400: For Those Who Are Still Listening

You're listening to a complexly podcast.

Hello, and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

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

It's a podcast where two brothers answer your question, give you DB's advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

I feel like we've been a forever since we made a podcast, John.

Since we last made a podcast, I made a major announcement, which is that I'm writing a new book, and it's coming out in March, and it's called Everything is Tuberculosis.

It's a little bit of a departure for me, Hank, because now I am the science one.

In fact, I have the best-selling science book on Amazon right now.

Number four in the world, but number one in science.

Ooh, number four book of all books.

Number four book of all books.

That sounds like it's going pretty well, which I have to say is a little surprising to me.

Not no

thanks.

Nothing on you.

I've read the book.

It's very good.

I agree that people should buy it.

I am surprised that, I don't know, it's tuberculosis.

The whole problem with it is people don't pay attention to it.

That is literally the reason tuberculosis exists.

It is an attention problem, as much as it is a biomedical problem.

So I am absolutely delighted on a few levels, I'll confess, to the fact that the book has sold so well and indeed sold so much better than my previous book,

which has been surprising and really exciting.

But yeah, it comes out in March, and I'm signing 100,000 copies of the first edition, so you can get a signed edition wherever books are sold.

That's been interesting, Hank, because I'd forgotten when I made this commitment.

I remember saying at the end of signing 250,000 copies of the Anthropocene Reviewed that I was getting out of that game.

Yeah, I remember that too.

And then I missed it.

You know, I missed signing my name over and over again.

That's a weird thing to miss.

But I've now done it about 12,000 times.

I've got about 88,000 to go and I don't miss it as much as I did 12,000 sheets ago.

Oh boy, that's 88,000 is a lot more.

I had not,

I felt like my vibe was you were further along than that.

Nope.

Nope.

I'm about 12,000 in with 88,000 to go and I've got about two months to do it.

Do you think that if I wrote a book that it would be a good idea for me to do this?

No.

For sales of the book though?

Maybe for sales.

And this is something that I feel very strongly about.

Like, I'll obviously always want my books to sell well.

I'm not above that.

But this book, I especially want to sell well because it is so much about trying to get people to understand both the history of tuberculosis, but also the kind of terrifying present of it and how

much like together we really can change the arc of tuberculosis merely by paying attention to the crisis and treating it like a crisis.

Yeah, it's like Cony 2012, but TB.

Well, I wouldn't say that's a perfect comparison.

TB 2024.

2025, actually,

in terms of the book.

Good book.

It'd be great if you're going to be able to do it.

Do you believe that 2025 is a thing that is part of our lives?

I know.

We're a quarter of a way through the century.

Man, you always hear about the technological change that might happen.

You never hear about the political change that might happen.

I am uncomfortable.

Yeah.

I mean,

we can talk about all of that stuff, but I'd rather not.

Instead, I'd like to talk about the fact that people who were born in 2004 can drink in the United States.

Yeah.

And 2004 is like, basically, we were thinking about making YouTube videos.

Yeah, no, we weren't because that YouTube didn't exist yet.

But we were almost thinking about it.

You know, we were thinking, we were doing internet stuff in 2004.

I certainly was doing internet stuff in 2000, 2004.

Yeah, you were helping me design my own website with my hot HTML skills.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, everything is tuberculosis is available for pre-order now.

And

it's going to come out 20 years almost to the day after my first novel, Looking for Alaska.

20 years, Hank, I've been writing books.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you should have written more of them.

That many.

I know.

Sorry.

You've written almost as many books as me in like three years.

I really want to write books more.

It's fun.

I do, man.

It's a great job.

It's the best job.

I'm so grateful for it.

I'm so grateful that people have responded so generously to this one so far with all the pre-orders.

I hope I don't disappoint them with the actual book.

That becomes my immediate worry.

Once the book starts selling well, I'm like, oh, God, I hope I don't disappoint them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

100%.

I feel the same way

about almost everything that I do, but especially the things that people pay money for.

It's stressful.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's answer some questions from our listeners, beginning with this one from Sarah.

And by the way, I'm so glad we didn't get a dad joke today.

I just got to confess,

I'm hugely relieved.

I'm sure you're going to squeeze one in in the middle, but it's just, it's good not to start off.

I want to keep you guessing.

You're always waiting for me.

I like the idea of inserting it somewhere in the podcast and seeing if I see it coming or whether I'm blindsided.

Anyway, this question comes from Sarah, who writes, hey, John and Hank, how do you guys keep it so PG?

Pumpkins and penguins, Sarah.

How or why?

Oh, why?

I thought it was how.

And I was like, it's hard, Sarah.

The question is why, but the question I read in my heart is how.

And Sarah, the how is challenging sometimes.

I guess.

It's funny because I don't keep it PG everywhere.

No.

In fact, like it would be easier to keep it PG in written stuff, but I am less likely to.

And

when I'm like on Tumblr or Twitter or Blue Sky or Threads,

I curse up a storm.

I'm also not very PG in my normal life, including in front of my child.

We talk about grown-up words and how...

you know, just like I can drink some drinks he can't drink, I can say some words he can't say.

And

but but

I think, John, the why

is

about accessibility.

Like there are there's all kinds of different ways to be a person in this world.

And we want what we do to be open to as many of them as possible.

And a lot of them,

whether they are children or just have sort of a different code of morality than I do, feel very differently about curse words than I do.

Right.

Yeah, I think that's part of it, but that can't be all of it, right?

Because like I want my books to be widely accessible.

And ironically, it's my books for teenagers that are the least PG of my books, right?

Like the Anthropocene Reviewed and Everything is Tuberculosis are reasonably PG.

I'm not sure that like a child would love reading Everything is Tuberculosis, but they might.

I mean, I think some children will.

Cool babies will be into it.

And for me, the podcast is

more about family listening.

And like there are, I know there are lots of people who listen to it with their, with their little ones, like not their teenagers, but their little, little kids.

Yeah.

And I just, and I, I just kind of like it that we have a space where we are reasonably PG, precisely because we're less and less PG in other spaces.

I mean, I mean, on my sports Twitter, I struggled to go seven or eight words without throwing in some bad ones.

We've also not cursed much on Vlogbrothers.

Like I remember, like, I kind of remember every time we've done it.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Yeah, we don't like to to curse on Vogue Brothers.

I don't know why.

It's just, it's so weird.

It's just, it's like every, every place has its vibe, and that's the vibe on Dear Hank and John.

That's right.

And people can catch the vibe.

People can catch the vibe.

And I find it weirdly easy to do.

You're saying it's hard for you, but I find it's like,

I don't know.

I just go into that version of myself where I imagine my mom's listening.

Not that I'm going to be mad.

Yeah, mom's going to cursed a lot.

Yeah.

This next question comes from Devin, who asks, dear Hank and John, as spooky season, aka the best season, approaches and stores display new Halloween wares, it occurred to me that somehow humanity collectively decided ghosts would be represented by placing a white sheet with eye holes in it over one's head, like in Scooby-Doo.

Uh, why?

Why?

Is this the way?

When and how did sheets over our bodies and moaning

become the universal standard ghost?

If you're able to provide any information, become the universal ghost standard stairway to Devon.

It's got to be just an ease of access thing, right?

It's like

you got a sheet, you got a child, you got to have a costume, you got to make a ghost.

No, I don't think it goes back to that.

I think it goes back to burial shrouds.

That would be my guess.

Oh.

Because

burial shrouds were a much bigger deal than coffins until like, I don't know, like the late 1700s, early 1800s or something.

And so when the dead would wake up, they would be wearing their burial shrouds.

And so they would basically look like they were wearing sheets with,

but they, you know, but then you need to see as a human.

And so you cut eye holes in the sheet.

Yeah.

That would be my guess.

Is Casper the friendly ghost just sort of bundled up in his little burial shroud?

That makes me a little sad.

Well, I never realized Casper had died, you know?

Casper's the little boy who died.

It's very sad now that you mention it.

It's like almost always when ghosts are played for laughs, I want to be like, hold on a second.

There's a tragedy here.

Yeah.

Well, I don't, sometimes, sometimes it's like an old lady, and it's like, yeah, old lady died.

No, but like, like Moaning Myrtle is a bunch of ha-ha, funny, funny funny yeah

and but she did there's nothing ha ha or funny funny about the situation yeah

um i for one

do not want to be buried in a burial shroud just so you know just well i think that we've kind of we've we've skipped over burial shrouds and now we just have regular suits do you want to do you want a regular old suit or do you want to wear something special No, I just want to wear like my AFC Wimbledon suit, I guess, if I were to die tomorrow, my nice suit with the AFC Wimbledon.

Whoa, I thought you meant like your kit, like the kit.

Like you just like.

No, no, no, not like a full kit, like with my shorts that have DFTVA on them.

No, no, thank you.

Just some kind of, I think I'd probably want to dress up for the occasion.

But the main thing, Hank, and I know I've said this before, but I literally can't say it enough, is that I'd like to be buried at the very top of Crown Hill Cemetery, directly above James Whitcomb Riley, the other famous Indiana author.

This is the guy who wrote Little Orphan Annie.

He wrote Little Orphan Annie, which was first titled The Elf Child.

Thank God they changed it to Little Orphan Annie.

I'm having a moment because I looked up Little Orphan Annie just now.

So Annie is what I'm most familiar with.

The 1982 film.

This one will come out tomorrow.

Which was based on the 1977 Broadway musical of the same name.

Correct.

Which was based on Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip created by Harold Gray.

Based on.

Which was further based on Little Orphan Annie, the book by Charles Whitcomb Riley.

James Whitcomb Riley.

Whatever.

I love that you don't know his name.

By Charles Nelson Riley.

Charles Nelson Riley.

And the best part, Hank, about Annie being based on a Broadway show, being based on a comic strip, being based on

a poem called Little Orphan Annie, the best part about that is that the main character of Little Orphan Annie is named Little Orphan Allie.

And

the only reason the poem is called Little Orphan Annie is because of a typesetter mistake.

What?

Yeah.

The whole thing should have been called Allie.

It's named.

I don't think Mary Annie.

I don't think that was a mistake.

I think that was an editorial choice.

They were like, little orphan Allie.

Annie sounds way better.

Riley wanted to do the end of orphan, but a typesetting error during printing renamed the poem to its current form.

And so you're reading this poem that's about a child named Allie that's called Little Orphan Annie.

The rest of the poem is still about Allie?

That I don't know.

You can actually listen to James Whitcomb Riley

read this poem because he's not that old.

Well, he's dead.

He's the same age as all the other dead people.

Is that how that works?

Let me see.

Little orphan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's Little Orphan Annie throughout the the poem because of a typesetter error.

Okay.

It's not a very long poem.

You know, this guy.

This guy.

There was a fourth adaptation that just happened in 2021.

I think I've seen clips from it.

Yeah.

There's a lot of people who are on TikTok,

which is how we watch movies now.

I got to say, John, I don't know if you deserve to be up there.

This guy's stuff's still happening.

You don't think there's going to be versions of The Fault in Our Stars made in 2070?

Strong disagree.

I am really looking forward to the Broadway musical, Everything is Tuberculosis.

I am too.

It's going to be a hit.

I mean, people are going to love it.

Could we?

I am really, I can't wait to wait for the thrilling

multi-studio bidding war over the movie rights for Everything is Tuberculosis, my hit nonfiction book about tuberculosis.

That's what I'm most excited about.

Oh, man, somebody's going to want to turn it into a Netflix documentary, I'm sure.

And they'll pay like

I want to say no to that because I don't have any desire to go through that whole process again.

But I also feel compelled to say yes to it because the reason the book exists is to expand awareness of TB.

Yeah, you should do it if it comes up.

Yeah.

But

the guest lecture probably will reach more people than a Netflix documentary.

I don't know.

Netflix documentaries, man.

I just watched the one about Vince McMahon.

Yeah, but that's the one about Vince McMahon.

I've never thought of Vince McMahon one way or the other.

You got to have some real criminals going on in your tuberculosis book to get a good Netflix documentary.

There's some criminals.

There's some criminals.

All right.

Like all

are really participating in the crime that is the ongoing horror of tuberculosis, the world's deadliest infectious disease.

I found that when I made jokes like that doing stand-up comedy, people really love them.

That really lands well.

Good.

All right.

Well, maybe I'll write a stand-up comedy special about TV

with your stand-up special about cancer.

Oh,

I

love the engineering challenge of building a grave on that hovers upon another person's grave.

You're going to have to stay alive for a while so we can build that hover technology.

Elon's got me.

All right, Hank, it's time to answer another question from our listeners.

This one comes from Elon or possibly Ellen.

Dear John and Hank, I realize it might still be a bit too soon, but when do you think we should start worrying about how our computer systems are not built to handle years beyond 9999?

By we, I, of course, mean humanity, since we will all long be dead by then.

Memento, Maury, Elen.

Oh,

you know, I had this feeling

not too long ago that we wouldn't have that much lost media.

You know, that like there's always like you always, much is always lost to history.

But it just feels like everything is being preserved all the time.

We're taking so many photographs and videos, and every, every tweet that we write is preserved, and it just feels like everything is going to be preserved.

Right.

I'm like, I've never been worried about

YouTube videos going away, like about losing Vlogbrothers.

Now, there is one Vlogbrothers video that has been lost.

to the lost media hole.

Some gamma ray hit some hard drive in some warehouse somewhere, and that YouTube video literally just doesn't work anymore.

We did not take it down, it's just not there.

I don't know which one it is, but I remember finding this out and being upset.

Wow, yeah, wow.

Um, but I mean, what a loss.

It feels like Vlogbrothers is incomplete now.

Yeah, well, there's also a couple that we've taken down over the years, so it's incomplete in other ways as well.

True enough, we don't have to talk about those ones.

Nope, um, more embarrassing than and cringe than anything else, and mean occasionally.

Um, but anyway,

my point is, in the last few years, as it feels like computers are changing in a kind of deeper, more fundamental way,

with

like

just right on the edge of autonomous agent computer programs that can sort of conduct themselves in the world as if they are themselves

people-ish.

I've started to feel like, oh, this is not static.

This is not like a thing that's going to be forever.

Now, I will say, I think we're going to have phones for a long time.

That's a very convenient thing to have a handheld computer, and there isn't really a better way to do it than the way we're doing phones right now.

But I think in the year 999,

when we're

about to roll over to 10,000, I would be shocked if any of the systems that we are currently using

have any bearing on

that reality.

What do you think is the chance?

Because we have almost nothing from 10,000 years ago, right?

Like we've got some monumental structures, but we don't have much in the way of anything else.

I mean, we got 10,000 years is a really long time.

I guess we're talking about 8,000 years.

So what do you think the chances are that in 8,000 years, there will be any relic of any,

like,

do you think there will be a Mr.

Beast video or a copy of an absolutely remarkable thing available in the world?

I think, no.

I think, yes.

I think we're going to get better at preserving information.

I'm not sure that we are.

Well, I think that

it's going to be less burden.

I think that particularly books,

because they are just nothing.

Even now,

they are kind of like just like having a store of all of the books.

that have ever been made digitally is like a like an endeavor that a single person could take on, and they wouldn't even have to be that rich.

Right, but you've got to count on each of those things being preserved generation after generation for 8,000 years.

Like a lot of stuff is going to get lost.

Yeah, I mean, is it generation after generation, or is it like literally one autonomous AI agent that lives that whole time?

And its job is just

to save the books.

Like, just in case.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well,

I haven't thought about one autonomous AI, AI that wins for 8,000 years, but I guess that is around the corner.

I have been,

I'm really overwhelmed by

the state of things.

And

I wouldn't be surprised if

people die and then we keep them alive doing jobs that they seem like they would be good at as

AI.

Well, that's one of my big fears is that like

that I'll be made, like there will be Vlogbrothers videos into perpetuity because my consciousness will be uploaded enough by virtue of the amount of stuff that I've made that people will continue to make Vlogbrothers videos and they will feel like they were made by me and on some level they were.

That is very weird.

The other thing

there is I'm worried that in the same way that a like a sort of a creator's, like an author's descendants control their work in the future, that an an author's descendants will control their image and likeness and voice and creations.

And I go back and forth on that because there's part of me that like right now in my will, it just says like none of that ever period.

Yeah.

Like this all in the public domain or something?

No, no, no, just none of it ever period.

You can't use your likeness.

Oh, your likeness.

I was talking about IP.

intellectual property.

Oh, oh.

But you can't like use, you can't like feed an AI a bunch bunch of John Green books and then start publishing new John Green books.

I haven't, I haven't written that into the will yet, John.

That's in my will.

Oh, Hank, you got to get on your.

I got a normal will, like a normal guy.

I'm not thinking about myself.

Now that you have a normal will, it's time to start updating your will all the time and with weird, weird stuff like that.

What do you do?

You just like email your lawyer.

You're like, hey, can you put in don't ever turn me into a weird AI bot in the language?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can you add some language that says no botting me me for the

foreseeable future?

On the other hand, I don't want to like deny my descendants, like if there's some cool technology that I can't like foresee right now,

and they're suddenly very limited.

And like, I'll give you an example.

The estate of James Joyce has made it very difficult to do James Joyce studies.

And that's probably in line with what James Joyce wanted.

But who the hell cares what James Joyce wanted?

Like, that's not useful anymore.

Like, we need to be able to do, we need to be able to, like, read all of James Joyce's letters, and we need to be able to do all that stuff because it's cool and interesting, and it helps us understand Ulysses better.

And

so

I go back and forth on it because

the needs of the world change.

And

I mean, I realize that I've just compared myself to the greatest novelist of all time.

Hey, John,

there is a comparison to be made.

You both are professional writers and you will both die.

And we will both die.

We share a profession and a fate.

That's more than most people.

Most people only share a fate.

But everybody who shares a profession also shares a fate.

True.

Unless, no,

which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by sharing of fate.

Sharing of fate.

It's universal.

This podcast is also brought to you by the S-word, the F-word, and also

the

E-word.

What's the E-word?

Eagle!

We've never said it.

We've never said it on this podcast one time.

Never in 400 episodes have we ever, by the way, this is our 400th episode.

Never in 400 episodes have we ever said the word eagle because it's too filthy.

Today's podcast is also brought to you by James Whitcomb Riley's Little Orphan Alley.

Little Orphan Alley, saved by a typo.

And this podcast is brought to you by Bot Hank.

Bot Hank, ready to take over once I'm done.

Oh, God.

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This next question comes from Grace, who writes, hey, Green Brothers, let's cut to the chase.

If the president of the United States is allergic to peanuts, would the entire White House become a peanut-free zone like an elementary school?

Would someone with such an anaphylactic allergy even be allowed to run for president?

Seems like too much of a security risk to me.

I think they would have to go peanut-free, to be honest.

Would love to hear your thoughts, Grace.

This is the kind of question I've been waiting for, Grace.

I like it when you say, Let's cut to the chase.

Let's cut to the chase.

That's my favorite part of your question.

Yeah, I mean, first off, you can have an anaphylactic allergy and a run for president.

Absolutely.

That is not disqualifying on its own.

Grace,

you've been following the presidential election, but it turns out a lot of things aren't disqualifying.

Oh, John, I

have always worried about about peanuts because

if you have two of them, chances are one of them is assaulted.

Damn it.

This is a joke.

I can tell it.

What was the end of it?

Sorry.

One of them is assaulted.

Oh, yes.

That's an old school dad joke.

It's old school peanut jokes.

Yeah, because two peanuts are walking on the bottom.

The classic among dad jokes.

Yeah.

It's a classic among the in the form.

It's the little orphan annie of peanut-related dad jokes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That guy's also buried on a hill somewhere.

Oh, have I told you how unfunny the people at Crown Hill find this joke?

What?

That you want to be buried on top of Charles Nelson Riley?

James Wickham Riley, yes.

They're not amused by it one little bit.

They don't find it funny at all.

Oh, man.

Our parents are at Crown Hill today, actually.

I was like, Where are you guys going?

And they were like, going to Crown Hill.

And I was like, just for a walk.

And they were like, yep.

So we come by it honestly.

It's nice in there.

Look, it's a pleasant cemetery.

Occasionally, you find a person who's actually buried in the wrong grave.

You do?

Yeah.

Grave mistake.

Jesus.

Okay, that's no, no more.

No more.

You know,

you know, know, our parents got into the cemetery, but oftentimes you can't because they're surrounded by fences.

Do you know why?

Why?

People are dying to get in.

It is funny that they're surrounded by fences, though.

Like,

are they keep out fences or are they keep in fences?

A little bit of both.

A little bit of both, I think.

Just in case.

I just think the one thing we know about ghosts is they're not going to particularly struggle with like a wrought iron fence.

You know, they're not going to be like, oh, well,

I'll stay in the cemetery.

I guess it is.

It's got to be for the protection of all of the stones.

But you can go, I guess at nighttime they might lock it up.

Yeah, they lock it up at night.

Crown Hill is open sunrise to sunset.

Okay.

And there used to, of course, be a lot of grave robbing.

What if you just hid, though, in there?

It's a big cemetery.

Could you just hide in there and just spend the night?

Yeah, I think it's home to over 100,000 human souls.

Or none, depending on your worldview.

I don't know that that's how souls work.

I don't think they stick

No, but people just say that.

That's that's how people say it.

Yeah, it's better than

saying

this it's home to 100,000 human skulls.

Or 100,000 human or 200,000 human femurs.

Probably a little less.

That's right.

That's right.

All right.

Well, I think we answered the question, which was about

peanuts.

Peanuts.

So,

yeah,

I look,

I think that the president would have an epipe.

I think it'd be pretty easy to manage.

Yeah, I agree.

But they did do that on, you know, recently,

sometimes they have little treats on planes.

My life has been sort of the process of watching the little treat get worse.

And I'm not going to be able to do that.

But I'm not going to blame a peanut allergy on this, but I will blame an airline.

I agree with you.

The classic peanuts was great, except for people with serious peanut allergies, for whom it was catastrophic.

I don't mind making a small sacrifice for the peanut people.

There were other options.

We could have gone with like a Gardeto's style snack mix.

That would have been great.

I'm just saying, and I'm saying it loud for everyone to hear: pretzels suck.

A hard pretzel is the worst snack food.

I've seen you go off on this rant on Twitter, which, by the way, like, what a waste of time Twitter is.

And, like, what a waste of time ranting about pretzels on Twitter is.

And it's not just a waste of time.

It's like a waste of time that makes the social order a little bit worse.

It's like smoking cigarettes, you know, like it's not just bad for you.

It's like, it's like gambling.

I find it very similar to gambling, where it's like, it's a bunch of people who are

trading the currency of their lives for sensations, but will never be delivered what is actually being promised.

Yeah, they'll never feel what they want to feel.

That's you and me on Twitter.

And Sarah was like, you criticize Hank's Twitter usage a lot, but I can't help but notice that you yourself are using Twitter.

And I thought that was a good argument.

So I'm going to stop criticizing your Twitter use and start criticizing my own.

Well, John,

if you left, I'd leave.

I'm only there for you.

Is it a lie?

I don't believe you.

That I just.

Okay, that's it.

I'm leaving.

I'm leaving.

I'm leaving.

No, no, I'm not.

I have been enjoying Blue Sky lately.

I've never been on Blue Sky.

It's very, very, very weird.

It is, you know, of course, very similar to Twitter, but

it is surprisingly lively and

not

like just sort of chock full of complete garbage the way that threads is.

Also, I think that there is so little sort of

high talent posters on

Blue Sky that I just do very well.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Calling yourself a high-talent poster is like calling yourself a really good gambler.

Where you're like, well, you know, I'm just an excellent gambler.

I happen to win at roulette all the time because of my excellent high-talent gambling.

No,

I think that like probably

like maybe two to 500 people just turned off the podcast and were like, I'm done with that guy.

Yes, I agree.

There's two two to five people who will never hear my voice again because of what you just said.

And you know what?

They're right.

Yeah.

The people who are still listening are the ones are just exceptionally generous.

The problem is that I was like mostly, I was like,

I was joking, but like a little bit.

Not enough.

Not enough.

Yeah.

All right, Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, let's answer this question from Jacob, who writes, Dear John and Hank, in the comic strip Garfield, John appears to hold conversations with his cat, but all of Garfield's dialogue appears in thought bubbles.

Is John able to guess what Garfield is thinking, or is he so insecure that he imagines himself scorned by his own cat slowly depreciating in value?

Jacob.

Oh, Jacob, I don't think that's necessarily true.

How are John and Garfield able to have a conversation when one of them is only thinking and one of them is speaking?

Is it telepathy?

I think it is.

I think that it is.

I, as a cat owner.

So I think that there's like, there's two ways.

There's like the way that people who aren't cat owners see this, which is that John is insane.

And then there's the way that cat owners see it, which is that we know all of the thoughts our cats are having.

Right.

Right.

And I like do.

I look at his, the shape of his ears, what he's doing with his tail, what his face looks like, what his eyes look like, what his like fur is, how it's pointed.

And I'm like, I know exactly what what Gummy Bear is thinking.

What does Gummy Bear think about most of the time?

Food?

He thinks about Chester a lot.

Which is the other cat?

The other cat.

He thinks about going outside.

He has a little outside tent that he goes in.

So he's constantly thinking about that.

And when he's outside, he's thinking about coming inside.

He's thinking, there's like, you know, he can have like sort of complex thoughts about like whether or not he would like to be

affectionate or have affection directed toward him.

And indeed, he is at many times of two minds on that subject.

Yeah, he has to hold in concert two competing ideas in his head, which is, of course, the definition of a first-rate intelligence, according to F.

Scott Fitzgerald.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Gummy Bear is often thinking, I would like to be cuddled, but also I'm a wild jungle cat.

Right, right.

Do you think he ever has to hold

at the same time

a sense of the need to hope and a sense of the futility of effort?

No.

Okay.

Then I would like to be a cat.

I think cats should vote.

Wow, that's bold.

I mean, I don't.

I've read Garfield.

I don't think cats should vote.

Yeah.

I think they can be bribed with lasagna too easily.

As opposed to regular people, which have much more sophisticated bribing techniques, like the chance to win a million dollars.

Oh, my goodness.

I'm so nauseated by this moment.

I'm not having the best time.

Ready to be done.

Except that I am having kind of a good time.

Yeah.

Just not on that front.

Right.

Yeah.

I'm letting myself have fun.

Good.

Listen, Hank.

Yes.

There is one other thing we have to talk about before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

Okay.

We have to talk about this email from Walt, who says, hey, guys, I taught high school for 20 years and I just retired.

The preposition misuse that got under my skin the most was when students would say that something happened on accident.

Not a question, but just agreeing with you, prepositions are messy.

Walt, whose grandson calls him Grandpa Walrus, which is the cutest grandpa name I've ever heard of.

Accident.

On accident instead of by accident.

Like something just happened on accident.

I failed to get my homework done on accident.

Would it be by accident?

It would be by accident, except that it doesn't matter because prepositions are terrible.

They're catastrophic.

Sorry, that wasn't a word.

So, yeah.

I mean, I'm glad I don't have to learn English because apparently the prepositions rule is

whichever one we use is the one we use.

It's so vibes-based.

Yeah.

As is so much.

You know, one thing that has been giving me a little shot of hope is that I got to see AFC Wimbledon play in person twice in the last week.

That's awesome.

I got to see.

How long is the season?

When does the season end?

It just began, Hank.

I know, but when does it end?

I'm asking because I'm maybe going to go to the UK.

Oh, in May.

You're going to go.

Yeah.

When are you going to go?

That's a long season.

Yeah, it might end in April.

No, it ends on May 3rd.

Okay.

Well, maybe I'll look at some games, see if I can go.

And then I'll probably go

because I don't care that much.

You got to go.

You would love it, actually.

You'd have a great time.

You'd be moved beyond belief.

You really would be.

As I was when we beat Carlisle 4-0 thanks to a Matty Stevens hat-trick and an own goal, my favorite kind of goal.

It was like the perfect game for me.

I got to see an own goal and a hat-trick.

It was magic.

And then, but my son wasn't able to go to that game.

Poor Henry has seen us play six times.

He's never seen us win.

We went all the way up to Nottingham there in the East Midlands to see us play Notts County, where we lost 1-0 on a crap goal, like a week two

flail-at-the-ball, meaningless goal, only to have us win 3-0 against Morecambe

in the game that Henry didn't see.

So poor Henry has still never seen us win.

I feel bad for him, but not that bad.

I'm still going to make him go to lots of games.

I just looked at the schedule, and they don't have a game while I'm there.

Really?

Yeah, I'm only there for like three days.

Oh, you're only there for three days.

Yeah.

Oh, I see.

So currently, AFC Wimbledon have played three fewer games than almost all of the other teams in League Two because of the

pitch situation.

Remember, our pitch flooded.

We had soggy pitch issues.

And so

we're currently in 10th place.

But if we win those three games in hand, we would actually be winning League Two.

That would be number one.

Nice.

Yeah, I mean, I think that it's a long shot to

win league two but anything is starting to feel possible i watched us play the most recent game was yesterday as we're recording this against morecombe and i i just was like this team

they they just they know how to put the ball in the onion bag as the commentator used to say that's where balls go They like they know where the ball is supposed to go, and it's supposed to go in the onion bag.

Yeah.

Why don't they do it like I've seen Messi do some goals recently.

They should do it more like him.

They should.

They should.

We should sign him.

I was recently at a party and somebody asked, could you sign somebody like Mbappe?

And I was like, no,

no.

No, we're the 86th best team in all of the world.

If you mean like,

if you mean by like Mbappe, that they share the same fate, yes.

And the same same for the job and share the same fate?

Yes.

We could sign somebody like Mbappe.

We could sign the John Green to his James Joyce.

Oh, God.

Oh, man.

But we are beating the franchise who are currently in 12th place.

So I'd love to see that.

What's new in Mars News?

You know, I don't really know.

I didn't have a chance to look.

I actually had a time set aside to do it, but I didn't do that.

And instead, I did something else.

I think I was making a TikTok.

I'll give you some Mars news then.

Oh, yeah.

What you got?

We're going up a crater rim, Hank.

Perseverance is.

It's working its way up a steep crater rim.

We talked about that.

That's the exact thing I brought up last time.

All right.

But that's okay.

Bruno Mars and Jessica Gabon met at a restaurant in New York City.

in 2011, at which point they began dating.

And they have been dating for over 13 years.

Yeah.

And in 2024, there were some rumors that they had called it quits.

It's unclear whether or not they are still together.

13 years is a long time.

It is.

That's a long relationship for Bruno and Mars.

I hope that they're doing okay.

Yeah,

that's a hard one to

go.

For sure.

I hope everything's going okay with Bruno Mars.

Yeah, we're thinking about you, Bruno, Mars.

If you want to send us questions,

we should have done more for our 400th episode.

How was this?

Are you kidding?

This is perfect.

We should have done something.

No, pre-order everything is tuberculosis, available wherever fine books are sold.

That's true.

You can go to everythingistv.com and find out all the places where it is.

Or you can just like use your existing knowledge base of where books are purchased.

Either one works.

Yeah, but this way way the penguin gets whatever penguin wants.

Yeah, that's out of having a landing page.

They do like it.

It's the number one best-selling books in communicable diseases.

That's right.

They had it as the number one best-selling books in viral illnesses, and I had to send them an email.

Really?

No, that's not what this is.

We need to learn about TV.

It's up to you.

Got to learn about TV in this hit new book, Everything is Tuberculosis.

That's right.

Yeah,

do the credits, man.

This was fun.

I had a great time.

It's hank and john at gmail.com if you want to send this question.

Thank you to everybody who did.

This episode was edited by Linus Obenhaus.

It was mixed by Joseph Tunamedish.

Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell.

It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rojas and Hannah West.

Our executive producer is Seth Radley.

The editorial assistant is Taboki Chakravarti.

The music you're hearing now is by the Great Gonarola, and as they say, in our hometown,

don't forget to be awesome.