378: Pelican Dream Chat

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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 bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

What?

No, gosh.

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

Hank, we only have 45 minutes to record today because we spent the first 15 minutes of our recording session talking about stuff.

I don't know why we, why'd we do that, John?

I don't know.

We were just having a brotherly conversation and forgot to record it, unfortunately.

But hey,

listen, I was just thinking, oh, do you have a dad joke?

No, that's fine.

Great.

I'll work one in later.

I was just thinking,

and

totally give me

the stink eye if I'm wrong on this one.

But have we not talked enough about the fact that you had cancer?

I think I'm good not talking too much about it.

Are you?

Or maybe I feel like I've talked too much about it.

I don't know what the right balance is.

I'm trying to understand if it's like better for processing to talk about it more in public, or if it's better for processing to just kind of move on from it in public, even if you, I presume, aren't and won't move on from it privately.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that it will continue to be a part of my story, but hopefully less and less as the years go by, obviously, as the years go by.

But yeah, I mean.

It definitely has changed my relationship with anxiety a lot.

I didn't really understand and didn't have like the tools to deal with that because I hadn't dealt with it as much.

I certainly had lots of stressful and nervous, making, and anxious times in my life, but not to the point where it sort of takes over the way that it does now sometimes.

Yeah.

And, um,

and, and you've been very helpful in that because you do have that experience.

I have, I have, uh, yes, I have swum through those waters.

I think the best image for it I've ever seen is

in Edna St.

Vincent Millay's poem where she talks about

how three flakes and then four arrive at the beginning of a snowstorm and you just see a few flakes and then there's a line break and she says, then many more.

How like it just starts off with just like a thought or like a few thoughts

and then many more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the thing that has helped me the most has been thinking about

what you said, which is like the anxiety is saying, Hey, there's something we need to pay attention to.

And if you're like, I don't think you're there, that doesn't help.

No, you know,

if you're like, there isn't something we need to pay attention to, shush.

That is that it's it continues to sit and build and

get spikier and spikier.

So you have to say, Yes, there is something that we should be worried about, and here's what it is.

And I recognize that your fear is valid, and I see it.

And I, uh, we are, we are doing the right thing with regards to it.

Yeah.

And we still need to do the dishes.

So let's just do that.

There is still a world.

Yeah, I've been struggling with my mental health some,

not some, quite a bit over the last few months.

And we just got a puppy, potato.

His name is Potato.

Yes,

I've heard of potato.

Do you know why we called him potato?

I don't think the listeners do.

Ah, yeah, you tell me.

The lady we got potato from is this wonderful Croatian lady.

And every time she would show us potato,

she would say,

look at him.

Look at him.

He's just little potato.

You touch his ear, potato.

You touch his toes, potato.

He's just potato all the time, no matter what.

And

we told the kids that, and the kids were like, what a great dog name.

He's just little potato.

And I was like, no, no, no, no, no.

He's just potato.

We should name him Franklin or some fancy dog name.

You know, like King Joseph IV

of Bavaria.

But no, potato.

Well, so anyway.

Yeah, I mean, the good news is, John, that I don't have this new peekaboo virus.

Oh, there's a peekaboo virus?

Yeah, it's super, it's very worrying.

Pretty much everybody who gets peekaboo is sent straight to the ICU.

Oh,

yeah.

Okay.

I like this thing where the dad joke comes in unexpectedly, but like not in a way that's in line with the rest of the podcast.

Like, that did not line up at all with what I was talking about.

I was talking about potato, and it's clear that you just weren't listening to me and looked up at that joke.

I was bringing it back to the health conversation.

Okay.

All right.

Yes.

At least you don't, at least that we don't have the peekaboo virus.

Anyway, it is both helpful and not helpful to have potato in my life right now because on the one hand, he forces me to go outside no matter how bad the weather is.

And I guess that's good for my stupid brain that likes to be outside and gets smoothed over a little bit by the

wind and whatnot.

But on the other hand, Jesus, he's a lot of work.

And I don't have a lot of energy right now.

So I'm just faking it till I make it, Hank, which is another thing I find helpful when it comes to overwhelming anxiety or depressive episodes.

It's just,

obviously, you can't overdo it, but just do the basics.

Do the basics.

Do what's next.

And it's nice to have a busy schedule because you're like, I have to do a podcast now.

Yeah.

And well, I would say almost that we get to do a podcast now because

I've missed doing this.

Right.

I was now.

But there are times when I'm like, I don't want to do anything.

Sure, of course.

I don't think I've told you this yet, but I've had a real, it's only in the last two weeks when I've started to like turn to Sarah.

And like you and I will be like texting at night about something stupid about the news or social discourse or the quality of the declining quality of certain social media platforms and

the fascinating lives of the people who own them.

And

Sarah will be like, Why are you giggling?

And I'm like, oh, I'm just talking to Hank.

She's like, it's time for bed.

Read a book.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, I want to talk to my brother, though.

And I've just like,

it's only in the last couple of weeks that I've even allowed myself to think,

oh my God, I'm so glad I get get to talk to my brother.

Well, let's hope that it stays all good news.

Yeah, I'm not that worried about that.

Yeah, I'm not that worried about it.

I know you are.

I'm a little worried about it.

It's, I mean, it's so annoying.

Like, I thought, I thought that surviving cancer, there was always, there were people who are like, like, cancer survivorship is hard.

And I'm like, okay, I believe that.

And here's what I think that means.

After you're done with cancer, you have to like go back back to your normal life and like remember what that's like and try to do all the things that you were supposed to do before and have all the same like things that you value that you valued before when you're like, actually, what's it all about?

It's like, what's, what's life?

Why are we here?

I thought, and that's hard.

That is part of the survivorship thing, but very important.

to cancer survivorship and why there is a lot of support for people who have been through cancer treatment and and cancer and are not are currently in remission uh is that

it there's a bunch of problems like you get disabled by treatment you get disabled by your surgeries your cancers your chemotherapy like that stuff like lingers and is hard to work through you have a bunch of like things that might go wrong in the future that you have to keep an eye on like i have this dramatically increased chance of sudden uh

pulmonary toxicity and scarring that is a years-long thing and i can never scuba dive ever and again because of it, which is weird.

It's weird.

Like there's all these like things that you've been worried about.

I'm not sure if I can do it.

And also like, but I am going to stop you.

I think it's great news that you never get to scuba dive.

That's actually,

I hate to say it, but that's like a huge worry off my list.

I mean,

if you were going to scuba dive, it would have caused me so much stress.

So I appreciate you at least doing one thing that's going to make my life better.

But go on.

I didn't mean to interrupt.

Yeah.

And

yeah.

But it's not just that.

It's also that like there's psychological stuff too, right?

And like I have all that's part of what changes.

Yeah.

I have a bunch of increased risks for a bunch of things, including other cancers, including my own cancer.

And so like the including mental health problems, which are very real.

Yeah.

It feels very much like I

like should be worried all the time.

Right.

And like, I kind of should be.

Right.

And that's hard.

It's easier.

It's honestly easier right now because I'm about to have a scan.

And after this scan, I'll know what's up.

But this is my last scan

of the treatment plan.

So if I get another scan, it's because we think something might be wrong.

Yeah.

You know, I don't want to make everything about tuberculosis, Hank, but it was believed for many years that tuberculosis was linked to madness, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that insanity and tuberculosis kind of went hand in hand.

And what actually, of course, went hand in hand is that when you have a serious life-threatening illness, it changes a lot of things about who you are and the way you look at the world.

And also there is social isolation and stigma and people talking to you differently and all kinds of other factors that are, that can really profoundly shape your experience of being in the world.

And so

that totally makes sense to me that all of that stuff would be linked and that you would feel like you need to worry.

Like,

you know, I think it's part of what makes it hard, right?

Is that you can't fight it with reason because it's perfectly reasonable to be worried.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also, like, it's, it's a thing that you, that's very easy to be worried about, and you don't actually have the information.

Like, what, like, during cancer treatment, it was like, I'm doing the thing I'm supposed to do.

And now it's like, uh,

yeah, right.

Like, now I'm just waiting.

Well, yes.

Sitting here.

Yeah, with regards to health.

Yeah.

I also, this is wild, can't take my, like the main ulcerative colitis medicine I was on before because it increases the chances that the cancer will come back.

So I have to take like my old crappy UC medicine, but so far so good with that stuff.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it's all, it's just a whole different set of stuff to deal with.

Like, for example, sharks.

This question is from Bruce, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I know.

What kind of transition?

Only the most professional podcasters could pull off that kind of transition.

You never hear that stuff on bimbim bam.

There's been a lot of news about orcas destroying boats lately.

Are they the only animals that do this?

How many shrimp would it take to sink a sailboat?

Hank and John, more like sank by prawn, Bruce.

It's worth reading just for that sign-off.

Yeah, I don't really have anything else to say.

Now, like sharks will do this.

There was a boat in Australia that was recently attacked and partially destroyed by cookie cutter sharks, which is the most adorable little name for a shark.

Do you know how cookie cutter sharks got their adorable little name, John?

Do they bite in a way that like leaves behind a perfect Christmas ornament shape?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It leaves behind a little cookie hole.

like the size and shape of a cookie.

Wow.

It's so upsetting.

That's a bit of a bummer.

I was hoping that.

And Australians were like, yeah, we'll call that a cookie cutter shack.

God.

Thank God you didn't pretend to be Australian for a year.

You just pretended to be British.

Because it's adorable.

And everything in Australia has to sound really cute and be horrifying.

I can't do accents

as you know it.

If I try to do an English accent, it sounds German.

And if I try to do a German accent, it sounds like way too German.

I've been

dungeon mastering my son and his friends

in an adventure.

And

first off, I like to think that I'm a pretty creative person.

It's been my career.

And yet somehow these kids, they're just so unafraid of being like, lame.

Everyone knew that was going to be an intellect devourer.

You're not tricking anybody.

My God, guys.

You know, just be, give lip service at least to my plot twists.

But anyway, I try to do voices and

they're relentless.

They're like, where is he from?

Is he French, but his mother's Polish?

Is he

Algerian, but he's got a dad from Botswana?

Like,

what is happening there?

Yeah.

But I do have, I think I have, I think I've mastered one Australian word thanks to the social internet, which is no.

And I think it's like this: I think it's like narrow yeah, that's kind of nerr.

No, no.

No.

No, nope, nope.

I didn't get it that time.

Oh, no.

Nope.

Ah, God, I lost it.

I had it for a hot second.

The last one was just, nope.

I think that shrimp could totally shrink, sink a ship if they wanted to.

Mantis shrimp punch really hard.

I saw a video when I was thinking about this question of a man getting punched through his boot by a mantis shrimp.

And he was like, that hurt very bad.

And he takes off his boot and he's bleeding on the inside of his boot.

Oh my gosh.

So yeah, if you can make your, make a man bleed through a boot, then you can probably, if you work hard enough, punch a hole through a boat.

Right.

I think the challenge for mantis shrimp would not be whether they can do it.

It would be whether they could get organized and collaborative enough to do it.

They're pretty smart, but I don't know that they have that going for them yet.

Yeah.

Hank, I really need to ask this question because I have an astonishingly similar story, so similar that it reminds me of your first novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.

Amy writes, Dear John and Hank, last night I had a nightmare involving a pelican.

It was trying to eat me, which was really scary and painful.

What's the likelihood of being eaten by a pelican?

How do I stop this from becoming a recurring nightmare?

Pelicans, pumpkins, and penguins, Amy.

Now, first offhand, can you be eaten by a pelican?

I assume not.

You can.

You, I mean, if somebody wanted you to be, they could make it happen, but only after you were already dead.

And they'd have to do a lot of the work of

pelican size.

I actually ordered pelican at a restaurant once.

Pelican soup.

It was delicious, but the bill was enormous.

Oh, God, there's two of them.

All right.

So I know nothing is less interesting than other people's dreams, as my friend Amy Cross-Rosenthal always liked to point out immediately before telling me about her most recent dream.

Yeah.

But I would like to tell you about this pelican dream I have because it's nuts.

So I'm walking potato and I'm with a neighbor, not a neighbor I know well, but like somebody from the neighborhood I've met a few times who's also walking their dog and we're just chatting when this gigantic pelican and by the way there are pelicans in Indianapolis like when this dream happened Which was like three weeks ago because they come through for their migration

and so I had seen pelicans in Indianapolis a few days earlier while running in Eagle Creek.

So it wasn't totally out of the blue.

I see a pelican, but it's it's even bigger than most pelicans.

And I think at first, like, maybe I'm just like much closer to it, you know, than I usually get to pelicans because it's like right, for some reason, it was standing on a wire.

It's like right there.

And the person I was with is like, God, that's a huge pelican.

I was like, that is a huge pelican.

And potato was kind of barking at it.

Pelican's kind of looking askance at potato.

And I was like, don't, don't eat my dog, man.

Okay.

Like, just don't eat my dog.

That's how big of a pelican it was.

Yeah, okay.

Pelican opens its mouth, Hank.

Uh-huh.

And you know what's in there?

Your dog?

No, like a four-year-old.

Oh, my God.

A four-year-old human is in there crying.

And the lady's like, you got to do something.

And I was like, me?

Why is it always me?

Why am I always the one jeopardized to do something?

You don't have to be the hero.

You get to be the hero.

So I climb up the telephone pole as, you know, I could totally.

And I reach into this gigantic oversized pelican's mouth, as I totally could, and pull out this four-year-old who's just drenched in pelican spit, spiral, whatever.

And I take the kid down and I'm like he's like oh my god thank you so much he doesn't you know he's four so he doesn't talk that much but he's like thank you thank you thank you that was so scary I was like dude where are you from and he's like Hinsdale and I'm like Hinsdale the suburb of Chicago he's like yeah

this pelican flew me here from Hinsdale as far as migration

migration route crap man do you know your address and he's like no I'm four and I was like well we got to get you home buddy this is going to be a problem.

And then it turned into a madcap road trip with this neighbor I don't know very well, two dogs, and a four-year-old who was trying to describe to us what part of Hinsdale he lived in.

That's great.

And I woke up thinking, my first thought when I woke up was, is that a movie?

Like, could I make that into a movie?

Probably not.

That's probably

not.

But it could be.

Is it a movie?

Here's what I will say, John.

If a pelican could eat a person, they would.

You think so?

Oh, yeah.

Pelicans, you catch them eating like pigeons sometimes.

They'll eat whatever.

You just wouldn't fit.

Like, they don't, they can't, they got a little hole at the back of their throat.

Only a certain size things can fit through it.

Sure.

So he's not a good person.

So they're not

safe, including four-year-olds.

No, again, this guy wasn't getting eaten by the pelican.

He was just getting traveled.

He was just,

it was a mode of transportation for him.

He didn't want it to be, though.

He'd basically basically been kidnapped.

You know, the largest pelican, the Dalmatian pelican, can weigh up to 33 pounds and has a wingspan of almost 12 feet.

Now, is this a dad joke?

No, that's a real fact.

That's terrifying.

They are maybe the largest flying bird.

There's

some feet.

Different ways you can define it.

12 feet.

12 feet.

That's a dinosaur.

Like, that's a pterodactyl.

That's a dinosaur.

Like, they look, and we think maybe feed the same way as some pterodactyls.

Oh, man.

That's wild.

That reminds me, actually, that today's podcast is brought to you by the Dalmatian pelican.

The Dalmatian pelican, it can't eat you, but it would if it could.

Today's podcast is also brought to you by Pelican Soup.

Pelican soup, it's delicious, but the bills are enormous.

And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by that pelican who kidnapped a four-year-old.

That is not cool.

And this podcast is also brought to you by Nairs.

Nares.

It's like what birds have instead of nostrils, I think.

And pelicans don't have functional nares, so they have to breathe through their mouth.

Is that true?

They're mouth breathers like Harry Kane?

That's right.

I don't know who Harry Kane is.

He's a striker for England who

just always breathes through his mouth.

I don't know how else to say it.

It's not, it's not, I don't mean it as an insult.

I just mean it as an observation.

They're like that.

I'll tell you what, there's about 14 people who listen to this podcast who just burst out laughing.

Yeah, they got a,

I think that they have evolved like a separate thing to do with their nostrils to excrete salt, maybe.

Because they eat so much ocean life.

Yeah.

So they just snot out that salt.

Yeah.

Smart.

Zoots crystals.

There we've got a Project for Awesome messages from Jonas who asks.

Who says?

Wait, could you just like pen them up?

I'm sorry, I don't want to interrupt the Project for Awesome message, but could you just like pen them up the way that

we do with other animals that we want stuff, their stuff, and just

make them snot out crystals all day and use those crystals in our soup?

Yeah, we could, but we won't do it until and unless someone makes up a story about how it's really good for your gallbladder or some crap.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like how the best coffee has to be pooped out by a civet or whatever.

It's the same concept.

People are like,

this special flaky salt that's the exact same stuff.

Yeah, I mean,

who wants Himalayan pink salt, you know, or red sea salt or whatever when you could have salt that is literally derived from Pelican Snot?

That has got to be the most luxurious salt of them all.

John, can I tell you something that made me feel weird?

Yeah, but you got to read the Project for Awesome message first.

This is from Ionis, who is sending a message to the people of the Nerdfighter crafting hangouts.

That sounds fun.

Yeah.

I didn't know that was a thing.

Thank you for the many awesome moments and for letting me be a part of your group, even though I don't knit.

I can't wait to regularly join y'all again, especially to Catherine, whose friendship became especially valuable for me, DFTBA.

How lovely.

That's lovely.

It's great to know that there are communities within the community of Nerdfighteria.

That was something Hank and I wanted from the very start was the idea that people would be able to connect with other people who share their interests around the world through Nerdfighteria.

And it's great to see that happening.

This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Factor.

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Now, what is it that you wanted to tell me, bud?

So I got access to the platform behind the social shopping on TikTok where you can see what you can sell as a creator.

You can make videos, sell products, and then you can make an amount of money every time somebody buys the product.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you make a commission.

Yeah.

Which I think is broadly fine.

I think it's a little weird, but broadly fine.

That has resulted in one quarter of my for you page being TikTok shop advertisements.

Many of them hosted by myself.

Yeah.

Which is the the most uncomfortable.

When I'm advertising to me,

when I'm always like, hey, get Hank's cancer socks.

I'm like, oh, God, that guy's so annoying.

So I can't imagine what it's like for other people.

Enough.

Yeah.

TikTok.

Once you make a video that is successfully selling something on TikTok shop, TikTok will not stop showing it to people.

Yeah.

Even if you ask them to.

have found

so so when I'm in this little area I can see

what is selling a lot and I can see how much you make when you're selling it.

And I can also watch the videos that are promoting it and the amount of

bizarre nutritional supplements that are selling with like brands you've never heard of that I can't imagine there's anyone checking what's actually in this stuff.

And like the videos are like, it cured my acne.

It made me sleep better.

It like, it does everything, these things.

They do everything.

And like,

you know, because they are nothing and they sell for a fairly high price, you get paid a lot per sale.

And I'm like, this is a very weird thing to be incentivizing.

Well, to be fair, we've been in that business.

I know, we have.

One way or another.

Not you and I.

Like humans have been in that business one way or another for literally thousands of years.

Yeah.

So it's not a huge surprise to me that that business business continues to be a business.

It's just like being invited into it and being like, look at the, look at the plethora of things that

look at all the money you could be making.

I do wish I made more money from TikTok.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I think that the main thing is

getting people to sign up for the Awesome Socks Club.

And I guess that is a good story.

Like that's, that's where I'll, like, I guess that's the main thing.

That's what we need to depend on.

Yeah.

I have been asking myself why I'm on TikTok lately.

But then I just got a good idea for a TikTok.

So I think I'm going to make that one.

So now

maybe that's why I'm on TikTok because sometimes I have good ideas for TikToks.

That's, yeah.

Hank, let me ask you a question that is not a leading question.

By the way, you're going to be fine about that penguin nightmare.

It's going to be fine.

Just don't have my penguin nightmare.

Yeah, let me ask you another question.

There's a hole at the back of the throat.

You're too big to fit in it.

Bella asks, dear John and Hank, my sister heard from a friend that if you pour a shot of vodka into the water for your bouquet of flowers, they'll perk up and have a second wind.

And so far it seems to be working.

The tulips we gave vodka to, especially compared to the vase that we only gave water to, well, they did like a control trial, not only refreshed after being droopy, but totally opened up.

Roses my sister had for over a week are still looking like new.

What is going on here?

Vodka and vases, Bella.

Yeah, this is a real thing.

This is real.

Yeah.

They're just like me.

I perk right up, man.

That's not what happens to me.

No, I turn, I go the other way.

You put vodka in me.

I turn, I start to droop.

I must go to watch TV and sleep now.

But yeah, it inhibits ethylene, which is like the ethanol in the vodka.

It inhibits ethylene, which is the gas that plants involve in

ripening in various ways.

I don't really know how, but it makes it not produce that.

And, but don't just put like straight, like, don't put them in straight vodka.

That will kill them.

And there's like a ratio.

You can look it up.

And there's also,

this is what I love.

So

you could also put

citrus soda in because the glucose is good for them, like the sugars and the soda.

And the acid makes it so that the water has an easier

time getting up the stock for some reason, which means that not only only are plants drunks, they're like dirty drunks.

They're just drinking 7-up and vodka.

Hey, hey, hey, there's nothing wrong with drinking 7-up and vodka or Mountain Dew and bourbon or

rum and coke or whatever your comment.

I don't know.

I mean, I do.

I love this, like

the thought of a 7-up in vodka does sound lovely.

I just don't think it's the highest class of cocktails.

I think it it depends on the quality of the 7-up you got, you know?

That's true.

But you don't need a good 7-up.

They're plants.

So you could just use like the

squirt up or whatever it's called.

Yeah, they can get the Dr.

Thunder 7-up.

No worries.

Western Family is the store brand we have here.

That's Western Family Sodas.

I liked it.

What's Western Family's Dr.

Pepper called?

Do you know?

No, it's just called Western Family.

John, I'll be honest with you, I don't buy soda.

I know you don't.

I know.

Which is, by the way, such a,

I don't know, I don't know exactly how to explain to you how it comes across when you say, I don't buy soda to me, but it's a little bit like when I tell somebody that I'm vegetarian and then they respond that they're vegan.

Like,

okay.

Fine.

Okay.

Good for you.

Competition.

All right.

I'm glad you don't buy soda.

Congratulations.

Okay.

God,

it must be fun, you know, to live without one of life's primary joys as a virtue signaling.

Yeah, I do drink it sometimes, but like I don't have it in the house.

It seems

chug it.

I can't have it in the house.

I can have LaCroix in the house, but I can't have like Dr.

Pepper in the house.

I have to,

but I will like go out of my way to get it.

Like I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll pick Alice up from school and be like, hey, listen, we got to stop by the circle.

Okay.

Daddy's got it.

Daddy's got to pick something up.

Totally.

That's fantastic.

Yeah, I mean, I do that with like

with fast food sandwiches.

Yes.

Like the other day I went to the warehouse to pack socks.

And on the way, like the whole day I was like, I'm going to go to McDonald's on the way.

And I left like a half an hour early.

And I

just,

yeah.

The whole

fast food sandwich, man.

Yeah.

They're so salty.

There's so much salt.

And you know what?

You know what?

You know what else they have that I really like?

Consistency.

They taste the exact same as the last one.

Yeah, I went to a McDonald's.

I didn't even know it was there.

I was like, oh man, I got on the wrong road.

How am I going to get to McDonald's now?

And I was like, well, I guess we'll find another fast food restaurant.

And then I was like, there's a McDonald's.

And it was exactly the same.

Yes.

Yeah, I would call it a miracle, except it's actually the most common thing that could possibly occur.

Yes.

All right.

Isn't that the case with so many miracles?

Like

plants, just everywhere.

What are you?

You just grow yourself?

That's amazing.

And they are drunk on vodka sprites.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Even after you've been like cut down

so that you can be enjoyed in someone's home, as long as somebody gives you vodka and stuff and up, you're like, all right, I'll hang around for a bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll stay at this party in a couple extra days.

All right, Hank, it's time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

Do you want to do Mars news?

Yeah, we usually do.

Okay, I don't know how it works.

You don't remember this?

You don't remember that in the podcast, we do Mars news and AFC Wimbledon news every week for the last 300 episodes or every other week now?

Sometimes you go first.

Oh, yeah.

i mean i can go first you can go first there's no that is not set in stone what is set in stone is that the people hank they come to us for news about mars and afc wimbledon that is the primary reason why people listen to this podcast john yes that's why we save it for the end when so that they have to wait they have to get all the ads all that other stuff yeah yes john yeah so you know that we now have a little helicopter that fights helicopter on mars That's one of my favorite things we've ever done.

We put a little helicopter drone on Mars and we've flown it around so much.

It does the thing that it's supposed to do.

It flies around on Mars.

It's supposed to go on like 12 flights.

It's been on like 12,000 million.

Exactly.

Somewhere like that.

Well, since we figured out it definitely works, everybody is feverishly working on new extra Earth

helicopter designs.

So the fact that it's still in operation today, it's been able to do so much.

NASA will probably want to send up more helicopters on future missions that are more capable.

And that also means ways to

improve.

And that also means they want to improve on that design.

So, like, they've learned a bunch.

Recently, they tested out a new dual-rotor system that has two carbon fiber blades that are longer than the ones on Ingenuity.

And a team of scientists in China also recently published designs for a quadcopter called Mars Bird 7.

Mars Bird 7.

It's foldable to help save space on the way to Mars.

And that might not end up being a design used for a future mission, but China is looking at launching a sample return mission around 2028 or 2030 and planning for this.

That's a little late to me.

For that mission to involve a helicopter of some kind to be involved in that.

Cool.

That's great.

Yeah, I mean, it does make me wonder.

Tell me if this is a crazy idea.

So

the biggest part of the energy is

leaving Earth's atmosphere, but then there is a little bit of extra energy that comes with landing and then having to go back,

you know, leave Mars's gravity and go back to Earth, right?

I wonder if you could keep the spaceship in orbit and sort of just like drop down a bunch of helicopters for the

to go pick up the samples.

Well, they have to, they still have to get back.

You can't helicopter all the way back to space.

Great point point because there's no air.

Yeah.

Solid point.

That happens when we try to go to the top of Mount Everest in a helicopter.

There are people who use the air up until you cannot use it anymore and

have design systems that use the air until you can't use it anymore and then have a rocket that blasts off from that platform.

In fact, I designed one of those based on a helicopter in Kerbal Space Program once.

Oh, well, that will totally work on Mars.

I don't know.

I mean, maybe it was.

Actually, that's a very cool idea.

I shouldn't have diminished it.

I love that idea.

Like a helicopter in the helicoptering, and then it kind of folds up its little helicopter wings and just becomes a rocket.

Yes.

I think that I put it on YouTube if you want to search for a helicopter pades.

You've got a gift for titles.

Well, in news from America's second favorite fourth-tier English soccer team.

So it's, you know, it was the best of times.

it was the worst of times, it was the middlingest of times.

Right now, AFC Wimbledon are 10th in the League Two table,

and it's December 6th,

as we're recording.

So this is important to know because, yeah, 10th is great.

Last year we were not in 10th.

But there is a big thing coming up next month that could really reshape what kind of season we end up having.

Because as you'll recall, last season we were doing okay, and then we sold our best player to a team in Qatar, Ayubasol, and then we plummeted down the ranks and barely survived at the end of the season, staying up with only one game to go.

I would like to not repeat that experience because getting relegated from the fourth tier of English football is, I think it's safe to say, an unmitigated catastrophe.

It would be very difficult to get back up.

We would be in big, long-term, like existential trouble.

We don't want it.

This year, we have two players

who there's just no getting around the fact that they are very good and they are part of the reason we are very good.

One is Jack Curry, who's been with us since he was 10 years old, our left back.

And the other, of course, is our Iraqi scouser, our liver puddley in Iraqi, the great Ali Alhamedi, who just keeps scoring.

We just played Ramsgate in the FA Cup, the knockout competition.

We won 5-0.

Ali Alhamedi scored two goals.

He could have scored more.

They brought him off when he was about to get a hat-trick, and he was clearly annoyed by that.

He scored two goals against Knotts County, one of the best teams in League Two, who we beat 4-2

last week.

He is

probably the best striker in League Two, and he plays for us.

And that's a big part of the reason

why we're pretty good.

Holding on to those two players in the January transfer window, I think, will have have a lot to do with how the second half of our season goes.

But we're into the third round of the FA Cup, which is when all the big teams come in.

That's when you can play Manchester United or Liverpool.

We got about the worst possible draw that we could have gotten, in my opinion.

We drew Ipswich.

Which is like, it's going to be hard to win, but also nobody cares about them.

Totally.

They're like, they're going to go to the Premier League next year.

They're one of the best teams in the championship.

They're way better than we are.

But who cares?

They're called the tractor boys

the what i know so like it's hard to get excited about like

vroom vroom chugga chugga yeah let's take down those tractors take down the tractor boys yeah well here maybe you'll win and then you'll get the

I tell you what, if we won, it would be amazing.

But it's also like, it's not going to be on TV and you make like $100,000 extra dollars if you're on TV.

We were on TV against Ramsgate.

It was great.

I got to watch AFC Wimbledon and stunning high definition on my fancy TV.

That was really fun.

But yeah, this is not going to be put on TV.

Who wants to see Ipswich and AFC Wimbledon on TV?

Me, but like nobody else.

So, yeah, so

we've got that coming up.

And we've got the January transfer window, which I think is just going to tell us a lot.

Hank, there's part of me that just wants to like,

I mean, Nerdfighteria is so good at fundraising.

I just, I have to, I have to,

I have to resist the urge.

I know, I know, I know.

I've talked to Sarah about it as well.

It's not just you who's reminding me.

Just telling you, Nerdfighteria is really good at fundraising.

Now, they're obviously best at fundraising for tuberculosis research and cancer access to cancer treatment and stuff like that.

But like, you know, fourth-tier English soccer teams matter too.

That's right, John.

Just in a different way.

Just in a different way.

Just in a different way, specifically in a way that we can't raise money for it.

Wouldn't you really?

Specifically in a way that is less.

Yes, in fact.

Primarily in terms of magnitude

difference.

Yep.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So we'll see.

Well, Hank, thank you for podding with me.

Thanks to everybody for listening.

Sorry we didn't answer more questions.

Please send us your questions at hankandjohn at gmail.com.

Dear Hank and John is produced by Rosiana Hans-Rojas.

It's edited by Joseph Tuna Medish.

Our head of community and communications is Brooke Shotwell.

The editorial advice and assistance comes from Taboki Chakravarti, and the music you're hearing now in the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunarola, as they say in our hometown, Hank.

Don't forget to be awesome.

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Whatever they get into,

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