorstep at 378 at a time because you're not me. Okay hey let's move on to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. What is the news from Mars this week? NASA is testing out its new space launch system.
This is the new gigantic rocket that will carry astronauts to deep space in the Orion capsule. The space launch system is going to be bigger than the Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the moon and it has big giant engines that are very similar in fact almost exactly the same as the engines that took the space shuttle up but there will be more of them and they are running them at a higher thrust amount using a different controller brain thing to figure out how exactly all of the fuel goes into the thing and how they adjust the amount of thrust that's being generated. So they tested this thing out. It's amazing you can watch a video of it.
It's just seven straight minutes of this thing just blasting out energy and it worked great. They've got it up to like I don't know what this means but they got it up to 111% thrust so that seems impossible but they ran them for the space shuttle at 100 and 4, 106% thrust so I guess that that's the thing that you can do and and it operated well. It seems it didn't damage itself at all and it's a step toward our future as a deep space society getting humans outside of near Earth orbit and maybe to the moon maybe to an asteroid maybe to Mars. All right well we will try to put that video up on the Patreon page so that you can enjoy it seven minutes of pure energy being released out into the atmosphere sounds like a fascinating watch.
It's really loud. Yes I can imagine. In A.S.E. Wimbledon news, A.S.E.
Wimbledon have acquired their first point of the league one season. You got to tie? It was not a moment where A.S.E. Wimbledon bathed themselves in glory hank however they did draw Neil Neil against North Hampton away.
It's always good to get an away point. That's a pretty good result. On the other hand North Hampton is near the bottom of the table. A.S.E.
Wimbledon however hank is now off the bottom. Sheffield United is in last place with one point for the season after four games played. A.S.E. Wimbledon also has one point for the season after four games played but has a slightly better goal differential.
So we have begun our inexorable march from the basement to the top. You start at the top alphabetically, went all the way down the last and now you're going to claw your way all the way back up. Well it's really important to actually to have had this bad run of four games thanks so that at the end of the season when they played Drake started from the bottom now we're here it will be more a more powerful thing. So I was going to say I remain optimistic but that is far too strong of an adjective.
I remain conscious of the fact that unlikely things happen. Yes. Yes. Well it's a thing that happens every day John every time I'm driving my car and I look in front of me at the car at the car in front of me and I look at its license plate I think what are the odds that those numbers would be on that car right in front of me and there's nothing special about those numbers but those numbers in particular it's just very very unlikely and it happens every day.
The odds are phenomenally low and yet the unlikely happens all the time that's a big part of what makes human life so beautiful and also a big part of what makes human life so terrifying. Hey what did we learn today? Well good and gracious I don't know. I also I mean I'll tell you the main thing we learned we learned that it takes two full grown adults a solid 20 minutes to spell the word huge.
I learned where all the dead pigeons are there's like six or seven of them at my apartment building and 30 billion in Chicago underneath the train station. I mean that's not even an exaggeration there are actually 30 billion of them. We learned we learned not to spend every day as if it were your last. Yes yes in the course of today's podcast we learned that John Green spends every day as if he will have more days.
No yeah definitely definitely. Oh yeah definitely. Oh yeah definitely. And finally of course we learned that Stacy's mom has a really nice purple tank.
It's amazing. It'd be nice if we appreciated her for her accomplishments rather than just you know what she looks like. Indeed it is not easy in the United States even with our relatively lax gun laws to acquire a weaponized vehicle. I have no matter what the color.
No I mean in fact I wonder if there is a purple tank on earth. Allow me to google Purple tank who can do it. Purple tank top. No I don't want a purple tank top.
Oh yeah it's almost exclusively purple tank tops but there is one purple tank. Those are the day pink for peace. No purple for peace please. Well it's pretty purple.
I'll tell you what Hank I see a lot of purple tank tops. Maybe yeah we clearly. There's just is a very popular color for tank tops but there is one purple-ish tank in Slovenia. I wish I could tell you the city name but unfortunately those letters do not go together in a way that can be pronounced by human tongues.
Not does that yes I think that it's pronounced huge. I thought you were actually going to take a crack at it but no no you went for the easy joke. Thank you for listening to today's podcast. You can email us once again at HankandJohnatgmail.com.
If you want to support this podcast we'd appreciate it. You can go to patreon.com. We have fun live shows every month for our Patreon subscribers. You can also get lots of other cool stuff.
Patreon.com slash Dear Hank and John. Our podcast is edited by the great Nicholas Jenkins. Our theme music is by Gunnarola Hank. I missed a few things.
Rosie Anna Halsbro has helped us out with questions. Our intern is Claudia Morales. You can email us at HankandJohnatgmail.com. I just said that.
I definitely just said that. Did you say that? That one I nailed. I've said it like three times in the podcast.
I've actually only said it twice but now I have a strong brand relationship with exaggerating so I exaggerated because now that's my thing. Well I was distracted while you were talking to me about this pink tank which maybe we'll put other Patreon page as well and it's a beauty. As they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.