Judge John Hodgman - Tippecanoe and Zelda Too

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

Time to clear the docket! Judge Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse discuss buttered popcorn Jelly Bellys, kayaking with dogs, Bob Marley lyrics, Zelda, leaving drinking glasses around the house, mask sharing, and the differences between sports and games.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket. And with me, as always, is Brooklyn's greatest dad, Judge John Hodgman. You just made Jonathan Colton very sad. Yeah, take that, JC. Oh, no, Jonathan Colton very sad. Yeah, take that, JC. No, no, Jonathan Colton and I. We have been co-chairmen of the Best Dads Board of Southern Slope Brooklyn for, oh,

it's got to be 11 years running now. We just keep getting reelected, reelected. To be fair, no one wants the job. It's a lot of paperwork. Meetings every week. Jonathan keeps the minutes. I'm the treasurer. Ever since Lil Fame from MOP's dad resigned.

That's right. Due to ill health. Yeah. That's right. Jesse Thorne, hello. I can see you there, out there in Los Angeles, California. Here I am in Brooklyn, New York. And I'm taking a drink from a mug that I got from another podcast that we will not name.

Great. Sounds good. I apologize in advance to the misophones. Guess what I'm drinking from that slurp. Can you guess? I mean, if my nostalgic memory is correct, I'm pretty sure you just drank some Folgers crystals that you didn't know were Folgers crystals. When you said nostalgic memory, I thought you were going to say Ovaltine. Did you ever have Ovaltine growing up?

Rich chocolate flavor, my friend. My mother's house was an Ovaltine household. I drank a lot of Ovaltine. I think that there was a non-chocolate Ovaltine too. I think the original Ovaltine is like a malt type flavor. I'm going to get some of that. That's not what I'm drinking. Both guesses are wrong.

What were you drinking? So you know that I enjoy making concoctions. Sure. Afternoon, warm, non-alcoholic concoctions that I can enjoy. Sure. You were big into broth.

Big into broth. Related, yeah. BIB, big into broth. That's how they knew me around town. I enjoyed and still enjoy Kitchen Basics brand chicken stock. Warmed up with a little sriracha sauce. Some black pepper. Sounds nice.

But this time I'm having some peppermint tea. My voice was feeling a little raspy and I thought, am I going to gargle with some salt water? That's something you do. Sure. This is the other day. I'm fine, by the way. This is a new thing though for me. So I'm like, how can I gargle with salt water? What if I make some peppermint tea and put salt in it? And guess what, Jesse? I did it, and it's great. Wow.

Because I love peppermint, and I love salt. What an amazing... Like, you invented an old vaudeville trick. You invented an old vaudeville trick. Like you created in the 21st century. That's right. A thing from 1897. Yeah. Peppermint tea, salted peppermint tea.

Oh, I see you have gout. Well, take this powder and put it up your nose and enjoy some salted peppermint tea. Yeah. This is something that, that had you not just told me that you had brainstormed it, I would have assumed you would have found the recipe in the papers of Kate Smith. Yeah. No, no. And, you know, I thought enjoying it, cause it's just a pinch of Maldon salt. That's the kind I like.

Malden. It's actually pronounced Malden cause it's from the English town of Malden. I always thought it was Maldon. I thought it was French salt. You know the salt that I'm talking about. The one that comes in big chunky pyramids. Yeah, absolutely. It's delicious.

But then I thought maybe I could advance this even further and talk about vaudeville tricks. I thought I might deploy a trick the great ted leo of the art of process podcast and the rocks band the pharmacists teddy rockstar taught me uh back backstage or side stage really at the coolidge corner theater in brookline massachusetts before a book event of mine sometime before in history he got some hot water some lemon and then some a couple of shots of tabasco sauce in it his claim was that because of the capsaicin is that what you say you know because of the hot hot and the hot sauce that that's a natural anti-inflammatory and it

helps that i don't know i've done it a lot when i'm doing voiceover i'll put some hot sauce into some hot water with some lemon so i thought what if i boost this thing with this my new my new concoction with some hot sauce i'm sorry to say dr ted you are a pharmacist of rock but not a not a pharmacist of this new drink you the alchemy did not work in this case i shouldn't put the hot sauce in it just keep it simple this is what we have to remember kiss it's not just a band yeah it's a it's an initialism keep it simple stupid it's not it's not just an act of intimacy oh is that what it is oh right i forgot about that definition kissing interesting well john not to brag but i just ordered some french haribos from ebay so they're orangina haribos no yeah somebody on twitter told me that they whenever they go to

france they bring home orangangina Haribos. I got so excited. And then two days later, someone said, guess what I just found on eBay? Orangina Haribos. $6.99 a bag, but I ordered two. Haribos are gummies, right? Yeah, they're gummy candies.

Yeah. And are they in the shape of bears? Are they the original gummy bears? No, they're in the shape of Oranginas. Little Orangina bottles. Yeah. And are they in the shape of bears? Are they the original gummy bears? No, they're in the shape of Oranginas. Little Orangina bottles? Yeah. The classic, you know. Yeah, the bulbous.

Yeah, bulbous is exactly the adjective. And if I recall correctly, Orangina is the, it was very popular in New England region, the Northeast of the United States, in the 80s, Orangina. And they advertised that they had actual pulp in it it is a pulpy drink it's a great drink it's still something you would order in a cafe in portugal i think pulp is not usually a uh something you want to advertise hmm pulpy hi i'm john hodgman from orangina are your soft drinks not pulpy enough guess what

you're about to get pulped are are you concerned your beverage is insufficiently murky i still remember the very distinct sensory feeling of holding that bulbous orangina bottle because if i remember the bottle itself was kind of dimpled like an orange yeah exactly it's a very vivid this was a time before clearly canadian let's get into wait a minute no i gotta i gotta bring this up since you brought up Orangina Ariba. Yeah. Have you been following this feud that Dan McCoy of the Flophouse is having with the universe? Ray?

You mean his lifetime? His lifetime. Regarding specifically buttered popcorn flavored jelly beans and his belief that they are good no dan dan you're wrong that's the first that's the first ruling i'm gonna make on judge john hodgman i've been playing a nice with the flop house for a couple of years now making podcasts with elliot hanging out with Stu at his bar, apologizing to Dan for saying he looks like Walter the Muppet, which he does. Yeah.

But now? Walter's probably one of the handsomest Muppets. Yeah, but if you're going to be compared to any Muppet, you don't want to be some Muppet come lately like Walter. You want to be OG like Bunsen Nunny do, like me. Yeah. Yeah. Or Sam the Eagle like you.

Thank you. You've got some Sam the eagle vibes i mean not in your politics oh i forgot you have no politics here at the employee of npr anyway first first justice flop has the feuds back on until dan apologizes people like what they like but stop saying that buttered popcorn jelly beans are good just say say, I like them. They also ruin the other jelly beans. That's my only beef. Like, I like licorice jelly beans. I don't mind eating a black jelly bean. But the problem is when it's in the classic jelly bean mix, just a traditional jelly bean mix,

if you get a licorice with a red one or a purple one or whatever, it ruins the red one and the purple one because it doesn't go with the other fruity flavors. So you have to eat your jelly beans one at a time from if there's or just to carefully avoid the black ones if i get an orange one in a red one they go together fine right you can't write you know pandemic related isolation hits all of us different ways yeah I like thinking about these things. And Dan McCoy is suffering from jelly bean madness. Jelly bean madness and Walter the Muppet resemblance syndrome. Here's something from Katie. My husband Spencer and I have two small dogs.

I would like to take them on kayaking adventures with us, with life jackets, of course. Spencer thinks it's unsafe to bring the dogs with us. I think he's being unreasonable, and I would like you to order him to at least try to take them out with us once. If it goes well, I think they should be included on most kayaking trips in the future. I thought I was going to have nothing to say up top. I thought I was going to have nothing. I didn't even get to mention that when we were talking about all those rummy games last time turns out mummy rummy is a real thing someone sent in a picture thank you yeah it's like a game that you would you would buy at the gift shop of a

archaeology museum yeah thank you for letting me get that out winner best game 1995 sao paulo game off yeah you saw it too thank you dan listener dan at dan's graziano for sending in mummy rummy and blowing my mind all right let's get to kayaking dogs jesse thorn you are a companion to two wonderful dogs sissy and coco that's true sissy and coco that's true are you a kayakist no but uh i've been known to ride in a dinghy okay take a little dinghy ride at poppy lake in the sequoia national monument yeah that's right don't you have a little a rowboat or something up there yeah i mean it's not my rowboat but there is a robot unfortunately i have a i have a cabin in Sequoia National Monument in a, in a census designated place that has basically completely burned to the ground. But my, my cabin is, is still there. I learned recently. So thank, thank goodness for that.

The lake burned down to the extent that a lake can burn down uh taking with it i think probably the community rowboat but there is a rowboat that just sort of sits on the shore uh that someone brought up there right and and there's a couple of different broken paddles and you push off into the lake and go around the outside of it and look at minnows. I don't want to get all nautical with you. Yeah. Oars. Yeah, well, I mean, no, I'm not sure they're even oars. They may very well be paddles. I don't know what the difference is, but it's a really eclectic group of implements.

Well, I'm very sorry to hear that. And our best wishes go out to everyone who's been affected by these wildfires in the west and i hope that you know everything can be rebuilt and that the lake is okay and you your community is okay first and foremost and that when the time comes you can get a new rowboat with some actual god or whatever damned oars and or locks anyway there's 100 no or locks on that boat well then maybe you got battles yeah tell you my question is has sissy and coco ever been out on the on the rowboat yes or no absolutely one thousand percent yes and they hate it what do they do great what do they do i put them in so i was So I was at a garage sale in South Pasadena, the nautical capital of Southern California.

That's right. And there was someone selling some safety lifeboat jackets. What are those called? PFDs, personal flotation devices. Yeah, personal flotation devices for dogs. Right. PFDs, FDs. They were the right size and there were two of

them and it was five dollars and i'm like great now i'm gonna put my dog in a boat and uh what i like best about them to be honest is not bringing the dog in the boat because what happens is the dog nervously paces around inside the boat thus making you nervous because the the boat's too small yeah for someone to be moving around like that, even if it's a 20 pound dog. Right. What I like best about them is that when I put them on my pets, they have a handle on the back. Yes. That allows me to pick my dogs up like a suitcase. You don't even need to put them in the water. You can just have fun. I just walk around holding my dogs like two suitcases from a, you know, like a character who's lost in an airport in a 70s movie.

That's fantastic. It's a joy. And I dare say appropriate. Because you're safe. Your dogs have PFDs, FDs, personal flotation devices for dogs. And you are on very calm water. Indeed. And you're in a rowboat.

Did I already say that? You're in a rowboat. Now, are you familiar with the phrase tippy canoe in Tyler 2? Sure. the phrase tippy canoe and tyler too sure it was a it was originally a campaign song of the wig party's uh log cabin campaign in the 1840 united states presidential election regarding william henry harrison the hero of tippy canoe and his vp uh nominee john tyler tippy canoe and tyler too so tippy canoe is not a reference to the fact that canoes are tippy. It's actually a place in Indiana, but I'll tell you what canoes are tippy and you know, it's tippier kayaks.

Yeah. They're designed to, to, to, to ride a kayak. You have to prove that if you tip over upside down, you can tip back right side up. Yeah. Cause upside down your face is underwater. Yeah. Face is one of the top things people use to breathe yeah and when your face is underwater your dog is deeper underwater or floating near you in terror yeah yeah i mean look i i have i have done some kayaking and it is very very very nerve-wracking once you're out on the water, it's fine. And look, I'm not the most gracious of swans. Getting myself into a kayak is a risk of full immersion every time. And one time my wife and I went kayaking in a bay and we were having a grand old time and we said,

let's go out to that island that we can see. And as soon as we were out of the bay, we were having a grand old time. And we said, let's go out to that island that we can see. And as soon as we were out of the bay, we were in rollicking waves. And by rollicking usually has a positive connotation. I just should have said horrifying waves that I knew were going to swamp us and kill us. And if I had a dog with me of almost any size, surely my life would be low quality to zero by now. I was wearing a personal flotation device, of course, but it's cold. It's cold in the waters of Maine. It's no good. So I approached this question from Katie and Spencer, this dispute, I should say, with real, real trepidation because dogs are your friends. And yet balance in a kayak is a very,

very delicate arrangement. So of course I went to the internet to find what I thought I would find, which is please don't go kayaking with your dogs. And all I saw were, yeah, here's how you go kayaking with your dog. Lots of people do it all the time. Yeah. I mean, the answer is you just, if you're worried about balance, you just Mount the dog in a gyroscope. Yeah, that's right. They do. They have dog. I mean, basically it's like, if there is any activity that you can do with a dog that you can imagine adding a dog to, there is a company that will try to make that happen so they can sell that stuff to you so not only will this happen spencer katie will do this at some point but it's happening all over this hemisphere at least the part of the internet that i've found

and and you can find you can go to there there are lots of of course videos on youtube about how to kayak with your dog the one i hit was from this person he's a man from massachusetts commonwealth in new england named the comeback kid and his dog's name is Loki. And if you'd like to spend some time watching a man and his huge German shepherd sit on the floor of his bathroom with his back to the bathtub, the place that he chose to shoot this video. As he tells you all the steps they took and all the good deals they got on personal flotation devices. And then watch him and Loki kayaking around. It's a wonderful, charming video. He's got a great Boston accent or Massachusetts accent. I'm not sure exactly where he's from.

And him talking to Loki as they paddle around is almost ASMR-like in its calming quality. I checked out a lot of this guy's other videos. It's a lot of like, how do you repair a thing in your car, which sounds handy. I did not find any invitation to join a white supremacy movement, which is always a plus when you're coming across a new YouTube channel. I don't know anything else about this guy. He seems like a nice fellow. channel. I don't know anything else about this guy. He seems like a nice fellow. You can check that out if you want. But one piece of advice the Comeback Kid gave that I think is really important if and when you do this, Katie, is that you heed me and he. You don't want to be in water you don't understand. You want to be in calm water. Both the Comeback Kid and I agree on this.

don't understand. You want to be in calm water. Both the Comeback Kid and I agree on this. You want to train your dog slowly to get used to the kayak, only in a place where you are close to shore and you are not going to be in any danger should your dog or you go in the drink. It would be good if that drink were warm, not ice cold like the waters of Maine where it's going to be wildly unpleasant, but, you know, a warmer place. So the drink might be sort of like Ovaltine,

like cold Ovaltine temperature. And if your dogs are smaller, I think that that's probably best right because if Loki fell out of the Comeback Kids kayak there's no way Loki's getting back this dog weighs 125 pounds or something

but if you've got Coco and Sissy sized dogs you can pick up like a handbag at the airport and you can just pluck them out of the water and put them right back in your kayak so take it easy take it, find calm water that you know. I want to find something that will rhyme with no again, but I can't, so just follow those rules. And get those PFDs. Susan says, my best friend and I have been arguing about the meaning of the Bob Marley song, No Woman, No Cry, since high school.

Does it mean, as I say, if you don't have a woman, you won't cry? Or as she says, please, woman, don't cry. Well, Jesse, what's your take? Well, as a graduate of UC Santa Cruz, the Bob Marley's legend of universities. Yes. I heard this song in a four-year period over 7 billion times. Yes. To me, it seems self-evident that it is the latter.

Please, woman, don't cry. the latter. Please, woman, don't cry. Now, if I were going to do research on this, I would probably call DJ Hadai from KZSC-FM in Santa Cruz, a really nice white guy with dreadlocks who would compete in sound system competitions while toasting in patois, which is apparently totally a thing. Even like Japanese dudes in sound system competitions, toast and patois, hear me now, and the whole nine yards. Very sweet man, DJ Hadai.

So I would double check with him, given his expertise in the subject of Jamaican patois. But I'm going to say that my impression was always that it was please, woman, don't cry. What I liked about what you said was if I were to do some research, right? Yeah. If I were to do some research, you had in mind, right, a very specific person with a very specific skill and knowledge base that you could reach out to. So perhaps Susan, who wrote in, felt,

oh, well, I don't know DJ Hadai. I better ask John Hodgman. And what's John Hodgman going to do? What's John Hodgman going to do? I'm just going to type it into the internet. And I found out the answer in two seconds, Susan. How dare you? Don't make me your Google. Now, look, I was all set to find out that susan you that susan was right

because i had always heard it as if you have no relationships you never cry i think that that's because i raised myself as an only child sexless loner and also i never listened to the rest of the lyrics to give it any context whatsoever because it was just like okay all right oh i know i know what song this is playing in the coffee connection i'm just going to tune out now but i did use that internet i went to wikipedia by the way donate some money to wikipedia i know we got our money going everywhere these days uh and we're supporting a lot of funds and a lot of movements and a lot of pushes to make normal a new and better normal. But Wikipedia is a big part of our lives and they need some cash.

I give them five bucks if you can. And according to Wikipedia, Susan, you are wrong. Your best friend is correct, as is Jesse Thorne. I quote, the lyric is sometimes misunderstood by those outside of Jamaica. All right, got it. Message received. To mean, if there is no woman, there is no reason to cry. But the lyric is rendered, no woman, no cry in Jamaican patois. The no is pronounced with a short schwa, a mumbled vowel, and represents a clitic or weakened form of no. And the connotation being, it is the singer is saying to his partner, please don't cry.

No woman, no cry. This is at least according to Kwame Senu Neville Dawes' book, Bob Marley Lyrical Genius, which is cited in Wikipedia. And until DJ Hadai tells me otherwise, I'm going to go with the consensus of Jesse's interpretation, what Wikipedia tells me based on an actual book, and remind you, Susan, as well. If you can write to

me, you can write to Google. That sounds mean. Susan, I'm sorry. I'm sounding mean because you made me do some Googling for you. The fact is I love Googling. I wouldn't do this show if I didn't love Googling. And you know what, Susan, I take it back. You're still wrong, but anytime you need me to Google something, send it in. I'll do what I can. Let's take a quick break. More items on the docket coming up in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast always brought to you by you, the members of MaximumFun.org. Thanks to everybody who's gone to MaximumFun.org slash join. And you can join them by going to MaximumFun.org slash join. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by our pals over at Made In. Jesse, you've heard of Tom Colicchio, the famous chef, right? Yeah, from the restaurant Kraft. And did you know that most of the dishes at that very same restaurant are made with Made In pots and pans? Really? What's an example?

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but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash Hodgman. Get up to 60% off at Babbel.com slash Hodgman spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash Hodgman. Rules and restrictions apply. Welcome back to the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket with a case here from Michael. My wife, Stacy, is currently playing Zelda, A Link to the Past, which is one of my favorite old video games. Since she's playing it on Nintendo Switch,

it has a feature where you can stop time and rewind. So when she dies or takes damage, she can simply rewind and try again. This cheapens a game that means a lot to me. She also never gets better because she doesn't have to learn enemy patterns or attacks since she can just revive any time. She doesn't see this as cheating and claims it doesn't matter. I seek an order for her to play the game as it was meant to be played. This cheapens a game that means a lot to me we'll return to that phrase in a moment jesse thorne have you ever played a zelda game i have only played i never had a nintendo as

a kid right uh i did have a sega genesis which does what nintendo don't oh but uh yeah that was that a sound of uh blast processing envy coming from you john yeah i was just look they took it they turned it into a street fight that's for sure yeah um i uh i have recently my friend jordan morris my co-host on jordan jesse go was kind enough at the beginning of the uh quarantine to drop off at my house a Nintendo Wii U, which was a sort of intermediary console that was a semi-failure. But he thought my kids would like it. Turns out mostly I play it. And it's because it came with the game Zelda Breath of the Wild, which is an extraordinarily awesome video game. And i've been playing it slowly over the last six months uh just sort of want mostly wandering

around but occasionally you know achieving goals and uh it's fantastic it's so fun and cool it's so great i have never played a played a Zelda game in my life. But, well, I take it back. I've played one Zelda-related game. And that game is to log on to a Twitter account belonging to one Ariel... Now, I've never known how to pronounce her last name. It's D-U-M-A-S. So in French, it would be Dumas.

But in Americanization, it would be dumas but in an americanization would be dumas i don't know ariel dumas a-r-i-e-l-d-u-m-a-s uh she is a writer for the late show with stephen colbert or at least was recently that's how i knew her vaguely but the zelda related game that i would play is to wait for her, which she does from time to time to say on her Twitter account out of nowhere, Zelda is the boy and watch gaming guys freak out and try to explain to her that Zelda is not the boy. That Link is the boy and Zelda is the princess.

And then she would just, you know, like straight faces they go like well no the the the person on the cover of the box is the hero of the game so that's zelda zelda's the boy no zelda is the princess link is how can you not know this and she'd be just like well it's this extremely popular series of games that's been around for a long time. So it's obvious that Zelda is the boy. And it's pure trolling.

I mean, it's like, we're not supposed to troll. I get it. But this thing delights me to no end. Anytime, you should just go follow her. She's a great Twitterer anyway. But this thing that she does just makes me so happy. Zelda is the boy. Anyway. anyway and but this thing that she does just makes me so happy zelda is the boy anyway when you said you had only ever played one zelda game i thought it was a build-up to you having rented the zelda

game that was only available on philips cd interactive yeah you could get it blockbuster oh yeah i see jennifer marmer laughing along to that one She knows what you're talking about. And Jennifer is really big into full motion video games. FMV. Jennifer Marmer, can you speak to us for a moment? Yeah. Are you a Zeldist? I'm not, but the only Zelda game that I ever played was that one for Philip CDI. Oh, okay. I'm just trying to find someone within the sound of my voice for whom

zelda means a lot because i get it i get that michael is connected to this game but the idea that stacy playing the game however she chooses to play it is cheapening the game i i can't accept that you place the value you know you have your relationship with this game and it is meaningful to you stacy is playing her own game you're not playing against each other so it's not cheating you can't cheat unless you're playing against each other she's playing within the rules the new obviously the newer rules because this is a legacy version of zelda it's literally a link to the past i don't even put link in the title i just noticed that funny but as is true controversially in animal crossing whatever the newest one is you can rewind and go back in time that's they're

letting you do it it's not a hack it's not a cheat it's the way she's choosing to play the game the way she wants to play it and she's not throwing it up in your face as far as i can tell she's not beating you on a leaderboard somewhere her experience of uh of a thing does not cheapen your experience of a thing and that's true no matter what culture is if you love a tv show so much and another person hates it you don't have to get on the internet to correct them if you hate ryan johnson's the last jedi that does not mean it's not the best star war which is an argument could be made it's the the best Star Wars. It's a great Star Wars, for sure.

It's an amazing movie. It's probably the best, whether it is the most, obviously the first couple Star Wars invented Star Wars. That's a pretty big accomplishment. But in terms of just which one would I want to watch right now? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

It's the best Star Wars. A lot of the more, it's a term that has now become cliche, but toxic or just sort of like dispiriting and frustrating and time-wasting and hurtful parts of the culture that exists online today in particular is people getting angry at people for not liking things the way they think it should be liked. Or people liking things for the wrong reasons or people liking the wrong things and it's a real waste of time and it's not just a waste of the receiver's time it's the waste of the complainer's time respectfully michael you should be living your life enjoying the things and enjoying stacy rather than trying to police her understanding or appreciation of the game and one of the reasons that i give ariel dumas i'm very sorry that i don't know how to pronounce your last name you're a friend on the internet you know what i mean one of the reasons

i give her trolling a pass is that because the she's trolling the trolls she's trolling primarily and generalized primarily the guys who get up in other people's feeds complaining they don't like the video game the right way that's the art of it still trolling still trolling i get it so anyway michael i'm not saying that you're a troll i'm not saying you're wasting your life i'm just saying as tony faulkner once said to me in a columbia university dorm in 1991 take it down a thousand take it down a thousand it's fine let stacy enjoy the game the way she wants to it does not cheapen the game that means a lot to you its value value is between you and Zelda, who is the boy.

Karen says, I have a harmless habit of leaving empty water glasses around the house. We're not talking very many glasses, usually just three on my desk, my nightstand, and the kitchen counter. But I work from home and did pre-pandemic as well. And my husband is a firefighter who's home several days a week. It never escapes his notice, and he gets after me about this near daily. If he sees me with a glass, he adopts a joking but not really tone and demands to know how many I have out, after which he generally grumbles off to retrieve and wash them. He's making work for himself and annoyance for us both. So please issue an injunction against disturbing my glasses.

Making work for himself, Karen. That does not compute. You're leaving the glasses out. Hang on. Jesse Thorne, how do you feel about half-empty glasses around the house? I leave glasses out. You leave glasses out? I do.

I didn't notice the last time I visited you. Granted, that was some time ago. I absolutely am a person who leaves glasses out. I often have a glass at my place at the table. I often have a glass on my desk. And I almost always have a glass on my bedside table. So it's a very similar habit to Karen. All empty? Generally empty. And during the day that I probably, in my mind, I refill the glass that's close to me with water. It doesn't get gross and dirty because it's just water. And then, you know, at the end of the day, maybe. It's dusty, dusty water, dusty droplets.

I guess. Maybe your house is really dusty. Mine isn't. That's actually not true. My house is pretty dusty. We'll table this for a second because I want us to be friends. So just hang on for a sec. One thing that occurred was during the past six extraordinary, unbearable months, or however long it's been, 10 years or whatever. Extraordinary, unbearable months or however long it's been, 10 years or whatever. You know, we live in an apartment building and our neighbors left at some point for a long period of time.

They went away to a family place to be out of the city. And we're close friends with them. And this was during, you know, the beginnings of remote learning and teaching. And my wife is a teacher, a remote teacher, and our kids were doing remote learning. And we would use their apartment with their permission to do school, basically, just to get people out from on top of each other. Because as you know, Jesse,

we all live in one big room, basically. And, you know, we weren't all live in one big room, basically. And, you know, we weren't spending a lot of time in there. And after three or four months, they were coming back. And my wife decided to go over there and clean up, right? Because we had been using it. And she came back and she said,

you know, I cleaned up, but then I went in there to like dust and vacuum. There's no dust. No dust. Because no one's living there. And you know what dust is? Skin. Mostly skin.

It was creepy to learn. Anyway, you got dusty skin, dusty water glasses hanging around all over the place. Fine, Jesse. That's the way you do it. Does anyone in the household hate it? Does Teresa hate it? If she does, she's always been kind enough not to mention. Teresa is not a firefighter, right?

Not to my understanding. Right. So unlike Karen's husband, Teresa wouldn't know that an empty water glass is the most likely way a house fire is going to start in a home. Did you know that? I didn't. I did not know that. But again, my wife is not, my partner is not a firefighter. So I don't know how I would have known. Spontaneous skin dust, water droplet combustion. It happens. That's what Karen's husband knows better than she does no it's not true obviously

it's not true it's just that karen you and your husband have different standards of tidiness there's cleanliness and then there's tidiness and you know cleanliness is obviously like scrub scrubbing toilets and showers and stuff. Tidiness is what you leave around. And people have a different tolerance level, as we've discussed in the podcast before, for levels of clutter. It's essentially visual pollution. In my case, that's how I feel about it. Which side of this issue are you on, John?

I can't stand it. Can't about it. Which side of this issue are you on, John? I can't stand it. Can't stand it. You're on the side of people who somehow can have one of those refrigerators with a see-through door. I have a refrigerator with a see-through door and it's fantastic. It's fantastic. And you somehow are able to manage the inside of your refrigerator so well that it's not embarrassing to have a refrigerator with a... Well, you can't hide anything in there. So you don't let stuff like just, there's only so long you can marinate the stump of a burrito, Jesse, before it becomes garbage. If you see it in there,

you're like, oh, I got to get to that thing. I got to eat it. I try. Look, I'm not saying my system is correct. I'm just saying it works for me but when you join a household right it's unlikely that you're going to have the same standards of tidiness the same standards of like you know like leaving glasses around karen never sees it but her husband always sees it and makes a point of letting her know i don't't like this. I'm going to clean it up for you. And that does not mean that Karen is right and her husband is wrong. It just means they have different tolerance levels for tidiness in different ways. For example, say you're the host of a fairly popular judge podcast, and your wife turns a chair into a closet

and it is full of clothes all the time. Now, part of my job is to not see that, is to train my brain to not see it anymore, to adapt to that different standard of tidiness, right? Should I have to live that way? One might argue no. No, one should always live as a 12-year-old adult man in a dusty old house wherein he has what amounts to a bachelor apartment. You're talking about me now. One should carry a briefcase to high school.

I kept it tidy up there. I kept it tidy up there in my suite of rooms. Everything was in its place. No empty water glasses. But that's the only consolation of living alone and dying alone is that you get to set the standard of tidiness. You have to find a middle ground. And the truth is, Karen, I don't think that it is great that your firefighter husband, who's out there saving lives and stopping fires, great for him.

Thank you. and stopping fires. Great for him. Thank you. I don't think it's great that he's making this big theatrical show of cleaning up these glasses and trying to guilt you into it. He should be more forthright

and send a message. I can't stand this. Stop it. Or like, just one, please. And you should hear him and decide whether you can adjust your behavior rather than this detente where you just keep leaving those glasses out

and you know he doesn't like it and you think he's making work for himself when you're making the work that he feels compelled to do. And if he's not willing to just have that conversation of feeling with you, then you just do the work. Do what, say, certain hosts of certain semi-popular Judge John Hodgman podcast shows do,

which is every morning go through the house and collect all the discarded cups and glasses and put them in the dishwasher. I'm the only one who does it, and that's my burden to bear, and I'm fine with that. I'm fine in favor of Karen until and unless her husband, whom she didn't even bother to name,

he's such a non-entity to her. When the firefighter, hubby firefighter, can speak openly and say, here's what I can tolerate, here's what I can't tolerate. When I see the glasses, it makes me feel like the house is going to go on fire. Can we just not do this anymore? And if he says that to you, then you should adjust your behavior until he's ready to be open with you.

I'm fine in your favor. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, disputes about mask sharing and sports. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

And remember, no running in the halls. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I. Hmm. Are you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky. Let me give it a try. Okay. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, call S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I.

Ah, it'll never fit. No, it will. Let me try. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-P-D-C-O-O. We are so close. Stop podcasting yourself. A podcast from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh and you're on the go. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket this week. Here's something from Cosima.

I would like to bring a complaint against my husband, Mark. We have a set of three matching masks, of which two are his. The third, which is mine, has my name written on it to prevent mix-ups. The problem is my husband constantly uses my mask. Okay, stop. I think... Stop. Yeah.

All right, read some more. I know what I'm going to... Okay. Yeah. The problem is my husband constantly uses my mask. I think this is gross. Yeah. I don't want to use a mask that he's mouth-breathed and potentially coughed or sneezed into.

His argument is that we have traded plenty of bodily fluids. Ew. So he doesn't see what the big deal is. To be clear, it's not that I'm nervous about getting sick through sharing a mask. It's that I don't want to smell his fabric-preserved breath, and I shouldn't have to, considering that he has his own mask. Cosima, you don't need to make any more argument. I let that go on so we could get out that incredible phrase, fabric preserved breath.

That was a well-turned phrase. But you were right from the beginning. The mask has your name on it. Cosima's like, this is another thing. It's like people have different standards of what they perceive to be hygienic. It's just different. And also, there is a reality of what is hygienic. It's just different. And also there is a reality of what is hygienic. Don't use someone else's mask, dude. I don't care that you swap spit. It has nothing to

do with it. It's just a comfort level. And the thing is like, when you make, when you cohabitate and you make an arrangement that is to everyone's comfort, right? Such as, we'll have matching masks, but I'm going to put my name on mine because I want to use mine exclusively. That agreement is baked into the fact that her name is on the mask. You can't just violate that agreement. You've made the agreement. Stick to it. Stick to it.

And don't try to come up with specious arguments that make Cosima feel like she's got to turn to some internet judge and over-explain her position because you're out there gaslighting her that it doesn't matter. It matters to her. Period. Finally, Colleen says, What counts as a sport? My brother Jimmy holds the asinine position, no ball, no sport. Meaning in order to be considered a sport rather than just a game, it needs to be played with a ball. When I point out that this would exclude

hockey, which is played with a puck, he says a puck is a type of ball. Oh boy. Your honor, I'm seeking an injunction against my brother to make him drop the ludicrous notion that a hockey puck is a type of ball. I'm also seeking this court's ruling on what distinguishes a game from a sport or specifically whether a ball is required for sportdom. Please settle this so he and I can go back to discussing comic books in peace. Jeez. Jesse Thorne, is a puck a ball? No. All right. It's a puck. It's a puck. It's a puck. no all right it's a puck it's a puck it's a puck yeah is hockey a sport yes it's a ballless sport yeah it's a puck sport right so if a hockey puck is not a ball let me ask brother jimmy this is formula one race car driving a game or a sport jesse is that a game or a sport wow i mean i guess it's a sport right i don't like either

choice it doesn't have a ball no i mean it would be pretty incredible if you just threw a beach ball out into the you know make that part of the race throw a bunch of beach balls out while they're all racing around they have to avoid them mean, is golf a sport or a game? That is a ball. It has a ball. It involves some athleticism. Right. Golf more or less athletic than baseball?

Significantly less. What about modern pentathlon as practiced by Donna Vicalis? Is that a game or a sport? You mean our friend from the Olympics? Yeah, from the Olympic Games. Yeah, that's right. We have a friend from the Olympics. Her name's Donna.

She's a modern pentathlete. She's been in the Olympics two times. How many times have you been in the Olympics, bub? Yeah, zero. Is modern pentathlon a sport or a game? To remind people, modern pentathlon is five skills. Horseback riding, swimming, target shooting, running, and fencing. Yeah, you got it.

And it's not just horseback riding. It's horseback riding over obstacles. That's right. Like a steeplechase type thing. Is that a game or a sport, Jesse? No ball. Is that a game? I mean, it's definitely sport. It's an Olympic sport.

Part of the Olympic Games. It is sport. It falls under the category of sport. Is it a sport? That's a little weirder. I can see this is really, this is more personal with you than I had thought.

I don't, the real problem here is I don't know the answer. I think the answer is that you shouldn't worry about it too much. Well, yeah, you shouldn't worry about any of this too much. The whole planet's dying, but. What about Cornhole? Cornhole? It's on ESPN. Jennifer Marmon, you know what Cornhole is, right? It's on ESPN. Jennifer Marmon, you know what cornhole is, right?

Yeah. Yeah, beanbags. You toss beanbags onto a plank, try to get them in the hole. Beanbags are full of corn. Therefore, it's called cornhole. Right. I understand why this is an issue, right? This has something to do with hot dog and sandwichness.

And by the way alton brown i love you but you're wrong it has some kind of weird thing to do with toxic masculinity as well i can't quite put my finger on what it is about it that has to do with toxic masculinity here's here's what here's what it is like all of the all of the all of the ball sports which by the way it's not a coincidence that all these sports have balls. There is a preoccupation with the kind of masculine bonding that goes with the team sport. That causes some people who like those sports to feel unease with regard to the various sports of solitary personal perfection. lonely, introverted, oddballness to say rock climbing or free diving or pentathlon, those solo sports that turns jocks off on some level.

Now, I'm not sure exactly what sport Jimmy is trying to wedgie and stick into the nerdy loctor of gamedom. But the fact is, he's wrong. And to prove my point, I got a book that Alison Silverman loaned me. Alison Silverman was the original co-executive producer of the Colbert report and incredibly funny comedy writer and talent. And I'm not sure where she is now, but she's a friend of this court.

Portlandia a long time. Portlandia. She was the, one of the original writers of Portlandia rules of the game, the complete illustrated encyclopedia of all the sports of the world. Game, sports, game, sports, they go together. If it's in this book, it's a sport.

So let's look it up. Golf, golf, gymnastics, combat. Let me look in the index of sports. Golf, page 102. It's in. What was the other one? Formula One racing? Yeah.

Car racing. Circuit racing. Sedan and sports car. Page 294. In. Circuit racing. Pentathlon, modern pentathlon. Oh, of course.

Modern pentathlon. Yeah. Page pentathlon uh yeah page 30 in that's in 30 what about darts yep sport what about cornhole no cornhole no cornhole no cornhole not a sport wow canadian five pin bowling yes canadian football yes canoe polo. Yes. Canoe sailing. Yes. Canoe slalom. Yes. Carambolids. Yes. This is all the C's. Canoe polo? Canoe polo, page 214. What about corfball? Corfball. Is that a sport? Of course it is. Page 132. Corfball is played by two teams, each with six men and six women. Korfball.

Look, I understand why it's tricky. The rules of the game, I believe, is out of print. It's a great, as diagrams, it's one of the great, great fun books to look through when you're looking for the rules of dartchery, which is darts plus archery. And all the bigs, you know, I get all the big league sports, the major league sports but here's the major league baseball the national football league dwarf on golf dwarf on corfball yeah i'm willing to allocate sports to the world of physical exertion

or in the case of baseball and nascar at least you're outside of baseball and NASCAR, at least you're outside. Games. Games are a broader category of any contest against opponents with agreed upon rules. So some games are not sports, obviously Scrabble, and some games are abominations, Boggle. But all sports are, to a degree, games. Even the ones that you do alone, because it's got two opponents.

You and your mind. I'm going to put cornhole in there. I think it's a sport. I think it's a sport. More of a game. I get it that there's a continuum. There are more gamey sports and there are more sporty sports. But there need not be a distinction.

And a hockey puck is not a ball. The docket's clear. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Our producer is Jennifer Marber. Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman. We're on Instagram at Judge John Hodgman. Make sure to hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJHO. And check out the MaxFun subreddit, MaximumFun.reddit.com, to chat about this week's episode. Submit your cases at MaximumFun.org or email Hodgman at MaximumFun.org. Trampolining, sport. Hang on. Field hockey, yes. Swimming, rowing.

Offshore yacht racing. Powerboat racing. Shinty, that's a sport skittles a sport snooker sport take us out jesse gaelic football sport grass track racing sport we'll talk to you next time on the judge john hodgman podcast maximum fun.org comedy and culture artist owned audience supported