Dear Hank & John - 360: Katherine's Question Challenge

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Can fish see water? How do you decide what to write about? Does a shoal ever get to just vibe? What's your favorite part of the movie Goncharov? Do sea creatures have boogers? How long would it take to walk around the moon? Why do people unwantedly abbreviate my name? What color do you want your bones to be? Do I move through time, or vice versa? Can I keep a gift I haven't given yet? Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Yours I prefer to think of it near John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Limbledon John. You know it's a pity that they didn't cast Ryan Reynolds as Jay Gatsby because he's already been the green lantern and Deadpool. Did you write that? No, I found it. Oh, man, I mean, if you've written that, I would, my whole opinion of this,

this bit would have changed dramatically. I would have been like, we need to continue this bit for a decade just in the hopes that you write another joke. Everyone that makes me cringe is worth that one. Yeah, like the Euripides joke, which you also didn't write. Very select group of people who enjoyed that joke. It also took me a second,

because I only slept about two hours last night. Yeah. And I slept in like a like a weird random airport hotel. So even those those two hours weren't the highest quality sleep, but I did have a great weekend, which did include getting to see Rex some the team that Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElaney helped run. And they were in the FA Cup in the fourth round. Oh wow.

And they play in the fifth tier of English football. So they're down outside of the, outside of the football league. And they were two minutes away from the biggest win in that football club's history. And then they gave up a tying goal, but still like a tie against the team in the three divisions above them, 70 teams above them in the football pyramid is pretty special. So it was, it was a great experience. If I sound a little tired, it's because I am a little tired because I just got home from that. But it was really fun. And I can of course report that Ryan Reynolds

is just as lovely as you would expect from his appearance on this podcast, which is the thing that he's best known for. What? What? Oh God, he's both the Green Lantern and Deadpool. I mean, it's a little bit of a spoiler, but I feel like if you haven't read Gatsby, that's on you unless you're like eight years old in which case, it's probably not that much of a spoiler.

Yeah, you're probably gonna forget about that. I don't think either of those things are the most important parts of the book anyway. Yeah, I mean, Gatsby turned out all right in the end. It was what prayed on Gatsby, what foul dust trailed in the wake of his dreams that temporarily aborted my interest in the abort of sorrows and short-winded elations of men. I didn't quite get it right, but I was in the neighborhood. It looked like that. If I'd gotten three hours of sleep, I would have crushed it.

I love that line. I just, there's something about Gatsby. I think about this a lot because in the best novels, we call it voice. You know, we say like, oh, it's a very voicey book. Like, you know, from, there's a huge variety of voicey books, right? You've got like, Zorneal Hurston's, their eyes were watching God. You've got The Catcher in the Rye. To Kill a Mockingbird is a voicey book.

Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming is a voicey book. We call it voice, but like, I think what we actually mean is that there is a meter to the pros. Of course, not like a poetic meter exactly, but there's a sort of rhythm to it. You can hear it in so many lines of Gatsbyler. The first line is, in my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been, yad, yad, yad, ydy, yaddy. And then you hear it again and like, Gatsby turned out all right in the end. It was what prayed on Gatsby, what foul dust trailed in the wake of his dreams. I just, that is what I love. Like when I feel like I'm being carried forward through the words themselves,

that's magic to me, man. I hear you. And while you've been telling me the magic, I've been trying to find the source of this joke, which stretches back at least to 2015, but I can't find the original source. It seems to have been a Tumblr post because of course Tumblr is, among other things, gotta be the funniest of the social media. It just is funnier.

You know who's back on Tumblr? The awesome coffee club? Me, as the awesome coffee club. Hey, I don't think it's not you. I think it's just a coffee brand. No, the... The pal has decaf. No, the me is starting to bleed through to be honest with you.

It's true at awesomacoffeeclub.com. You can now get decaf in addition to our incredible light and dark roasts. So go to awesomecoffeeclub.com to get your coffee. But the me is starting to bleed through. Can I tell you, I love being back on Tumblr, which is a sentence so far away. Yeah. Yeah, from anything I ever thought I would say. But it's really fun.

It's really fun. I told you that when you found out, because I didn't actually tell you, you're not ashamed. When you found out, you were like, are you kidding me? But now look at you. Tom Borboi, John Green. I know.

I know. I just got an ask that said, Jesus Christ, we can't have anything without celebrities wanting it for themselves. Go away. You know how I replied? Can I tell you how I replied? No, you didn't reply? Oh, I replied? Can I tell you how I replied? No, you did reply? Oh, I replied.

Okay, I respond to the haters now. That's the new thing. That's the new, that's the new me. Can I tell you how I replied? I'm very proud of it. Okay. It's not like Deadpool, Gatsby level, but I think it's pretty,

I think it's close to a dad joke. It's almost a pun. Okay, hit. I replied, I think it's close to a dad joke. It's almost upon. Okay, hit it. I replied, I haven't published an novel in six years. I'm best known for making educational video. Calling me a celebrity is an insult to both celebration and identity. Oh, is that what the, is that what the celebrity stands for?

I think so. I didn't know that. Well, I mean, it's just a guess, but... Celebrated identities. I literally, I just Google John Green Tumblr, I can't find your Tumblr. It's like not, it's not, not discoverable. Thank God.

I hope it, I hope it. I found you, I found your Tumblr, it has the 35th episode of Dear Hank and John on it because that's the last thing you posted on your old tumbler. Oh, that was a classic, the 35th episode of Dear Hank and John. It was the first time we found out about Ryan's. That's good being. That was before Leon must for earth.

How is the early days? Oh, man. All right, Hank, let's get to some questions from our listeners. Yes, please. Beginning with this one from Leo who writes, Dear John and Hank, humans live in space where air is all around us, simultaneously fish live in water.

Humans cannot see that air is moving. We can feel it, but we don't know what air looks like. However, we can see water. Are fish not able to see water like we do because it's their air? Can they instead see air if they were to leave the water? This question is haunting me. Fishing for answers, Lea. This is high quality, late night, wonderings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Deboki and I just had a 15 minute conversation about this question.

So we could, where's a number of different ways we could go. Before you go on, I just want to point out that we just had like a 45-minute fight about the fact that you don't have 30 minutes to do a meeting this week, but it turns out that you were just talking for 15 minutes to be talking about whether or not fish, sea water.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I wouldn't, and I don't take it back. I want to let the life I want to live our fight about whether you could do this meeting was actually longer than the meeting would have been. That's probably true. But we couldn't have had the if we could have had the meeting then that would have been great. But instead we have this scheduled. That's right. We were doing it. As you know, the people who are going to be in the speeding better listen to the podcast anyway.

So heads up is going to be next week. John, question. Can we see water? Oh, good question. Or do we, I mean, can we see anything, Hankers, everything just like reflected light? I don't know. Like, yeah, we can see water. We can, can we though. We can see the

interface between water and air. And I think that that's what fish see as the fish would say, I see air. It's always there splashing around on the surface or bubbling up from my butt. So it's the it's only the interface between the things that we see. When you have your when you got like the scuba mask on, you're down there. You don't see the things that we see. When you have your, when you got like, the scuba mask on, and you're down there, you don't see the water. You see things in the water, you see bubbles in the water, you see stuff in the water, you see things moving around in the water, but we see that,

all that stuff with air. There's feathers and dust in the air, the trees and the grasses are blowing around, and there's an interface between the water and air that we can perceive. But, when you look a long way through a lot of water, it gets blue. And, when you look a long way through a lot of air, it gets blue. Okay, I'll buy that sort of.

And I'll tell you what I love about it. I love the idea that all we can really see is the place where things are becoming other things or like the place where things are interacting with each other. Like we can't really see land or water. We can only see the places where land and water are interacting with each other. That's lovely, metaphorically. That said, I have been underwater. So you're gonna have a hard time totally convincing me of your premise, because I've actually, when I go underwater,

yeah, your proposal is that when I go underwater, like if I'm in a pool, that's totally empty, and I go underwater, and I open my eyes. If you got a scuba mask on. If your eyes are designed for water. If I've got a scuba mask on. And I go under water. I am aware, regardless of my breathing

and the other external factors, like my eyes know that it's underwater. Period, period. Like they definitely do. I'm sorry to tell you that maybe's underwater, period, period. Like they definitely do. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to tell you that maybe your eyes don't, which is really weird and like a little distressing, but like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know you're underwater. There's a lot.

Exactly. Because you can see more blue than air. That's, but no, my point is that you're seeing water. But I'm seeing air, you just can't see it unless it's a lot. When can you see a lot of air? When you look up. Give me a single example. Every time you look up.

And the daytime. Look up. You can see a lot of air. No. Is that what you're seeing? What else is there? Ozone. Which is? Oh, it's not ozone.

But even if it were, it's part of the air. Debokai, so Debokai's case, well, I can either save no, so you see clouds, which are made of air kind of, no, they're made of water. Those are like, they're heavy liquid water. They're heavy air. They're watery air. Their, their, their clouds are of water. Those are like heavy liquid water. They're heavy air. They're watery air.

Their, their, their clouds are liquid water. I, I drop lots of liquid water. I understand that, but they're in the air and I can see them. Agreed. Yes. But I think it's, I think the thing you need to, to, to, to, well, the real fight here, which was, which was not settled in my conversation earlier with the book. Is whether sky is just seeing the air. I don't see what else it is I'm seeing.

There's nothing else there. Well, there's clouds, which are apparently according to you or not. I'm not talking about clouds. I'm talking about just the blue, blue sky. Well, Hank, I promise you that if I go outside right now and I look at what I consider to be the sky here in Indianapolis You'll see a bunch of on early February I'm going to see clouds and that I would consider those clouds to be the sky Indeed, I'm sure that it's the sky because the sky in February in Indianapolis is so close to the ground that you can reach out and touch it

Are are the clouds the sky they're in the sky? touch it. Are the clouds the sky there in the sky? No, not the cloud in the sky is what you would say. Or you would say it's cloudy skies. Because you're imagining, you're wrongly imagining a one-to-one map between language and reality. Like, let's imagine, let's imagine if you will, a, you go underwater, okay? This is how we're gonna get to the bottom of it. You go under water and you see it air cloud, okay?

Which is basically the exact like, it's the exact inverse, right? Like you look at the clouds, you see a water cloud. You go down and you see an air cloud. Uh huh. Your argument to me is that you can only see the places where the water and the air cloud are meeting. You can't see the air cloud.

No, no, no, no. Yes, that I don't understand. So, don't understand. This is, I don't understand. Hank, what does a fish see when it's out of water? That was the question. I think fish see. It's like us.

I don't know. This is a scientific question. I know you've been research on this subject surely. I think that a fish will have the same difficulty seeing out of water that we would have seen in water without a mask on because the eyes are made for that kind of interface and they're not getting it. So it just, it looks blurry, but it doesn't, it's not going to look like more stuff. It's not going to look like stuffy. If we made air goggles for fish. They need water goggles.

No man. No goggles. No big speed. Well, the water goggles are what we wear, Hank, to take the air under the water. That's a water goggles. Okay, the water goggles are never, nobody ever says like, oh, I gotta put on my air goggles

so that I can go under the water. So, no, that's what they do. Fish need air goggles. They need tiny little goggles that you've put on a dying bass so that at least still as it slowly suss the case. You can see what you're doing to, like, and see the sky. Look into my eyes. It will say to you, watch this happen.

So the goggles then would have to be full of water, though, to work that way. I assume that would work. And when I say I assume all of this is being said with a kind of supreme confidence that can only be mustard during a podcast. Yeah, right. It's all part of providing incorrect answers and dubious advice, which is our whole thing. And I would like someone to tell me before I move to the next question, whether when I look at the sky, a blue cloudless sky, what I'm seeing if not the color of air, and then we're going to move on. I think you're definitely seeing the color of air. I agree with you. This is going to be great.

of air. I agree with you. This is going to be great. But you can't see inside where you are right now. I can picture your shed. You can't see air. No. Like I'm in my basement right now and I don't, I don't see air. I see a television, I see a microphone, but I don't see anything between me and the microphone. But I think that it's wrong to say that air is invisible because if you look through enough of it, it has a color. Like even if you're looking at a distant mountain, it's a little bluish white. That's true. And that's the only thing in between me and the mountain is air.

And so the air has to be the thing that is that color. It has a color I agree with you. I don't know that that means that you can see it. Well, that's definitely wrong. No, it's not. Like, what do you mean? If you have something that's the color, you're seeing it. You can't.

If it has no, what else am I doing to it? Let me give you, imagine if you will, that you're wearing rose tinted glasses as the metaphor for excessive optimism would have it. Right, and they're gonna be heart-shaped. Yes, you're wearing heart-shaped rose tinted glasses. When you look through those rose tinted glasses at my photo shoot, definitely.

It's like a resolute. 100%. Yeah. On a steppin' repeat, like, add a red carpet or like, no, I think the studio photographer. I think you're doing promo for some dumb thing that you didn't want to do that you kind of got sucked into. Okay.

You know? That sounds right. Like, you're doing promo for like Meta Musil. Okay. Oh, I would totally for like Meta Musil. Okay. Oh, I would totally want to do that. Yeah, and they're like, but then they're like, you have to do this. We need a camera.

That's a auto shoot. Because you know, when you do one of those photo shoots, and I realize this is a first world problem, but when you do one of those photo shoots, like at the very end, they're always like, hey, can you do something really stupid? And you're just kind of broken down so you do one of those photo shoots, at the very end, they're always like, hey, can you do something really stupid? And you're just kind of broken down so you do the stupid thing. And that's the one I use.

So you're at the end of the photo shoot. And they're like, hey, can you hold up this canister of metamusel while also wearing rose tinted, heart shaped glasses and you say, sure. Your argument is that when you look through those rose tinted glasses at the camera person who is photographing you. Oh, interesting. Your argument is that you are seeing not the person, but the tint. So there's no real thing. And I disagree with you.

You're definitely seeing both of those things. Now, this is the problem. You're definitely seeing both of those things. Now, this is the problem. You're not seeing both of those things. You're seeing a person tinging pink, clever, eloquent, smart, quick brother. No one would have been able to think of that, that quick. That's not normal. And that's difficult to deal with. You're just too quick and smart.

Thank you. But, you're trying to make up for our argument earlier and it's working. It's working. I think I'm seeing both of them. This is how you do it, everybody. You gotta throw in random compliments after a fight. You think you're seeing both of them.

You think you're seeing, you think you're seeing the color pink as a concept in addition to seeing the photographer Like you think you're seeing the like I'm a pinkness in addition to seeing the photographer. It's been it out Imagine that the earth is flat and an infinite plane and now you can't even First off it is Now you can't even see the mountain anymore. So there's a mountain over there, but it's so far where you can't see it.

All you can see is the gray, white, blue of air. Now you are seeing air. Hold on a second. Did you just say, imagine the earth is an infinitely long plane and there is no mountain? No, no, there's a mountain out there, but it's so far where you can't see it. Is it not the exact same thing as looking at a cloud with sky?

Yes, it is! So now very complicated hypothetical that could just be looking up. We're just right back there, We're right back to blue skies. So like, imagine, so you're like, you're looking at, it's just like a moon. The moon's out in its daytime. You're looking at the moon. You're not looking at the sky,

and you don't see the sky according to John. It's blue, but you don't see it. Look, just to the right of the moon, now you are looking at the sky and air is blue. I mean, that's a great counter argument. It's really, it's going to, this is a difficult one for me, but I think I've got it. So when you look at the moon in daytime, you're seeing the moon. Correct. That's what I'm seeing. You're seeing the moon tinted by air in precisely the same way that you are seeing through the rose tinted glasses. Your argument is that the rose tint itself is the thing that you are seeing.

I think you're seeing both of those that you can only see the thing. So I actually think, that you can only see the thing. So I actually think, so to get to my point, Hank, I think when you look up at a cloud with sky, you are seeing nothing. I'm definitely seeing the sky. Catherine recently said to me, you guys need to answer more questions during your podcast. So, John, here's a challenge for us. Can we answer 10 questions for us. Can we answer 10 questions before the ad break in 10 minutes? We do ads? Five questions. This question comes from Sophie who writes, dear John and Hank, how do you figure out what to write about? I just kind of flip a coin, Sophie. I try and think about what's the most interesting thing I have heard about recently and whether I could put that in the story, and then I am usually like, nope, but sometimes.

Yeah, when I'm writing a novel, I have no idea what I'm thinking about, except that I'm usually thinking about, like, should I be writing about something else? I guess it's the right thing. Am I leading all of these characters into a cul-de-sac from which we will never emerge?

Yeah. Put it in the most stupid way. Put it in the corner. Yeah. I'm not. How do I give these people something to do while making my point? That's what I'm thinking about. You don't like that at all, really.

You don't love the high concept. It full on theme. You have a theme, but it, really. You don't love the high concept. It's full on theme. You have a theme, but it's never that. It's not like Chris and who writes. I'm not like George Orwell, like, just not really a novel about pigs. It's really a novel about communism. Yeah, I'm not into that jazz.

Mostly right now. Sophie, I write about tuberculosis because because that's what he's working on. Because Hank, can I tell you something real quick? And I know we're trying to answer 10 questions and five minutes. Okay, go, go, go. What do you think killed more people in 2022? tuberculosis or war, homicide, malaria, meningitis, and cholera combined. Well, I wouldn't have said tuberculosis, but now I would, because otherwise that's not an interesting question. But I, that's astounding.

And seems like the kind of thing that somebody should make a four-hour YouTube video about. Yeah. All right, John. This next question comes from Gwen, who asks, do you hear Hank Adjohn, is there ever a show of fish not being targeted by one predator or another? Does it show what fish ever get to just vibe out there? Or are they always being harassed by something? Are their entire lives just pure terror? Gwen. You know, Gwen, I wasn't even aware of the phrase, shoul of fish before this question. So I'm probably not the one to ask. But it doesn't seem like probably a lot of life as a fish is some form of pure terror. I think it's pretty bold of the question asker to assume that there's a form of life that isn't primarily pure terror.

I mean, I don't know why. I've been all legal. I've been having so many stress dreams lately. It's like I'm a show of fish. Last night I had a dream that my colleague, Nikki rescued my dog. And then she brought it to my house and she was like, hey, I got your dog and I was like, oh my God, thank you so much.

But I don't, I don't have a dog. And she was like, yes, you do. And I was like, I really, I'm almost positive. I don't. And she was like, well, it's yours now. And I was like, great. I busy week. I had a dream that our Hollywood agent tried to hire me

to do a contract killing and it was pretty stressful. You've got to tell Cassie about that. She'd love that. She'd love that and then she'd probably like, it wasn't Cassie. Oh, oh, the other guy. Yeah. Actually, that seems plausible.

It's like question. Go get a go comes from Anio who asked steering and John. What's your favorite part of the movie? Gone to love any favorite quotes. Oh, sure. From Anio. The part where, uh, uh, where big jayers walks up to Hannibal and says, yeah, you've only got one more fat nope you've, sir, that one was a big one. That's a good quote. My favorite quote is when Martin Scorsese was asked about this whole thing by his son and he said, indeed, I did make that movie.

All right. This question comes from Kora, who's six years old, keeping on with the marine theme. Oh. Dear John and Hank, do sea creatures have boogers? Oh, very interesting question. Kora, they certainly have mucus. Yeah. Boogers are kind of like dried mucus and that's tricky under the ocean where there's a lot of unless you're in an air cloud.

But I think that you could definitely have mucus that sort of collects enough for it to seem like a booger. There are some little, so there's a bunch of animals that use mucus in a bunch of different ways in the ocean. But there is a thing called a larvaeation, which are a little marine invertebrates. They're almost like, they look like a jellyfish basically. And they sort of like,

like cover themselves in mucous, and then vampire squids will sort of collect them up and like make them into little mucous balls that they then eat. So they're like, a little mucus meat balls that they chomp down on. So they're sort of, but that seems like a burger. They're wet, goggers, wet, gog, or meat, gog, or food. Yeah.

But Kora, just because some animals do that doesn't mean that you should. This next question comes from Kristen who writes, dear John and Hank, how long would it take to walk around the moon? Mary Christmas, Kristen, I could answer this question scientifically and then Hank can give you a dumb answer. The scientific answer is forever because you would definitely die before it happened. So it would be eternity. So, but also NASA has actually tried to figure out

how fast Folks could walk in a more refined space suit than the ones that the Apollo astronaut's had Which their top speed was like 1.4 miles per hour, which pretty pretty slow Yeah, but if you got a better one they tested people out with sort of moon-like situations and they showed that people could walk about normal walking speed. So three miles per hour, which is a little slower than like the maximum walking speed on Earth. And at that speed, it would take 91 days to walk the circumference of the moon if you walked non-stop and didn't just go, went forever, which you of course wouldn't do. And also assuming you didn't have to walk around anything. So if you just just did the equator, but you're going to have to go around to craters and stuff. And

also you're going to have to stop to sleep and go to the bathroom and eat and stuff. So probably more than a year, more than a year. I don't think I knew the moon was that big. Yeah, it's big. I mean, it's not, it's not that big, but it's big. Yeah, it's big. Well, according to you, I've only ever seen it through seeing something else. I've never been able to directly, I've never been able to directly observe the moon. Well, this thing is like people might say, in the night time when there's no light in the sky,

you can't see air. And so air is air in that case, is air visible? But John, when there's no light, you can't see anything. There is light, Hank. And I know there's light. So everything's invisible when you can't see light. No, there is light. And I know there's light, because I look up and I see the stars.

And now I know, for a fact, you just undermine your own argument in the most dramatic way. It's like a moment from Law and Order SVU where all of a sudden the defendant is in big trouble. We're not allowed to talk about it, John. We don't have time for this. You got to ask another question. My point stands, you just confess. That's what happened.

That's because from Jess who asks, dear Hank, but not John, why do people insist on calling me Jess when I introduce myself as Jessica to them? I go by Jess, but basically everyone I talk to when I meet them, they always without fail, abbreviate my name when I did not give them permission. You get to call me Jess.

Jess, okay great. Cool. Why do people do this? Catherine is Catherine, and occasionally a person will call her Kathy, which is not the same name. Oh yeah. I call Catherine Kit Kat, and she's fine with it. Don't, what?

I don't, I would never. I would never call Catherine anything but Catherine. I'm afraid to have even made that joke to be honest with you. Yeah, it is weird. Sometimes people will call me Johnny, and I will flat out for, I will correct them, because that's a red line for me. There are awesome Johnny's in the world. I'm just not one of them.

That's what you should do, Jess or Jessica. I think if somebody calls you Jess when you want to be called Jessica, you should say, uh-uh, no. That's Jessica. Yeah, it's Jessica. I saw a post on Reddit today that was a person's all of their name tags since as they've worked

in McDonald's and they moved up to being a licensee where they like actually run some McDonald's restaurants. And the great thing was that her name was Jenny, and as she got up the line, she changed it and her name tags had Jennifer. And then when she became the licensee and could then was like running McDonald's stores, she's changed it back to Jenny. She was like, I don't need to look official anymore. I am official. You can call me Jenny. Yeah, it's a power move. And also people, but in general,

you should get call what you want people to call you. Yes. That's yours. That's yours. You're in control of that. Yeah, you should be able to decide your appellation, appellation, like the mountain. So next question comes from Rachel who writes,

do your John and Hank, I just learned the cursed information that your bones may be weird colors if in the past you have taken medications like acutane. What color would you choose for your bones to be? First, okay, I got to do a little fact check. It's not Acutane. There are some antibiotics that can turn your bones black. And some of those antibiotics are prescribed for acne. But I don't think that it's Acutane itself. It's a different thing, but it's an acne medication. And the answer to that question, rose tinted, of course.

I got to look up which antibiotic it is because they were all invented for TB. It's tetracycline. Peptracycline. Which was used to treat tuberculosis? I mean, yeah, it's a bacteria. I would like my bones to be glow in the dark. Ooh, clever.

Like I'd like to look a little bit like yellow, little neon, little fluorescence. Yeah, well they are, they do glow under black light, just so you know. I know, but I want them to be like that full bright yellow, put the stars up on your ceiling in 1987. Right. Like all the lights turn off and you're still glowing. Exactly. And ideally, all the lights turn off and I'm glowing through my skin.

This reminds me of my, of our sponsors this week, which is glow bones. Glow bones is a special potion that I've invented. You can get it as a subscription service, or tack it on to your awesome socks club subscription. And it does only one thing for you, which is when you become a skeleton, you will glow in the dark. And that will be awesome. It also tastes like Mountain Dew.

Today's podcast is also, of course, brought to you by Beladana, a poison that women were told in fashion magazines to apply to their eyelids so they would have that wide eyed, sunken eyed, consumptive look. God, I can't wait for this video. This podcast is also brought to you by the dumb thing I didn't want to do, but got sucked into.

It was, I thought it would be really cool, but then they made it weird, and I had to do a stupid photo shoot where in rose-dented glasses with Meta Musil. And of course today's podcast is brought to you by the six paragraphs of Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nicolby, where he describes a dread disease without ever naming it because he didn't have to name it because 30% of people died of tuberculosis. We also have a project for all some measures. It's from Karina, from Maryland to Nerdfighteria, as a throwback to early dear Hank and John, like episode 35 currently on my Tumblr, please read this rather dark real key poem.

Rilka? I've never known. It's always, I don't even think Rilka knew. It's like Jilling Him and Gilling Him. Nobody knows for sure. Yeah. DFTV A-France. I'm slipping away, like sand slipping through fingers.

All my cells are open and all so thirsty. I ache and swell in a hundred places, but mostly in the middle of my heart. I want to die, leave me alone. I feel I am almost there where the great terror can dismember me." That poem was either about a show of fish or about tuberculosis. But I can't tell which one. I almost don't want to tell you. It was a fish, right?

This next question comes from James who asks, Dear Hank and John, am I moving through time, or is time moving through me, Mario's and Luigi's, James? James time doesn't exist, and we don't know what it is or how it works, so it could really be either way, or both or neither. Time might just be the way that we think of everything getting further away from everything else.

I, yeah. I, I, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just like, it feels like it exists. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna be like, yeah, that seems like a thing. Yeah. I, does it feel like it exists? I'm not totally convinced that it always does.

I feel like. I know things have happened and will happen and that feels like time existing. Right, but it's the old Stephen Hawking question. Why, like it's a thought experiment, why can we see into the past and not into the future? And like increasingly, the answer is for a long time, we couldn't see into the past with any kind of level of clarity. And increasingly, we can see into the future, right? Like, we know whether it's gonna snow in Indianapolis tomorrow with reasonable certainty.

Which is why, like, I think you can see air. So anyway, as I was saying, despite the fact that when you look up at quote unquote air in the night sky, you see nothing except for the stars that are definitely past the air. Yeah, I think some things need more light for you to be able to see them, like air. Oh, so your argument, okay, so just to be clear, your argument is that air is visible if and only if a lot of light is shown on it.

I think everything is invisible if no light is shown on it. Sure, I agree. But like when I look up at the moon at night, I can see the moon and I can also see trees and the grass and my body and shadows. Yeah, that's more visible. What I can't see is not buying the air. Oh, now you're going to say you're creating a false construction. It's not a construction. it's not a construction.

It's not a construction. Okay. Visibles real. Yeah. I'm just saying that it's not on or off. Right. I agree with that. There are some things that are more visible

than other things. I know, and one of the things that is less visible than things that are visible is the sky. This next question comes from Ben who asks, steering a John about a teddy bear for a friend's birthday. But as the teddy bear has been sitting in my room waiting for the big day, I have grown attached to it,

is unethical to keep a gift even if the only person who knows about the gift is myself. Can I keep this teddy bear and buy a new one for her birthday, Pumpkins and Penguin's Ben? Of course, that's your teddy bear now, you love it. Yeah, you can keep that teddy bear as long as you haven't promised it to someone else, right? As long as you haven't said, I got you this teddy bear for your birthday,

you can go out and get a different teddy bear or a different present altogether. Yeah, yeah yeah. Or like who gives people presents anymore? Just say happy birthday. Here's a text. Yeah, just a text. And like maybe Venmo them 10 bucks. Be like, take a picture of the teddy bear that's on your bed and be like, this is, I love this teddy bear. It always makes me think of you. I don't know why. Can't say.

Ha ha ha. I mean, I can't, it's hard to imagine a creepier birthday text than photograph of a random teddy bear. I love this teddy bear, it makes me think of you. Happy birthday. Like what? Ha ha ha ha. I love this. It. It makes me think of you. Happy birthday. Like what? Ha ha ha ha.

I don't guess. It depends on the relationship, maybe. I mean, what, explain to me what the relationship is where that's not at all weird. I'm about to, I'm about to text somebody, this picture of a teddy bear. We'll see if it's the person. We'll see if it's the person.

We'll see if it's the person. If the person is one of, if I guess the person in the first three guesses and we're gonna bleep out the names, then it doesn't count because I think I know who it is. Okay. So my first guess is really obscure. Is the person obscure?

No, it's me. That's not, no, you can't, that doesn't count, man. That doesn't count. First off, it's not even a teddy bear. He texted me of like a picture of a cat that's like right by his computer. Like right by his really, really dirty keyboard. Ugh.

Oh my God. That was pretty bad. Yeah. Ugh. Oh my god. That one's pretty bad. Yeah. This is a bad angle. It's a chip clip and it is a bear or a cat. I think it's a cat. It's definitely a cat. It's not a teddy bear.

It's on no level as an a teddy bear. Oh, that's a good one. It's clearly a cat. It really looked like a bear. Well, since we were talking about bears. Because it has to be fair. It's not a great cat. So I see how you got confused.

Like it's got sort of bare ears, but a cat face. All right, hey, it's time for the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Okay. We did a pretty good job of answering some actual questions today. We got to thank you to Catherine for the inspiration. Yeah, we need to answer questions.

We need to do that more often. We need to, we need to answer more questions. So that was great. I feel like we made a lot of progress there. The news from ASC Wimbledon Hank is that I was at an ASC Wimbledon game this weekend with people from Nerdfighteria who had gotten a project for Awesome Perk wherein we were all going to see an ASC Wimbledon game together in March or April of 2020. And it finally happened. Almost everybody was able to go. It was really lovely. We had an awesome time. It was great. It was just great to be at Plow Lane with a packed house.

It was sold out. It was rocking. Nice. AFC Wimbledon played Stockport County, which is apparently a large club, even though I'd never heard of them. And so they sold out their little, their little away and, and it was great. It was an awesome experience. And best of all, actually not best of all, because like the hang was the best part. actually not best of all because like the hang was the best part. But as an added bonus, AFC Wimbledon won the game. One nil. Oh, God, it was ugly. Ugly game. I loved it. I loved it. I love watching Harry Pell make the lives of opposing players miserable. I love it. And he scored the goal. The best part of this entire experience, all these people from around the world, flew to London to see an AFC Wimbledon game, Hank. We waited three years to be together. We go and

we finally get to see this game. And then at halftime, it's Nill Nill. We go inside, we're chatting about the game. Nick Zv our goalkeeper had saved a penalty really good Oh wow on a bad penalty call classic example of how if you zoom all the way out the ball doesn't lie like that the great thing about ball-based games is that the ball ultimately nose and games is that the ball ultimately knows. And the penalty call was so bad that the ball was like, I can't go in the net, not about, not after that. And so Nick's end have made a great save. So we went inside, we like had a beer, we were chatting, and then Rosiana's like, hey, we should probably go back out for the second half. And I was kind of telling the story or something. I was like, yeah,

yeah, let's go out. Let's go out and They scored Wimbledon scored while we were not watching while we were still oh my god Still hanging out We're kind of like in the line to get back to our seats. Yeah, so none of us saw the only goal of the game But apparently it was scored. It was scored by Harry Pell and we won one fill. And like the moment that happened, I was like, that's 100% gonna be the only goal of the game. There was no point, even though Stockford County

like kept sort of piling on the pressure, I was like, there is no chance. Right. We've seen the only goal of the game. That's, it makes sense. But Wimbledon are now up to 10th, 10th in the lead. What? One, two table, only three points off of the playoffs. I don't know how, so there's only what? Eight people in the playoffs. So the top three teams in league to all go up to league one. And then four, five, six, seven make it to the playoffs. And we're in 10th. It's not

impossible. We have lost several of our best players in the January transfer window, which is a bit of a problem. But hey, we won that game. So anything's possible. We'll see doing that. This week in Mars news, the perseverance That doesn't make it tough. Which is a bit of a problem, but hey, we won that game. So, anything's possible. We'll see. We'll see. Doing that. Well, this week in Mars News, the Perseverance Rover has made itself a little backup cash for its rock collections. It's been collecting rock samples around Mars, stashing them in tombs that are stored

on its body, and that will be sent back to Earth in a future mission is the idea. But sometimes, rovers don't last. So to prepare for the possibility that something could prevent perseverance from following through on that plan, they rover has stored some parts of its samples in an area called three forks, which since we're doing deep cut literary jokes,

is where Armand Gamash is a vampire. In this case, the rover cannot deliver the future fetch, if the, the rover cannot deliver the future fetch. If the rover can't deliver the future fetch mission, we'll just go to three forks and pick up the samples from there. Wow. That's pretty cool. I love the idea of like the rover being like, yeah, I got to have like a backup rock stash. Yeah. I mean, we all got like, we all got one of those little kids always got a backup rock stash. Yeah, they've always got like a backup rock stash. Yeah, I mean, we all got, like, we all got one of those. Little kids always got a backup rock stash. Yeah, they've always got like a little bag of rock squirrel the way somewhere in their rooms.

I didn't tell you the most important news from AFC Wimbledon this week, Hank, which is very, which is a big deal and very worrisome, which is that only two teams get relegated out of league two and then they're not in the football league anymore. Like they're not technically a full-time professional team anymore, I guess. And one of those two teams right now is Gillingham or Gillingham. And it would be devastating to me personally if they got relegated because I love that joke.

I think you'll make it. No, like if we don't play Gillingham and or Gillingham two times a year, it's going to be hard for me to even go on. I love that joke. So I'm really, I'm rooting hard for Gillingham and or Gillingham to pull out of that bottom two, which speaks to how un-worryed I am about relegation at the moment, like the fact that I'm rooting for teams at the bottom indicates that things are going pretty well. It's very exciting, John. I love being in the top half. Me too. Me to the bottom half of the top

half, but the top half. Well, there's only one way to get to the top half of the top half, and that's through the bottom half of the top half. Right? That's what she said. This podcast is edited by J.K. Lee. You can email us at hankajon.jmail.com. We love your questions. We'll try to answer more of them because that was fun actually doing the podcast thing.

We're off to record our Patreon only podcast. This weekend stuff you can find out about that at patreon.com slash deer hankadonna. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuneimetic. It's produced by Rosiana Halsey-Rohas. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Chotwell. Our editorial assistant is Debuki Chokrovarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

Don't forget to be awesome. Be awesome.