Hank: Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

John: Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.

Hank: It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your question, give you DBS advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hi John, how are you?

John: I'm alright, you seem a little sick. I can tell even from your voice that you're just not feeling 100%.

Hank: I'm not feeling 100%. I have a sudden Sudden onset intestinal discomfort and now I'm working my way through. There's a bunch of pigeons that have decided to live on my house and they also seem to be in distress. I don't know, like there's times when you feel really sick and you just end up saying like, mmm, mmm, mmm, like you feel that bad.

The pigeons seem to be making that noise all the time. They're just outside of my window. Either I don't know what's going on.

Like, I don't know if that's just them communicating with each other or what, but they do not seem happy. And I'm just thinking to myself, well, if you're not happy here, maybe go somewhere else with all. your poop.

John: So I have recently come into possession of several thousand pounds of wood chips. I'm covering my garden area with wood chips and then putting some soil on top of the wood chips. It's called lasagna gardening. I don't want to get into it too deeply, but the nice thing about being in possession of many thousands of pounds of wood chips is that it requires you to be outside moving those wood chips with a pitchfork almost 24 hours a day. 

Hank: How's your bones and muscles and stuff?

John: Bones are great. Muscles. Not I'm fine until I stop working and then as things start to seize up pretty quickly. But the point here is that I have been afforded the opportunity to do a great deal of bird watching in In the area around my home and we have a lot of pigeons as well. we have an almost I would say an infestation of pigeons. there's some chickadees and some beautiful doves you know that just kind of hang out on the ground. but then there are these pigeons. it's like the Piazza San Marco or something there.

They just descend and hang around and I. agree with you. I'm a little bit over pigeons. now to me It's not. it's not a Canada geese level issue yet, but I am a little bit over pigeons. Hank Do you have a short poem for us today?

Hank: That's not how this works at all. Okay, well I don't have one either. The pigeons at my window poop out many eggs. They make whole new generations That's good.

They have little eggs That's good.

John: That's very good. That's very good. Speaking of babies, can I read you our first question?

Hank: Oh, okay. That's really, we're really just starting now. We didn't, okay. That was our poem.

John: All right, Hank, our first question comes from Amanda who writes, help! Three exclamation points. I just found three baby hamsters in my hamster cage. What do I do?

Oh, God. Yeah, no they won't.

Hank: they're like. nope we've we've had enough of those.

John: I was gonna suggest that Amanda get into the pet store business to like see this as an unexpected business opportunity.

Hank: I just I don't think that there's like a shortage of baby hamsters in the world. What I think Amanda you now have three new hamsters and. hopefully that'll go. okay. I guess you should put them with the Mother if you could tell which one that is. I assume that you can. it's the one that's nursing and Just be like fingers crossed and if doesn't go well than it.

That's okay. They were gonna die anyway.

John: eventually boy Hanks in a great mood.

Hank: well if I tell you what if you take your? so so if you take your hamster to Take your hamsters to the pet store. They might be like yeah, we'll take them, but I can't guarantee where they're gonna end up.

John: Oh, good lord Hank. Okay. Let's move on.

Hank: You asked the question.

John: Amanda if I were you I would turn to my favorite veterinary advice podcast not necessarily my favorite advice podcast about death Because I don't think we're gonna be able to help with this one realistically.

Hank: No, I mean but but the good news is that your hamsters are are Well on to wherever they were headed because it was two months ago anyway. this next question comes from Jessa who asks Dear Hank and John. My roommate and I recently got into a debate about how to. tip our pizza deliverer. I only had one dollar, I only had two one dollar bills, but we have a lot of quarters. I was always taught that it's rude to tip people with change in sit-down restaurants.

She argued that if she were a delivery driver, she would rather have more money than less money. That is correct. Irregardless of what form it's in.

John: I'm pretty sure she's right.

Hank: Yeah, this got me thinking. Are there different tipping etiquettes for different kinds of jobs? Also, can I tip my pizza delivery driver with my laundry quarters? Advice of the dubious and non-dubious categories both are appreciated.

John, I think that even at a sit-down restaurant, you can give change, right?

John: You can't give just change.

Hank: Not just change. Well, what I will sometimes like, I'll get the money back. and like I'll put 20 bucks in and then it'll come back with like you know my five dollars and 25 cents change and then you know I'll just leave that and that's okay.

John: Yes, that is acceptable. I don't think that you've ever been a restaurant server and I have been one so I feel moderately more qualified to. answer this question. When I was a server at a restaurant I wanted money and I did not really care about the form of that money. Like if you wanted to leave me a roll of quarters that would be fine.

I did mind. is the money clean? Is it delivered to me in a way that is designed to embarrass or humiliate me? for instance the person who left me a $20 tip thank you but covered it in the. I would call it the nacho cheese. oh no but the restaurant that I worked out I think we were not allowed to technically call it cheese because it didn't have any cheese in it. so we called it nacho cheese sauce. but they left it covered in the nacho cheese sauce and I was like it's such. that's why Why?

Because now I have to clean this $20 bill and go through this whole rigamarole, which is humiliating. So don't don't do that.

Hank: Yeah, that's good. That's good advice.

John: So if you're going to give somebody $6 in quarters, it's obviously not an ideal way to get tipped as a delivery driver. So I might put it in. a Ziploc bag or if you can roll the quarters up so it's a little bit easier for them to deal with. But it is way better to be tipped $6 in quarters and two $1 bills than it is to be tipped just two $1 bills, for sure.

Hank: What you gotta do, Jessa, and I'm just gonna throw this out here for everybody, load up that laundry tray with some Sacagawea's.

John: Oh my god. Stop trying to make Sacagawea's happen.

Hank: It already happened. That's the whole point, John, is that it already happened.

John: So I mean, like, if the laundry, like, you Hank's advice is to only tip in Sacagawea's to try to make Sacagawea's happen. So Hank's advice is to go to your local bank And instead of getting $100 in 20s, get $100 in the form of 100 $1 coins, and then hand those out like Ebenezer Scrooge after his revelation. 

Hank: And then people will be like, oh, that's money, I guess.

John: No, it's the Sacagawea's person. It's my favorite person to deliver pizza to, the person who tips me in $1 coins.

Hank: This is like walking away, loaded down, weighing five extra pounds. 

John: Okay, let's move. on. I think we've solved this problem. We're going to move on to Jessica's question, who asks, Dear Bug and Shrimp, I'm very proud to be the advice columnist of my college's newspaper. It's really cool to see Dear Jessica in print every few weeks, and I love feeling like I'm able to help someone.

The problem is that hardly anybody asks me questions. As people who have a successful advice-giving platform, do you have any tips for how to get people to ask questions? Dear, Jessica. 

Hank: the situation Jessica is that like both with your advice column and like every other advice column that has ever gotten started from scratch is you make it up. you make them up Jessica you make them up and that way you can ask questions that you know how to answer which is nice. you can. you can tailor it to your specific expertise or something that happened to you that week and be like. well Melinda Thank you for writing in. Just this week I was trying to figure out how to tip a pizza delivery driver with all of my Sacagaweans.

John: Right. I mean, do you think that was a real? problem that someone had Jessica? Of course it wasn't. We made it up because Hank has made a solemn vow that he is going to mention Sacagaweans in every podcast we make for the rest of our lives.

And so he had to make it up.

Hank: Yeah. Yeah, I feel bad that I've skipped several weeks of not mentioning AntsCanada. So AntsCanada is a good YouTube channel. 

John: Yeah, I mean, I remember making up questions when I first started making Question Tuesday videos like 10 years ago. We would get some questions, but sometimes we wouldn't get the questions that I wanted to answer. And so I would find myself thinking, somebody would say, oh, what's your favorite color? And I'd be like, that's not that interesting of a question.

But if I asked what's your favorite beetle first, and then I could say John Green, that would be funny. People would like that. I think there is nothing wrong with making up the occasional question Jessica and in fact I think that it will lead to people asking you more interesting questions over time. because that said I suspect that Jessica because she's at a college newspaper and has. certain obligations. as a reporter she's probably not allowed to fabricate facts. so here's what I would do Jessica to get around the issue of journalistic ethics and This is probably deeply immoral, but you have to remember that Hank and I will do whatever we need to do to get a laugh.

I would just say to my friend, hey, I noticed that you have this problem. can you write me about this problem and I would just talk to people in your real life and ask them to submit questions that are of interest to you and then start from there and then once you get a following the questions will come in on their own and they'll be fascinating like questions about what to do about baby hamsters

Hank: Yeah, or how to elicit more questions for your advice column at your newspaper.

John: Or also this next one from Veronica.

Hank: This next question comes from Veronica, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I'm having an identity crisis. I'm a 25 year old Canadian named Veronica. I have been receiving emails for the past year from a British person named Veronica living across the pond living her best life. Every time I receive one of these emails I kindly reply back that they've got the wrong Veronica.

But lately her life has gotten very interesting and I can't help but like read into her life. Things I know so far. She's recently interviewed for a teaching position at a primary school.

She nailed that interview and got the job. I know this because the head of the de- apartment sends me her lesson plans. 3. She dressed up for Halloween as sexy Mrs.

Claus. I got the order confirmation. 4. She owns a yacht and frequents the Yarmouth Harbor Yacht Club.

Soon she'll be doing a rally to Burmbridge Harbor. Plot twist!

John: That is a huge plot twist. It's a primary school teacher, and then I'm on one... I'm on one plot twist with sexy Mrs. Claus and apparently British Veronica doesn't know her own email address to which to send this email confirmation, which is a big surprise for me.

And then, boom, she also owns a yacht.

Hank: Yeah, I gotta learn more about the Yarmouth Harbor Yacht Club.

John: Right, I mean, do we know it's a yacht?

Hank: Well, what is a yacht really? Are there little yachts? Can you have like a reasonable yacht?

John: I just feel like. well there is a White River Yacht Club here in Indianapolis. I don't know if it's exactly the same thing but the White River Yacht Club. almost everyone owns some kind of small pontoon boat. but I have heard that if you are a member of the White River Yacht Club they have reciprocity with like every other actual yacht club in the world and so you can go to the Bermuda or whatever and you can go to the fanciest yacht clubs because you're a member of the White River Yacht Club. I, however, am not a member of the White River Yacht Club. My part of the river is completely non-navigable and therefore inaccessible to people in their pontoon boats.

Hank: I gotta say, John, it appears that there are a lot of yacht clubs in England. Yeah. The Yarmouth Harbour Yacht Club is on the Isle of Wight, interestingly. Ooh.

And but it's surrounded by other yacht clubs. So apparently, I don't know if this person lives on the Isle of Wight, if British Veronica lives on the Isle of Wight, that's very cool.

John: That would be. a cool place to live. Where is the Isle of Wight? Is it in the north or the south? They don't have a team in the football league, so I don't know much about them.

Oh, it's like part of France. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He said starting an international problem.

Hank: It's definitely not part of France.

John: It is now. It's a crisis. People are calling it- That's all it takes. People are calling it the next great thing in international relations.

France has just claimed the Isle of Wight. Veronica's got problems now. You're lucky you're living in Canada, Canadian Veronica.

Hank: Yeah, they're headed to the Isle of Wight with their cheese and their wine.

John: My big question is how is it that this Veronica apparently doesn't know her own email address?

Hank: I mean Yeah, like the thing is, Katherine has this problem too because she has an email address that is an initial and then a last name.

John: Yes.

Hank: And anybody who has that email address is just gonna get it. They're gonna get it from a bunch of different folks who are like, yeah, that's me. I'm pretty sure that's me.

John: Yeah, I've also been through this where I end up with an email address that's one letter or two letters different from someone else's and you become a sort of weird neighbor of them knowing a lot about their life and yet still not participating in it. I would try to track down this British Veronica and I would try to become her friend. I mean, she seems cool and she has a yacht.

Hank: We didn't finish the question. At the end of the question Veronica asks if it's okay for her to just take over other Veronica's life. No. And it does seem like becoming friends would be a better option.

Especially if you could be like, hey, so I heard that you're headed, you're doing that rally to Burnbridge Harbor. I was wondering if I could just like bring a couple of Mike's Hard Lemonades and do that. 

John: The Hank Green dream. Drinking two Mike's Heart Lemonades is called becoming Hank drunk. 

Hank: Doesn't take much.

John: I mean, lightweight.

Hank: What I can tell you, John, is that the way that the Isle of White works appears to be that Newport is just the geographic center and it is where. all of the people are. But if you want to go from Yarmouth to the, to whatever, that Burnbridge Harbor, you pretty much have to go around the whole island. So I don't know which way you go. I don't know if you go around the top or around the bottom, but it's pretty much the complete opposite side.

So that's quite a trip. I bet you could get through a couple of Mike's Heart Lemonades on that trip.

John: It's gonna be a wonderful rally. You should definitely look up Veronica, Veronica, and you guys should become friends. But don't take over her life. That's not cool.

Hank: No. It's weird that you even thought about that.

John: Yeah, I don't think it's that weird, but it's not appropriate. You've gotta squelch that desire. Speaking of which, our next question. comes from Ayushi, who's the speaking of which, by the way, is completely irrelevant. It's just a thing I like to say.

How are we going to squelch this desire? I'm going to squelch Ayushi's desire not to have an apocalypse from space.

Hank: Yes. Okay, ask the question so people aren't less confused.

John: It's tortured. Dear John and Hank, in my history class we watch CNN10 daily because my teacher wants us to be into current events. I enjoy this bit, but the recent one was very distressing to me because it was about how we were going to go into World War III and how it will be a space war. What the hell is CNN10? 

Hank: Well yeah, I had to look up what CNN 10 is.

John: Is this like a TV show for high school students in which like- It's like digital CNN I think. Oh boy. Oh boy. This video is completely dedicated to how we would all die if a hacking satellite interfered with one of our good- making everything work satellites.

Are we all going to die in a space war? I find this highly improbable, but everyone in my class seems to believe it. Great job, CNN 10.

And CNN is a reputable and trustworthy corporation or something. So should I be inclined to believe it? Should I be preparing for the fight of our lives?

It rhymes with sushi. Ayushi.

Hank: Thanks for letting us know that. Um, I, uh, yeah, I mean, the thing is we might all die in a space war.

John: Well, to. be fair though, we wouldn't all die in a space war. We would die in a space war that affects ground.

Hank: Right, we wouldn't be in space when we died of the space war, but the space war would kill us.

John: Yeah, right, we would die as a result of a space war. Yeah, that's possible Ayushi. I don't think it's guaranteed.

Hank: No, yeah, that's. the thing is that like these are meant to be illustrative of a potential thing that may happen and so we should be prepared to have that be a thing that does not happen is the idea, I think, behind why they terrify us so regularly.

John: Is the public service?

Hank: they think maybe that they are achieving?

John: I think that they know exactly what they're doing which is trying to maximize audience retention. and the great thing about predicting the future Ayushi and one of the great secrets to essentially all of contemporary linear television so far as I can tell is that if all you do is speculate and predict the future no one ever comes back to say hey wait you've been wrong about everything because you're not talking about what is happening. or what happened. You're talking about what may have happened and what might happen. And the magic of those verbs is that they allow you to never technically ever be wrong.

Hank: Yeah. Yeah. And and but I don't think that it's. I don't think that it's bad to say, like, hey, look, what if what? if something took all of our good satellites and messed them up?

How would that go?

John: No, I think it's important, right? It's important to think about problems that we might have, but it's important to think about them so that we can try to prevent them rather than thinking about them so that we can just feel kind of vaguely afraid and, you know, having this like creeping sense of dread that accompanies us through every minute of our day, especially when we are young and completely powerless in the face of space wars. I just don't know if it's that productive.

Hank: Yeah, I agree with you, John. I don't think it's going to be space war, but you know, I could be wrong. It might be. There is there's a, you know, sort of the like things that humans might do that will. end humans.

And ever since we've had nuclear weapons, of course, we've kind of had the ability to to really mess up Earth. pretty dang good, at least for us. And And there's this one like nanotechnology this idea that we could create like a nanite that would just multiply and turn everything on earth into itself. and then I recently read about Some scientists who accidentally made a flu virus. That was the kind of thing that would kill 70% of people if it got out of their laboratory.

And so they just destroyed it and didn't publish their research because that was like oh nope that's real bad We shouldn't. and and like the way that they made it is not technically complicated. it's and I'm like boy I bet wouldn't have to like go super deep into nanotechnology to get sort of a crazy like global level pandemic on you. apparently it's just flu and that like a flu virus has like eight genes. John it's not complicated right. it's a very simple thing and it's terrifying. it's so scary That scares me. That is, to me, that is my space war fear at the moment.

John: Right. Ayushi, since we don't think that you should be terrified at morning, noon and night about space war, we're going to tell you what you should be really scared of. a genetically engineered flu virus that is extremely easy to make and that anybody could make in their laboratory and that someone eventually will make and it will destroy 70% of humans. Great Hank, what's next? Should we cut that out?

But the good news, the good news Ayushi, no we should keep it in. The good news is that you have a 30% chance of surviving this catastrophic flu and believe you me the world that emerges from it will be great. lots of stability All of our political institutions, which can just barely survive our prosperity, will be completely intact, don't worry, and everything will be great. People will be playing golf on manicured lawns and it won't at all be like a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Hank: This next question comes from Ian, who asks, Dear Hank and John, Recently, as I grocery shop, I have found myself having intrusive thoughts along the lines of What if I just take that bread from somebody else's shopping cart? And I know. I'm not going to do this, but it's gotten me thinking about who has a legitimate claim to the contents of a shopping cart. The shopper hasn't paid for them yet, so legally the store still owns them.

So should I legally be allowed to take something from someone else's shopping cart? But if the store— No. I mean, but legally though.

Are shopping carts like embassies, technically the territory of the store, but the shopper has sovereignty over them? Yes!

John: That's exactly what it's like.

Hank: Good analogy, Ian.

John: You've answered your own question. That is a brilliant analogy. A shopping cart is a traveling embassy.

Hank: This is like the embassy of the ownership of Hank. And it's still sovereignly owned by Safeway. But.

John: Right. Right, right.

Hank: Under my control.

John: This bread belongs to Safeway, but it is currently being administered by Hank. And Hank has reserved the right to purchase this bread from Safeway and that sacred contract is being expressed by the fact that it is inside of Hank's heart. And let's all just enjoy the fact that we can go to a grocery store and get food because believe me after 70% of people are destroyed by. Hank's flu virus we're all gonna be gardening.

My little wood chip garden is gonna be all that stands between the whatever surviving descendants I have and complete destruction. Hank, I can't get over this. I'm sorry, but if I could just ask you to turn.

Are we still going to like make a podcast? Like what is this future going to look like? Are there going to even be podcasts?

Hank: Well, that's the thing. We'll hold on to some technology. Podcasts might actually be more stable than like food systems, which is a problem.

John: Yeah. So

Hank: what I want to say to dial back the fear factor a little bit is that this is something that's known by people who study these things and part of the reason they study them is so that like we can anticipate changes flu viruses might make naturally because eventually these things might even happen naturally without somebody with you know malicious intent and so that we can create vaccines for those things so that we can treat them so that we can yeah all that good stuff. so The reason that scientists are working on this is so that it isn't someday. a problem and hopefully that will be a thing. and also they're doing it intelligently enough that they realized when once they did it that they should undo it.

John: Yeah, they did. I don't know that. I trust every group of people who stumble upon a discovery to be equally. It just worries me.

It's a little it just freaks me out a little bit but I'm going to assume that everything's going to be fine because I've been alive for 40 years and everything as Well. it hasn't really. it's been a really good four decades for humans and I believe that the next four decades can be even better. and I know that I talked about how I was completely abandoning optimism for pessimism and that I still believe that this was the best year yet. but I also believe that it would be the best year ever. but Hank I'm back to optimism. I believe we are good at solving problems and we will find a way to solve them, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by the people who chose not to share that flu with the world. The people who chose. not to share that flu with the world, saving actual billions of lives.

Hank: This podcast is also brought to you by the Yarmouth Harbor Yacht Club, the Isle of Wight, serving up yachts and Mike's Hard Lemonades to American and British Veronicas.

John: Also Canadian, she was Canadian.

Hank: Sorry, Canadian.

John: And today's podcast is of course brought to you as always by Sacagawea's. Sacagawea's just on the cusp of happening since their release.

Hank: And additionally, this podcast is brought to you by The Space War. The Space War, it's coming for you.

John: I have to say, Hank, before we move on, how much I like the cover of your book, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, which is available for pre-order now. It's a really Really cool book cover. I hope that you're happy with it. It's pretty rare to get a book cover on a first novel that is so good.

Hank: Yeah, I like it so so much. I have been thinking obviously a lot about book covers lately and And there's a lot of different directions you can go and you start from this sort of infinite number of possibilities And I think we ended up in a really great place. I'm looking at it right now John. I am I've never been more oh obsessed with a piece of design in my life.

I have an unhealthy relationship with how much I like this book cover.

John: The weird thing is that you do as the author have to live with it so much and for so long and in a way that nobody else has to, right? Because it's going to be. you're going to show it to your kids and hopefully one day you'll show it to your grandkids. and you know our great great uncle wrote a novel and there are hardly any copies in circulation but you and I have seen the cover of it and so it's something that that survives in a weird way. and as the author I mean I know that like the cover of Looking for Alaska I never could have imagined how much time I was going to spend looking at that cover and thinking about it over the next 15 years. But I'm very grateful that I ended up with a cover of a book that I like. And actually, these days, all of my book covers are ones that.

I like. So that is a real blessing and a rare one. So I'm glad that you like it.

I really like it. I'm really happy for you. And also, John, not me, John with no H, donated to the Project for Awesome to get us to say this message, which we are happy to say because we are really interested in the work that This is John's message that he donated to the Project for Awesome to get us to say.

This message is a plug for an organization I'm a really big fan of, GiveWell, a nonprofit dedicated to finding outstanding giving opportunities through in-depth analysis. Thousands of hours of research have gone into funding their top-rated charities. These charities are evidence-based, thoroughly vetted, and underfunded.

If you want to know more, check out GiveWell.org and check out their research. So again, that's GiveWell.org. Thank you, John, for donating to the P4A and for... taking the opportunity to try to decrease world suck.

Hank: Totally dope. That was very cool of you, John.

John: I thought that was going to be about me, but it wasn't. It was about a different John. I've always just wanted to say that about. me, but it's never happened. Let's answer some more questions.

Hank: You're also dope.

John: Uh huh.

Hank: Is that what you wanted to hear? This question comes from Will who asks, Dear Hank and John, My girlfriend and I just moved in together for the first time and I am ecstatic. However, I do have a slight qualm. She has these lamps and tables that are bright Perry Winkle.

How do I express to her that they don't exactly go with the rest of the decor and that I would rather go with simple white? Her mom painted them and I don't want to offend my possible future mother-in-law. Her mom can be a bit standoffish at times.

Any dubious advice would be greatly appreciated. Where there's a way, there's a will. 

John: Will?

Hank: Yeah, will. Will? I think John and I have the same piece of advice for you.

John: you're gonna learn to love those bright periwinkle tables and lamps because people who you care about who are important to you and your life worked hard to make them and made conscious careful thoughtful choices about that color and you're gonna incorporate it into your life. yep That's it man, I mean.

Hank: hard out. Is there more to say about this or is there just another way to say it?

John: Yeah, I Yeah, but even aesthetically just paint the other stuff white, right? And so the periwinkle becomes the pop of color in that room. Just have your bed be neutral or your carpet be neutral there. I think I'm not an expert in this field but I think it is a bad plan to repaint that lamp.

Hank: yeah yeah and I think I think it's a weird conversation to have to some extent like you may imagine this as like emotional labor on your part like a thing that you are doing and that it means that you're like your living experience isn't the exact way that you would imagine it but that it is. It is a part of being a part of this new thing that you are creating with your SO.

John: It took me a second to figure out what an SO was, but now I realize it's a significant other. I was just going to highlight that for people who might have struggled with it the way I was struggling with it. We have something in our. house that is somewhat similar to this. There's a painting in our house that There's stuff that we you once you once you form a partnership I think you start to pick out stuff together, right? but then there's some stuff that you bring into the relationship that you bring into the first apartment that You know like you picked out on your own it might not suit the other person's Interests and that you may you may not have picked together. and here is what I tell myself when I see this one painting.

Someone I love loves this painting. That's what I think And I find it very helpful. And it makes me like the painting.

And I think eventually you're going to like those periwinkle lamps. Actually, to me they sound nice. I think, Will, you might be wrong on every level.

I think these periwinkle lamps might be a winner. But even if they're not... You're just wrong on every level.

Hank: This is what you write into the pod for. 

John: I'm just trying to level with you, Will. I think you're headed down the wrong path.

Hank: Hopefully we saved you in time.

John: Alright Hank, this next. question comes from Megan who writes. Dear John and Hank, I must know, where does the phrase the world is your oyster come from? And how does it make any sense? If the world is your oyster, does this mean the purpose of life is to discover your pearl?

What if your oyster doesn't have a pearl? And if a pearl is actually just made up of irritants and calcium isn't it more like a kidney stone? Are you allergic to shellfish?

Dubious answers are welcome as my friends and I have been plagued by this question for a long, long time. Although apparently not long enough to Google it. 

Hank: Was that part of the question? Did you add that in?

John: No, I added that in.

Hank: So I don't want you, do you, are you going to tell me the actual answer to this question?

John: I am going to tell you the actual answer, but go ahead and speculate first.

Hank: I'm just going to say that like, What I know about oysters is that they're ugly and and like gross and and like Scraggly on the outside and then inside. the inside of the shells are nice, but then there's. like this goopy soupy And indeed.

John: the way that it is currently used makes no sense especially when you find out where the phrase came from which is from William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. and in this scene Falstaff says I will not to pistol I will not lend you any money I will not lend thee a penny. and then pistol replies why then the world's mine oyster which I with sword will open? and then Falstaff says not a penny. so what pistol is saying is okay you won't lend me any money. i get that. i know how uh. to get money out of you by using a sword i.e i am going to rob you i am going to force your pocketbook open with my sword the way that i would force an oyster open with my sword. so it has essentially no relationship to the idea that the world is your oyster. because I mean I guess maybe the world is your oyster if you have if you already have money or the world is your oyster if you have a sword.

Hank: The oyster is sitting there waiting for you to open it. up.

John: Right but in the scene what's happening is that pistol is threatening false theft with theft.

Hank: Well, aren't we all stealing every time we eat an oyster? because it was that was the property of the oyster. Yes, the body of the oyster.

John: I find it to have been essentially like a mistranslated phrase that it must be the way that it The way. yes something something maybe it's iambic or something. There must be something about the phrase itself that feels true to us Even though makes the more you investigate it the less true it becomes which is maybe also reflective of something about how we actually think that we have a lot of control and sovereignty over our lives and what happens to them. But in fact, the world in truth is almost never our oyster.

Hank: Right. The world is your oyster in the sense that maybe the world is just like some oyster somewhere far away that you can't control and that you will never be able to find. And it may or may not have pearls in it. It's just like every person has an oyster.

And it only exists for a limited amount. of time and no one ever actually gets it.

John: There you go. Thanks for listening to Dear Hank and John. 

Hank: Next question. One more question before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon and John. It comes from Aaron who asks. Dear Hank and John, I've recently been invited to join a small weekly critique group which is fantastic, but One of the members looks almost exactly like Ryan Gosling.

The resemblance is eerie. I can't look at him in the eye. It's like looking into the sun.

How do I have to sp- And now I have to spend one evening a week in his presence. This guy has a reputation for being professional and kind and honest. He's a good contact to have.

I can't risk weirding him out. And yet, I'm sure that I'll either say something idiotic or else avoid interaction to the point of unfriendliness. I could do with some dubious advice right about now, Trial and Aaron.

John: So my best friend Chris looks a lot like Vince Vaughn. I realize this isn't the exact same problem, Aaron. But he looks more like Vince Vaughn. In some ways he looks more like.

Vince Vaughn than contemporary Vince Vaughn does. Like Chris looks more like Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers than Vince Vaughn. looks like Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers. And the way that I dealt with this, Aaron, is by the first time I hung out with Chris, I had a few drinks.

And then I looked over at him and I said, you know, you look exactly like Vince Vaughn and you also talk like Vince Vaughn. It almost seems like kind of a performance. And he paused and he said, I usually get Vincent D'Onofrio.

And then that then it was over.

Hank: A different Vince, who's Vincent D'Onofrio?

John: He was in like Law and Order, Criminal Intent. I think he. I think he had a long and storied career before that. But I most recently saw him in Law and Order, Criminal Intent.

Hank: Yeah. No, that guy looks like Chris. Yeah.

John: Essentially every Hollywood actor named Vince looks like Chris. 

Hank: Vincent D'Onofrio, the guy who plays the Edgar in Men in Black.

John: Possibly. 

Hank: And then the alien puts on the Edgar suit.

John: I feel like we're stumbling into this week's This Week in Ryan, so let's not get ahead of. ourselves. 

Hank: Yeah, I mean, have you ever had the problem where you are sort of like? someone is so like, I don't know, beautiful to look at that? it interferes with your ability to have a normal human relationship.

John: Oh, is that the question? I thought that it was so distracting. I thought it was just so distracting to have somebody who looked like a celebrity. I think I misinterpreted the question.

Well, I think it's a little bit of both.

Hank: So one, this person looks like Ryan Gosling. Second, have you seen Ryan Gosling?

John: Yeah, no, he's got a very symmetrical face. yeah I don't know I don't know how to solve that second problem. I only know how to solve the problem of making making it normal to announce to someone that they look like a celebrity. I suppose if that celebrity is Ryan Gosling it is a form of. it is weird to say you look like Ryan Gosling. right because Ryan Gosling is widely perceived to be the definition of hotness. so maybe you just say hey has anybody ever told you you look like Ryan Reynolds? 

Hank: No, you gotta go with, hey, has anyone ever? told you you look like adult Macaulay Culkin?

John: Here's the thing that you should do. actually, Aaron, is you should just wait because eventually this person will start to look like themselves.

Hank: It's totally true. That is my advice, yes. In my experience, people start to become themselves and they start to become people and what they look like fades a lot.

John: There you go, that's our advice. Hank, we've got to get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, but first I just want to say a quick thank you to everybody who supports Dear Hank and John on Patreon. You can get our weekly terrible podcast This Week in Ryans, where we've discussed I believe both Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds. But you can go to patreon.com slash Dear Hank and John and get, you don't have to actually sign up to see the content, but you can if you want donate and then the money goes to Complexly to support SciShow and Crash Course and and The Art Assignment and the other shows that we make at Complexly.

So thank you to everybody who supports us on Patreon. You can listen to This Week in. Ryans after you listen to this podcast over at patreon.com slash Dear Hank and John.

But Hank, what is the news from Mars this week?

Hank: In news from Mars this week, John, the Mars Curiosity rover, as we have discussed previously, has a drill on it that broke. So it's the only way we have to get samples from the interior of rocks on Mars and that's a big deal because the exterior of rocks on Mars has chemistry that happens to it and is thus going to be different from the interior. So you can drill in there and then scoop a little bit of the sample up and then take it over to the onboard science laboratories on the Curiosity rover. But more than a year ago that drill broke.

One of the wheel motors that keeps it in place broke and we've been troubleshooting it to try and get it to collect dust to figure out how to drill into rocks ever since then. And we've got a like a earthbound one that we had been testing to get it to figure out how to do this and it figured out how to do it. And then. we sent all that software up at the Curiosity Rover and just this week it made its first drill on the surface of Mars in over a year a successful test drill. the next step is to try and figure out how to actually get that dust that it drilled up from the rock to the onboard laboratories and that also that all the systems that part of what broke is the systems that would get that there. so what they're thinking about doing is actually using the drill bit moving the drill bit over to the the laboratories basically tapping the drill bit to get the dust to just fall off of it.

And that works with the one here on Earth, but obviously, you know, the atmosphere and gravity are different on Earth. So hopefully it will work on Mars too, but we don't know. but it has done its first sample test drill since it broke and it worked and everybody's very excited and I Basically, I could watch a documentary film on the year of work that these engineers have done to get that drill back up and running.

John: You should have made that documentary that. sounds properly interesting especially if you have the right soundtrack. I find that in general You mostly need a good score. so speaking of scoring Mmm, we haven't been. AFC Wimbledon, America's favorite third-tier English soccer team, lost their most recent game. Oh no.

Well, actually their most recent game was cancelled because of weather. I don't know if you heard about this, but there was this huge storm in England. They called it the Beast from the East because it originated in Russia, and it was very cold there, and there was a frozen pitch so they couldn't play.

So... There's that. There are now 11 games remaining in the League One season and AFC Wimbledon is clinging, clinging by one point to safety right now in 19th place. 21st through 24th go down.

AFC Wimbledon is just barely safe in 19th place on 38 points after 35 games. There are 11 games left to ensure safety. Wimbledon are going to need 52 points.

So that's 14 points from their remaining 11 games. That's a lot. It's very.

I don't want to minimize how nerve-wracking it is. I want to be hopeful and optimistic but it is very scary. and this you know. Obviously the stakes are extremely high.

It's hard to get up to League one. it took Herculean effort and a little bit of luck for Wimbledon to get up to League one and It would be pretty devastating to get relegated. So right now one point clear and also the franchise currently applying its trade in Milton Keynes is in the relegation zone 32 points after 35 games. so there is still the distinct possibility that those two clubs are going to be vying for safety at the end of the season which is terrifying. and yes boy hmm I'm worried mm-hmm.

Hank: So the game you lost was to the team that was going to beat you probably no matter what right?

John: That is correct. and they did beat us no matter what. they beat us 3-0 and it was not close. but next we play Oxford United and then a huge game against. we have actually three of our remaining games are against teams currently in the relegation zone. so those games are obviously all massive. so it hey we'll see.

Hank: yeah Okay, well so that yeah that that Yeah, that's really interesting. So that's. that's coming up in the next weeks or the next week.

John: No the game Yeah, March 17th, St. Patrick's Day is is a big game. That's a you don't want to. you don't want to talk about must-win games because that only puts pressure on the team. I don't want to put pressure on the team But I don't think they listen to this, so I'll tell you the truth, it's a must-win game.

Hank: All right, well, we're all rooting for you, John.

John: Thanks, Hank. What did we learn today?

Hank: Well, we learned that the inside of your shopping cart has diplomatic immunity from the rest of the shoppers.

John: We learned that the Yarmouth Harbor Yacht Club is your number one Yarmouth Yacht Club. Actually, probably not. 

Hank: I think it's the number one Yarmouth Yacht Club. I think there's just the one.

John: It's certainly top five. It's top five.

Hank: We learned that baby hamsters, we don't know what to do with them, and I don't know why you're asking us.

John: And we learned that space wars might kill us, but not if the flu does first.

Hank: John, thanks for making a podcast with me. Always a pleasure. Don't remember how? we end the podcast.

John: Usually you read the credits.

Hank: Oh, this podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. It's produced by Rosianna Halse Rojas and Sheridan Gibson. Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bongiorno. This music that you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast and during this week in Ryans is all by the great Gunnarolla and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.