Texas Hold'em in Contempt

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Texas hold'em in contempt.

Colin brings the case against his best friend, Nick.

Colin and Nick play poker every month.

Nick fondly remembers playing poker with Colin's co-worker, Joey.

But here's the kicker: Colin says, Joey has never been to poker night.

Joey doesn't even play poker.

Colin thinks Nick is confused, but Nick says Colin is bluffing.

Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Dear mom and dad, camp is good.

Don't worry.

I'm not lonely.

I've already made three friends.

Their names are Pop,

Clown,

and Opera.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Colin and Nick, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God or whatever.

I swear.

Absolutely.

I swear.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he himself is a poker shark?

Yes, I swear.

Is that poker lingo?

I think so.

Judge John Hodgman, you may proceed.

Yeah.

Colin and Nick, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favorites.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I read from as I entered this courtroom?

Judge John Hodgman flopped on the river.

Is that something?

That's definitely something.

I'm always flopping on the river.

Speaking of rivers and flopping,

what was that movie with the teens at the camp?

Oh, no.

Okay.

Wet Hot American Summers, my guess.

Oh, sorry.

I shouldn't be helping you.

First wet hot American summers, my guess.

Honestly, meatballs was going to be my guess before he said it.

That's too bad.

Okay.

Well, that can still be your guess.

I'm writing it down anyway.

Excellent.

So, yeah, I'm writing it down.

He's writing it down.

Let the record reflect Judge John Hodgman is writing it down.

And what both of the guesses are summer camp themed?

Yeah.

Can you explain your thinking there, Colin?

Well, your quote was sounding like a friend, a young kid made friends at a summer camp.

Oh, right, right, right, right.

That is true.

It does sound that way.

I forgot.

I forgot about that.

Yeah, Meatballs is pretty much the only summer camp movie I've really seen.

So we're going to have to watch your guest.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll do yours.

It just doesn't matter.

It just doesn't matter.

Joel, have you ever seen the movie Meatballs?

No.

That's the chant that Bill Murray leads the kids in.

It just doesn't matter.

I've heard about it, but I've never sat down and watched it.

I don't know where it was set, but it was appropriately nihilist.

it might as well have been in maine

and nick you guessed uh wet hot american summer the first one not the sequel vice versa colin colin's guess was wet hot american summer who guessed vice versa one of the body swap movies from the 80s

that's pretty good

it's not that good i'm doing the best i can i but i'm definitely showing my age in any case all guesses are wrong oh i'm crossing them all out now that was a letter sent

to me and my wife, who's a whole human being in her own right, from our human child, our son, from his summer camp here in Maine, which he was very ambivalent about returning to because he had been very homesick the first session.

Our daughter loved going to this camp.

You know the camp I'm talking about, right, Joel?

No.

Okay, good.

I want to keep it a secret anyway.

Daughter loved it.

They mounted a family-friendly version of the musical Greece.

And she was one of the pink ladies.

Our son didn't get into camp.

So he was was very ambivalent about returning.

And then he wrote us this letter to reassure us.

I'm just realizing I tore up the letter on camera.

That wasn't the actual letter.

I was pretending that that was the letter because the letter itself is burned into my brain.

I do not need the letter to quote from it because he said, I have made three friends already, pop clown and opera.

And then he said, Just kidding, those are imaginary friends.

Those, in fact, those are the names that I have given to the pine knots in the ceiling above my bunk

that I look at as I, and I think the implication was as I cry myself to sleep.

I don't think you go that far to make us feel horrible.

Making friends with the pine knots in the ceiling, classic.

Pop, clown, and opera.

That's creative.

And I read it to you because for two reasons.

One, I am in Maine here in my summer chambers here at WERU.org, the solar power studios of community-powered radio right here in Orland, Maine, 89.9.9 on your FM dial and all around the world at WERU.org.

Good to be here again with our local, our local,

what are you, program director?

Close enough.

And local field hippie.

Joe Bird and the field hippie expert.

What is your title here?

You double titled, right?

Program and Operations Director.

PO Director, Joel Mann, Joel, the main man, man.

And production.

So and production.

So pop, POP, program, pop.

Well, I'm going to call you opera.

And watch it.

I might call you Clown.

Playing jazz every Tuesday evening.

Thank you.

With the Night and Day Jazz Trio on the porch of the Pentagoet Inn in Kastine, Maine.

Please go check it out.

You ever live stream from there, Joel?

You did once.

From the Pentagoet Inn?

You were hiding behind the bushes?

I wasn't live streaming you.

I did film you surreptitiously.

He was doing something else.

Yeah, I was doing something else behind the bushes in Castine.

I was listening to Joel lay down some wonderful bass in the night day jazz trio without paying for it, is what I was doing.

Right, right.

You can't, you can't charge for jazz.

You came with your own beard, sat on the sidewalk.

That's right.

I came with my own beard.

That's true.

In any case, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to reference Maine.

I'm glad to be back.

Make sure to check us out on YouTube, Judge John Hodgman Pod on the YouTube channel to see me here tearing up personal letters from my son and so forth.

I also wanted to read that letter to you from memory because it is about imaginary friends.

And we are here because

I believe, Nick, you imagined or claimed to have met a person that Colin says you did not meet.

And Colin, you bring the case.

So let's get into it.

What is the nature of your dispute?

Well, we have a monthly poker get together.

Okay.

And I have a coworker slash manager who I've invited to this poker night.

And he has a very large family.

So it's not so easy for him to just drop them and come over to our city.

Where are you in the world?

Oh, lovely Spokane, Washington.

Spokane.

Okay.

It's on the desert side of Washington, not the rainy side.

Right.

Got it.

Yeah.

And so I invited him, and he's been unable to come every single time.

Right.

But almost every month, Nick and I accidentally bring it up, and Nick swears that Joey has come to our poker night.

Joey is the name of your manager.

Oh, yes, my manager coworker.

And I take it he's an 11-year-old child

uh i think he's a

baby kangaroo

and what does joey manage uh you in in spokan what's your line of work if i may ask so i work for spokane public library oh wow cool yeah i'm in it but i do a lot of teaching with like senior citizens and this last week we had a teen video game camp i taught um I also fix staff equipment.

So Joey is my manager for all things library IT.

And

Nick,

what's your story?

What do you get up to there in Spokane, if I may ask?

I also work in IT

and I work in the private sector.

We do like football video and audio and stuff like this.

But I end up taking calls from football coaches and trying to explain audio video equipment to them.

So yeah.

Colin, how do you and Nick know each other?

How did you guys meet?

Was it yesterday, three days ago, five years ago?

When?

Over a decade.

So Nick's been one of my best friends since middle school.

Right.

On the first day of middle school.

Yeah.

Because I went to a middle school not knowing anybody.

Right.

I wanted to make friends.

And Colin, in order to make friends.

Wait a minute.

You're saying you were in middle school a decade ago?

Over a decade.

I would say substantially over a decade.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What was fun is I did get to go to our middle school recently to work on equipment there because they have the Spokane Library book.

Wait a minute.

It's possible that it could.

What are you guys in your 20s?

We're in our early 30s.

Yeah, that's two decades, Colin.

Oh, it's two decades, Colin.

It sure is.

All right.

Anyway, you met in middle school.

Go ahead, Colin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've been best friends since.

Yeah.

Nick, what was it about Colin that made you feel like you needed to be his friend?

So, Colin,

first day of school, we're in the lunchroom and we've, you know, everyone's kind of nerve-wracked and

nervous.

And Colin.

Let me, let me me guess.

Let me guess.

You're in the lunchroom and you look and go, hey, I'm wearing a black shirt.

He's wearing a black shirt.

We're both in IT.

We're basically indistinguishable.

Let's be pals.

Absolutely.

No, actually, funny enough, he wasn't wearing a black shirt.

He was wearing a large shirt that says number one dad in middle school.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's pretty good for a middle schooler.

That's good.

Thank you.

That's pretty good.

Colin.

That's the kind of thing you'd expect from a college freshman.

Yeah, exactly.

Middle school, you'd expect a tuxedo t-shirt.

Or if you're John Hodgman, an Opus t-shirt from Bloom County,

my prized Opus t-shirt.

You absolutely also had the suit t-shirt.

We did do the

suit tux t-shirts for the first dance.

All right.

So you guys became friends in middle school.

And what about poker night, Colin?

When did this start?

How did this get going?

And how long has it been going on?

Last May is when it started, right?

April?

Quite a ways further than that, I think.

Oh, I mean, the year before my bad, yeah.

Yeah, 16 months ago-ish.

Right.

Okay, so it's still a relatively new poker night.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Under two years.

Under two.

And how many people are involved in the poker game?

We have a solid four for sure.

And then it can go between four to 12.

One night we had like 16 people and had to split tables.

Even more.

Yeah.

It was very large.

Yeah, that's how it goes on a poker night in the first year to 16 months.

Then you get into the 20-year mark, like my poker group.

And we haven't played for two years because no one wants to stay up past nine.

But we had two tables once.

Joel, you play poker?

No.

What's better, poker or cribbage?

I take cribbage.

Everyone plays cribbage up here.

What is it?

I don't even know what it is.

Dark, cold, lonely nights.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Nick, you and Colin have this poker night.

Some months ago,

you believe you met

Colin's co-worker, manager, Joey, at poker.

Yep.

And Colin, your point of view is this is not true.

This is impossible.

Yes.

Okay.

So since we might be talking about an imaginary friend here, take us back and tell us what you remember about Joey.

Absolutely.

So he came in and was pretty early in the night.

We have a lot of folks who show up pretty late and stay late, but he was early, which tracks with his vibrant family life.

And then

leave all your supporting evidence to the side.

Just

conjure, conjure a word picture for us of what it looked like, what the vibe was.

Tell us everything you can remember about the mysterious Joey.

I remember him

very much the kind of guy that looks like he came in and didn't really know what he was doing about poker.

He had glasses.

He had wider shoulders, kind of like me.

Colin, does Joey wear glasses?

Yes.

Colin, how would you describe his shoulders?

Wider?

Yes.

All right.

Go ahead.

Go ahead, Nick.

Continue.

Okay.

And he came in, and in particular, I remember he spoke about living in Idaho because we are in Spoke in Spokane, we are right on the border between Washington State and Idaho.

Yeah.

And

Colin, does Joey live in Idaho?

Yes or no?

Yes.

All right.

And what was he wearing?

Do you remember?

Number one dad shirt, Opus shirt.

Do you remember shirts?

I think it was pretty similar to the shirt that I'm wearing now is just a simple black collared shirt.

I.T.

guy shirt.

Yeah.

Colin, you say that this is impossible.

Yes.

Why?

Because Joey has not been able to come because if he did come, he would have to crash at my place afterward because he doesn't want to take the long drive home.

To Idaho.

To Idaho.

So you're suggesting that Joey has never played poker in this group?

Not in this group, no.

So not this night and not any other night that Nick might be thinking of.

You got it.

So you're saying Joey was not there?

Yes.

What do you think?

So what do you think is happening here in Nick's brain?

Should we be worried?

What's going on?

Well, no, we shouldn't be worried.

Nick's doing pretty good everywhere else.

I invited many, many people to poker night, my cousin, friends, family, and some coworkers.

So I think Nick is crossing two of my invitees,

aka my buddy Dan and my coworker, Jesse, not Jesse Thorne.

Still drives drives too long from my home in Idaho.

So I think he's placing Jesse in Joey's position.

And then the black shirt, I think, is from Dan, who wore a very nice black shirt with a bolo tie.

And I think Dan also has glasses.

Yes.

Yeah.

Is it possible, Nick, that

I like,

I like that Colin is doing like a salesman trick.

He's basically like saying, making assertions while nodding in order to convince Nick to start nodding and agree with him.

Yeah.

I mean, that's how do you, how do you convince a bunch of senior citizens to play video games?

You got to be good on the hard sell.

And I am a recent dad, and I do nod every time I'm giving new food to my baby, like, ooh, this is good.

So it might be.

Yeah.

So you're force-feeding your friend

a whole jar full of gaslight, trying to convince him that he didn't experience what he knows he experienced, right?

Not gaslighting if it's true, right?

Well, that's what we're here to decide.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

Nick, why do you think Colin is gaslighting you?

The one piece of

evidence in my mind was immediately afterwards, Colin got married

and had a lovely ceremony down by the courthouse, but most importantly, had his reception.

Barbecue.

It's a barbecue party in a park.

And I came came to that and was happy to meet everyone, see your mom, who's the absolute best.

And I spotted the guy that I knew from poker, and I was like, hey,

how's it going?

You know, it's been a while since I've seen you last.

And he was, of course, surrounded by kids.

All of his, how many kids is he up to now?

Seven at the time of the barbecue.

Very recently.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so he and I did not get a chance to confirm that or anything like that.

It seems like he was just busy and stuff like that.

But like, I for sure said hi to the guy that I knew from poker.

So you have two memories.

One, that you met

the person you think is Joey at poker.

And two, that you met him again.

After Colin's wedding at this wedding event barbecue.

It seems like, Colin, you are a little cagey about whether it's a reception or not.

So, I don't know if reception is the right word because it happened after we legally got married.

And I think the word reception in my life.

Is it the same day?

No, it was the day after.

It was the day after.

Did people come to the wedding wedding?

The wedding wedding was a courthouse wedding with just family, very close family, and our dog Duke as well.

So, this bar, this barbecue you had in a park,

yes, at Bear Lake.

This was the big

Bear Lake, Washington.

Yes.

This is your big wedding party for everybody else, all of the whole extended friends and family circle.

You got it.

I'm going to go ahead and say you can call that a reception if you like.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

But I like wedding barbecue.

That's cool.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

So when you went to the wedding barbecue after the poker game,

Nick, you saw the person that you claimed to be Joey.

You saw the same person.

You know, you saw the same person.

Certainly.

I

laid eyes on him.

I said, hey, you know, I recognize you.

How are you since I seen you last?

Yeah, absolutely.

And what did, let's call him Joey for the sake of argument now.

What did Joey say back to you?

Did you talk about poker with him?

No,

we almost didn't speak at all.

I said hi.

He raised his hand and then tended to his kids, right?

We didn't get a chance to speak much.

He didn't speak at all.

Not really.

He replied, Joey Jr., quit kicking little Sally.

Exactly.

Is there a Joey Jr.?

There is a Joey Jr.

Yep.

But I mean, that would be proof.

If he said something about Joey Jr., that would suggest that he was, in fact, Joey and not just some guy who was very busy with his kids, who was never at poker and just was like, yeah, I don't know what that guy's talking about.

I'll just nod and say yes.

Yeah.

And that, you know, I didn't get irrefutable proof that that wasn't what he was doing.

But it seemed like

we had known each other at least once before.

What made you think

that you knew each other?

I mean, the way you describe the encounter, it's like you yelled across a barbecue, hey, poker friend.

And he's like,

and then he said nothing.

Halfway across the little gazebo, yeah, actually, Kyle's like, hey,

I remember you.

How's it going?

He's like,

and that was it.

And then we did end up talking after.

nick do you know how many people i pretend to know every day

i i believe it yeah like joel that's not your name right i just made that up years ago and you're sticking with it right that's right

it's happening all the time i was in the i was at the general store yesterday morning answering emails a guy comes in he says hey how you doing i'm like dude i do not know your name but i pretended But now you're claiming you talked to quote unquote Joey again, Nick.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Later on, after things had winded down, we had carried some of the gifts to the cars and we, us three, stood around and chatted a little bit, but poker didn't come up.

Which three?

You, Colin, and quote unquote, Joey?

Yep.

And Colin, can you confirm that this was indeed Joey?

I can confirm, yes.

And Nick, this was definitely the guy that you waved at in the gazebo?

Certainly.

And you're certain that this is the guy that you met at poker?

Yes.

I recognized him immediately when I first saw him.

And I was excited to see someone at a gathering whom I recognized because Colin was often busy.

Nick, you thought you recognized Joey at this wedding.

Is it possible that it was just one of 17 guys that looked like IT guys with glasses and or library IT guys crossover?

Yeah, for all I knew, it could have just been a very large mirror and I was seeing myself, you know?

I'm not a wedding guy, but I do believe it's traditional to bring a lot of full-length mirrors to a wedding barbecue.

All right, so let me make sure I understand what we're all.

I mean, one thing that tends to be missing these days is a sense of shared objective truth.

Let's determine where we're in agreement here.

Colin, you acknowledge that Joey came to your wedding barbecue.

You acknowledge that you and Nick and Joey chatted at one point, and that was Joey, and those were Joey's then seven, now eight kids, right?

Correct.

Okay.

So your

contention is that the, that the person

that Nick saw at poker that he thought was Joey or got in his mind was Joey at some point was not Joey.

Correct.

That's what I believe.

Do you think that Joey, there's a doppelganger Joey that Nick might have conflated with the real Joey?

Doppelganger is not the right word.

I just think, you know, memories are really tangible and, you know, that maybe glasses and a round head is all you need to accidentally.

The guy that you said I would mistake him for was wearing a bolo tie, and I doubt that's something I'd forget.

Well, that's why I think you're blending the two, the Jesse and the Dan.

Yeah.

So to take it back, your contention is that Nick saw either Jesse or Dan, two other guys who sort of resembled Joey, one of whom was wearing a bolo tie, and conflated them in his mind.

And then when he went to the wedding, he saw the real Joey and he's like, I remember that guy.

He must be from poker.

That's what you're saying.

Yeah.

And the main reason I'm bringing this to you, the judge, is we've argued about this many, many nights over and over again with no real conclusion.

Every poker night, almost every single poker night.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I can understand why this comes up over and over and over again, because there is absolutely no way to verify it, right?

Because I guess Joey's dead now.

What?

I mean, Joey's pretty busy, to be fair.

Joey's got his administrative responsibilities, plus his eight children, plus that long commute.

Colin, have you ever talked to Joey about it?

What does Joey have to say?

That's what's wild about this is you ask the man himself.

I texted him at work.

I've talked with him.

He has not been to poker night.

He has told me.

He has sent a text to me saying I haven't been, but he

thinks he's wrong.

I don't.

I mean, poker night does involve a little bit of drinking.

Yeah, right.

Little's the wrong

adjective.

Yeah.

And having a bunch of kids, having one kid has probably scrambled you quite a bit.

It did.

Yep.

So, I mean, I don't know.

He might be mistaken.

So you're accusing Colin of gaslighting you, but but it's possible you're gaslighting Joey into believing that he was a place where he wasn't.

That's right.

Now, Jennifer Marmor, our wonderful producer, reached out to Joey.

And Jennifer, I believe that you secured a voice memo from Joey.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Jennifer Marmor, would you do me the favor of playing the voice memo?

Honestly, I have never played poker with them that I recall.

As a matter of fact, I've always wanted to go to poker now.

I know.

And I have practiced playing poker with my wife because I don't remember the rules or what a winning hand is.

And I have

seven kids, well, eight kids as of a couple days ago.

And so if I was going to play poker in Spokane, I would not be driving

home with a couple beers in me at two in the morning.

I would probably stay on on Colin's couch.

And I definitely have not done that before.

So, all in all,

very unlikely that I've played poker.

Judge Hodgman, I think we can learn from listening to this.

A, number one, that that definitely is Joey because you can hear his 17 babies crying in the background.

Yep.

I was going to note, yes, absolutely.

Good to hear Jesse Thorne.

What else?

And B, that Joey is definitely not a reliable narrator of his own life, given that he misstated how many children he had.

Well,

to be fair, he had gotten used to saying seven.

He only had that eighth child a couple of days ago.

Sure, he'd been saying seven for weeks.

Yeah, I was going to say.

And three weeks ago, he only had four.

This guy's the Nick Cannon of Idaho.

Yeah.

Speaking of Nicks, not Nick Cannon, but Nick in studio.

How do How do you explain this voice memo that you just heard?

I,

in particular, remember that the person who came had to leave early, and we joked about like Idaho being a thing.

This was a point that was talked about

while they were there.

Like, I strongly think that this fella is mistaken.

I that it he probably was, he said, I wouldn't be driving home at 2 a.m.

with a couple beers, but if he did, would he remember?

All right.

So here's some options.

Here's some options for you, Nick.

One,

that's not Joey.

That's an actor that Colin paid

to back him up.

Two, that is Joey, but he doesn't remember what happened.

Right?

Right.

I think those, I thought there was three, but I think there's only two.

I'm definitely sticking with my story with number two.

You're saying number two,

Joey was there, but doesn't remember it.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

That doesn't sound like the Joey I know.

Is there anyone else in the poker group who takes your side, Nick?

I know for sure that like talking amongst these folks, they're like, yeah, Colin has invited a lot of his coworkers and stuff like that.

No one specifically remembers the fella, but there's enough of Colin's coworkers showing up where

they wouldn't remember, right?

And it was one time out of so you're saying everyone is confused.

Not one person in the poker group is standing up for you, Nick, and saying, yeah, that guy was there.

They're all confused.

Judge Hodgman, he's just saying they don't remember the fella.

How often do you say fella in Spokane?

Is that a common?

It's more of an item on kind of a mess?

I love it.

Truly, Nick, you cannot present one other human to back you up fully and saying, yeah, Joey was there.

Not fully, but these same people would also not back Colin.

They are neutral in this matter.

Colin, is that true?

I'm going to say our other reliable narrator.

Mike.

Mike.

Mike.

Oh, Mike.

Finally, we were talking about Mike.

I was wondering, when are we going to get to that fella?

Mike, a fella you can trust.

Right.

That is true.

And not my cousin Mike, but your roommate.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't want to hear from your cousin Mike ever.

That guy's not even part of the family.

We're not cousin Mike.

Exactly.

Mike knows.

We're talking about good Mike, not bad Mike.

So what did Good Mike say, that fella?

I'm pretty sure Good Mike says he doesn't remember, but you're right in that he doesn't want to pick a side.

And that always bugged me.

I was like, come on, man, just stick with me on that.

But he doesn't.

Nick, I'm going to ask you a question.

I want you to be truthful because you're the only one who's going against Colin here.

Now, one reason that no one wants to get into it is that they know that

you, Nick, are out of your mind and Joey was never there.

They don't feel like fighting about it.

Another thing is they all know Joey was there, but they know that Colin is intent on proving you wrong.

And because they all like going to Colin's for poker, they don't want to cross him.

Now, is Colin one of those typical vindictive librarians?

Colin and vindictiveness, I really wish that I could say that he was, but he's he's not.

No, just he works IT, not strict librarian.

It sounds to me, Nick, that there's no way to settle this

since all available evidence suggests you're wrong and you refuse it anyway.

Like, basically, every like the guy himself is like, I was never there.

And it's like, sorry, dude, you're wrong.

You're confused.

You don't know the number of children you have.

You did sleep on the couch.

You don't remember it.

You're drunk.

You're confused.

You're out of your mind.

I'm right.

I'm Nick.

Witness.

I don't think he slept on the couch.

I think he drove home.

But I.

Oh, you're saying he's lying because he doesn't want his family to know that he drove to Idaho late at night alone.

I mean, that sounds less impossible.

Maybe he wasn't ever supposed to go to poker.

Maybe he's not allowed to play.

There's so many ways to explain why Joey is lying.

Maybe his family is Canasta only.

That's right.

Yeah.

That's pretty typical in Idaho, those Canasta-only communities.

Nick, if your contention is that Joey is confused, why can't you accept that maybe you're the one who's confused?

Equally plausible, right?

I am loath to admit, but possible, maybe.

I still, I still,

I feel like I have to believe in my memory and the sacred story of all that came before, because that's who I am, right?

That's who we all are, are our memories, right?

Nick, I mean, I think there's been a lot of research that eyewitness testimony is deeply fallible.

And I mean, this could have just been a pastiche of guys you met at a board game store.

It's not impossible.

I'll give you that.

Jennifer, did Joey himself offer a theory of the case?

Yes, he did.

And he sent a second voicemail?

That's correct.

Well, this just in.

Let's play the second voicemail, please.

I did meet Nick at Colin's wedding, as well as

I played an online game, a DEF CON,

and Rise of Nations, I believe, online.

And so it's entirely possible that that event, those two events are being conflated together and going, yes, we saw Joey in person.

We did play a card game at Colin's wedding.

And so now the assumption is

Joey has played poker.

So, you know, that's my side of the story.

DEF CON Rise of Nations.

Oh, no, no, no.

Today,

that's a game that you end up playing when you're dialing random numbers with your computer and

you get a prompt that says, Joey, dot, dot, dot, would you like to play a game?

Question Mark.

It's either DEF CON Rise of Nations or Global Thermonecular War.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Colin, I don't even want to know what DEF CON is.

I want to verify.

Was this court card game being played at your wedding barbecue?

No, no, no, no.

Can I clarify real quick?

Go ahead.

It was the bachelor party.

So my bachelor party.

I'll tell you something about

these Spokane, Idaho fellas.

These fellas go hard.

Hold on.

So I have many friends spread across the country and I wanted to see them all and they can't all fly in, right?

Or we can't go to Vegas because that's not my thing.

So we all met on discord the online you know group yeah communication software

and we played defcon which is a

uh simulation of thermonuclear war and it is yep and so we had a blast you know drinking beers and playing that over the internet had a blast sounds like a blast yeah

yes uh i believe nick you won one of the defcon matches right yeah good

and then we played rise of nation nations sorry another great it's a different game.

It's not DEF CON:

Rise of Nations.

No, no.

And that's where I wanted to clarify because you should go to the next one.

That's what you wanted to clarify.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's the slander that you will not allow to stand.

Yes.

They're two great games.

And then our final one was, I think we ended the night with Halo.

Oh, just because, you know, standing the night, it's fun.

We haven't played it in 20 years.

So, yeah.

I'll tell you what.

These games are very curious to me, Jesse.

It seems to be the only way to win is not to play.

You ever, you ever play Halo on Discord, Joel?

3D checkers.

Okay, there we go.

3D checkers, he says.

Well, I got to say, your Discord video game party is a that's a pretty adorable bachelor party.

I must say, it was pretty great.

I had a blast, and everyone, you know, old high school friends together.

And oh, yeah, it was a good time.

I made connections there with old friends that I'm still talking to them now.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

Are you sure?

Are you sure they're the people you think they are?

What do you think about Joey's?

What do you think about Joey's theory of the case?

That maybe you talked to him on the Discord and you were playing games and then you, you know, in both cases, I don't mean to suggest that you necessarily drank to excess, but you were you were imbibing in adult beverages, both at the Discord Batch of the Party and poker game.

And presumably at the, at the wedding barbecue, you might

you might have had a beer or something.

Is it possible that your memories got a little bit muddled between these events and that Joey is correct, that you remember him from Discord Bachelor Party, but not poker?

I've got to say, the fact that I did not remember that he was part of the Bachelor Party at all was kind of a light bulb moment.

I still

want to feel like it's possible that this person that I walked up to, I think at this point, it's embarrassment because if not, I walked into

a wedding barbecue and said, hey, the guy from poker.

And he's like,

that would be painful, I think.

But, you know, it's not impossible.

Did you literally say, hey, the guy from poker?

I think it had something to do with poker.

Yeah, I think I was specific.

And he

gave you a wave.

He didn't say, I'm afraid you are mistaking me for someone else, sir.

He just like, oh, okay, I got

again.

John, he was busy.

A few of his kids had knives out.

There's one explanation for this, Nick, which is that whoever is leaving these voicemails is a straight-up liar,

a crisis actor hired by Colin.

I don't know.

Or just someone full of mischief who likes to, you know, who enjoys spreading lies on voicemail because he likes to watch the world burn.

But the thing is, you do like, close your eyes, Nick.

Can you picture the moment when you saw him at poker?

I can.

I can, though.

Where is he standing?

Where is he standing?

He's sitting.

Yeah, we do sit and play poker.

Right.

It's terrible for your circulation.

My guys, we only play poker standing up on treadmills.

You only play with ceos of startups

it's quarter zips and standing desks yeah that's right the quarter zip standing desks

all right so yeah so tell me again go go into your memory palace nick take us there

he

was out back because we actually play at my house slight correction uh we we play poker at my house uh because mike the titular mike also lives there he's my roommate uh we go up back and there's...

Wait, I thought this was Colin's game.

It's my game.

Who's talking?

Nick.

This is my game.

All of a sudden, there's only one person here.

Are you guys?

Are you Winklevossing me?

Are you the two?

I mean, I can't really see it very clearly here.

Are you the same person?

Colin, I thought this was your poker game.

No, no, I brought the case, but we do play at Nick's house.

And I do invite a lot of the people.

He does.

Oh, I invite Joey.

About the same amount.

Nick hosts the game, but you bring a lot of players into his home.

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah.

When I imagine meeting Joey, it's out back.

We've got this old, you know, carport that we clear all the cars out of and play in the center with a light bulb in the center and a bunch of junk piled up around the carport.

It's, it's a scene right out of a cowboy movie.

And we just, I get to meet all of these cool people who are just an absolute treat and a window into Colin's life.

And Joey struck me as particularly interesting because he's, he's, uh, he, he's got a bunch of kids.

He lives in Idaho.

Almost no one that we play with lives in Idaho.

Um, yeah, I, I have such a strong memory of meeting this person because he's kind of unique, you know, much to the contrary of us all being collared shirt shirt wearing I.T.

Phyllis, you know?

And let me be perfectly clear.

This old-timey Western poker game,

I mean,

it's straight out of high noon, this carport game you have.

This was in person.

This is all in person.

It wasn't itself on Discord or Zoom or anything.

All in person.

What do you think's happening?

here with your friend Nick?

Is he normally a very stubborn person?

Is this characteristic or uncharacteristic of him?

What's your theory of the case vis-a-vis Nick?

I want to preface this with, I love Nick deeply.

And yes, Nick can be stubborn, but normally he's, you know, he's open-minded to a point.

And I think that's a good quality to have.

I think you should stick by your guns.

And Nick does a good job doing that.

But he does sometimes have memories that he swears I was there or

And I don't think I was.

And sometimes I can't agree with him.

But in this situation, I truly believe he is

really believes this and is very wrong.

And I

didn't know how to approach it other than listening to an episode.

And he said, no small claim is small enough for something.

And I went, you know what?

This is a petty claim.

I don't think this is a petty claim at all.

I mean, basically,

you are questioning, you're each questioning each other's reality.

Yeah.

This is a major case as far as I'm concerned.

Okay.

And Colin, you don't get the impression that this is sort of like poker table bluster, like that Nick is keeping this argument going just because it's fun to bust each other's chops around

in the old-timey Western carport.

No, busting chops.

When we bust chops, it's very mild, mild chops.

Mild chops.

Mild chops.

Mild chops.

I truly believe Nick.

believes this and fights for it.

And what I think is happening is

this blend of these memories just accidentally produced an imaginary Joey at poker night where Jesse, a co-worker, doesn't really look like Joey, but at least they have glasses, was there and it's a J name and it got crisscrossed.

Jesse, Joey, Jam, crisscross.

I don't know, memory is a weird one because you can't just tell someone their memory is wrong.

But in this case, in this case,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It can,

it happens all the time, actually.

You can tell someone.

The question is,

what are the ramifications of it?

Yeah.

There's just some times where Nick will bring up my memory and I'm like, oh, man, I don't think I was there.

And he's like, no, you were.

Like, well, give me an example.

Give me an example of a time when Nick's memory has been

to your mind quite

high school.

I can't think of an anecdote right off the top of my head, but like, oh, you were there with convenient.

Maybe you're just jealous of Nick because Nick has memory and you don't.

Well,

I have a good memory.

I think I do.

Nick, it says here that if I were to rule in your favor, as damages, you want Colin to pay your buy-in to the next poker game.

Correct.

What is the buy-in?

What are the stakes?

What are the table stakes?

Because

gambling with real money is definitely not strictly legal.

It's purely made-up money.

But if it was real, it would be $20.

Is this just a cash grab on your part?

I mean that 20 bucks,

that means a whole lot to me.

It's pretty common

to wager the next poker buy-in because it's seen as a very friendly

way to bet on something outside of poker.

When Colin denies this memory that

you seem to sincerely hold true, How does that make you feel?

I want to feel like

my

true self is being attacked, but in reality, I don't.

I think

when you asked Colin whether or not he thinks that this is bluff or bluster, whether or not I truly believe it or if I'm holding on to it,

all I can say is that

from the moment of hearing about the bachelor party,

I have to admit that

a piece of this absolutely has been bluffing.

I think your story makes sense.

I think, I think I am willing to concede here on camera.

I really am.

That's it.

Okay, great.

Well, this has been the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm so sorry.

I am not willing to allow you to concede.

Concession overruled.

I do think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision, unless there's a parting words that you would like to leave me with, Colin.

No, I'm just happy you heard my case and appreciate you coming to a judgment.

If I rule in your favor, what would you have me award you and damages?

Damages would just be a poker buy-in for the next night we play.

When's the next poker night?

One week from now, next Saturday, first Saturday of the month.

All right.

And you're invited if you'd like to go.

No, I'm in Maine.

Sorry.

I'm not.

Oh, okay.

We'll get buy a plane ticket.

All right.

All right.

But thank you very much.

I just, I simply can't.

All right.

Buy me a plane ticket.

I'm going to Spokane.

But first, I'm going to my chambers in Beckham.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Colin, first of all, are you familiar with the price of a plane ticket from Orland to

Spokane?

If it meant we could have a celebrity, John Hodgman, play with us, I would be willing to shelve out at least $700.

Yeah, maybe you get him to play global thermonuclear war.

Whoa.

Nick, how are you feeling about your chances right now?

I think considering that

a decent part of this might have been a little bit of a bluff.

And I think maybe, just maybe, Colin has called my bluff on this.

I'm feeling a little bit poor, but it's possible that Joey in general is, you know, not necessarily a real person, that the people that

we just heard, right,

that that would be my chance for the ruling would be a ruling that this Joey character is not as reliable as necessary.

Colin, how do you feel about your chances?

I feel really good.

I'm going to be very surprised if

this one.

That's what it's about.

Yep.

Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment.

You know, we've been doing My Brother, My Brother, Me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Judge Hodgman, we're taking a break from the case.

You have another podcast with our pal, Janet Varney, called ePleuribus Motto.

It's starting a brand new season.

What's going on over there?

Yeah, so ePleuribus Motto.

It's my and Janet Varney's wonderful podcast about state mottos, plus all the official and unofficial slogans, songs, mammals, monsters, and more from every state, Commonwealth, district, and territory in the so far United States.

Maryland started out our second season.

It's in your feed now.

And coming up next, it's Minnesota, the land of considerably more than 10,000 lakes, it turns out.

The past and eternal home, not only to Prince, but also Maximum Fund's own John Moe of Sleeping with Celebrities in Depressed Mode, and the unofficial state cryptid of Minnesota, the Wendigo.

What is Minnesota's official motto, you might ask?

Well, there are only two ways to know, Wikipedia and listening to our podcast.

It's called e pluribus motto, and I recommend the latter.

It's available now at maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcast.

e pluribus motto.

It's Latin for out of many podcasts.

Here's another one.

By the way, if you feel like you're losing touch with what's going on with me, because I do have my

hands in a lot of different podcasts and projects and so forth, you can always go subscribe to my newsletter.

It's called Secret Society.

It's at hodgman.substack.com, where I give regular updates to what I am up to, what I'm watching, what I'm reading, what I'm doing, when I'm going to live stream SimCity 2013 next.

And I also read Moby Dick out loud to you, chapter by chapter, in a terrible main accent.

That's hodgman.substack.com.

That's my stuff, Jesse.

What's going on with you these days?

A couple of really great guests lately on my NPR show, Bullseye, with Jesse Thorne.

First of all, the legendary George Takeay was here.

It's a great conversation.

George is now 88 years old.

He just published a graphic memoir that I thought was really beautiful.

It had a lot of stuff.

I had read in preparing for an interview with George that was maybe five or eight years ago.

I had read a lot about him and had learned a lot about his experience in the internment camp.

or actually internment camps in which he lived as a small child during World War II.

But I had not learned much about his coming out experiences.

And that is a lot of what the graphic memoir is about.

It's really tender and lovely.

And George was really open-hearted and forthcoming about those experiences in his life.

It was really great to get to talk to him.

He's an absolute legend and a wonderful guy.

And also, John, speaking of absolute legends, guess who's on Bullseye this week?

I refuse to guess.

I'd rather just find out so I can be delighted.

John, it's Richard Kind.

Richard Kind is on Bullseye this week, legendary character actor, host of the Smash Hit podcast, kinding them with kindness

once a year on the maximumfun.org network.

Yeah.

Man, Richard Kind, what a delight it is.

Richard Kind is doing a national tour.

of people interviewing him on stage.

Wow.

He is so, so delightful to talk to that I gave it some consideration and decided that was worth everyone's money for sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's great.

Oh, Richard, so happy for you.

I'm always so happy to hear his incredible voice and laugh.

And I'm just going to say, folks, Jesse Thorne has been killing it on bullseye lately.

I mean, everyone knows, or if you don't know, please know.

Jesse Thorne is one of the best conversationalists in the biz.

And And these have been some wonderful episodes.

I've just been enjoying it so much.

So if you haven't been listening, go over there right now to maximumfund.org or wherever you get your podcasts or listen to it on the radio, Bullseye with Jesse Thorne.

Echo Wodem from Saturday Night Live, Questlove recently, Alexander Skarsgaard,

Otsuko Katsuka,

Mars Hamilla, Mark Hamill.

I didn't even know about that one.

I got to go into the archives.

Yeah, next week, the punk rock band Pup is on the program.

Very exciting.

And I also want to remind people that we are now over $210,000 in our fundraising for Al Otrolado and their efforts to protect the rights of migrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

One of the big things that has happened to Al Otrolado lately is that despite the exponential expansions in the budget for border enforcement,

their funding for providing legal education to migrants was zeroed out.

They received some federal funding in order to tell migrants what their legal rights were,

and that has been cut to nothing.

So we're going to have to make up the difference.

So please go to alotrolado.org/slash let's do something, and we will put that link in the description as well.

All right, let's get back to the case.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

Sometimes mystery is fun.

I mean, we had a case early on in this podcast, I think it was our first year or two of doing the show, called Rash O Mom,

where a couple of generations of women in a family, a grandmom, a mom, and a daughter, all disagreed about whether or not there was a gray house on the edge of their property or just over the property line.

To be honest with you, I don't remember it that well, and I probably remember it five different ways because memory is tricky.

Some of them believed that there was a greyhouse there, some of them didn't.

At one point, they went and they found out the truth and they revealed it on a, uh, I think it was on a discussion board that we had before we were over there at the maximum fun subreddit.

And I chose not to read the answer because for me,

the mystery itself was enough.

But that was

using

Collins' phraseology a decade ago,

double using Collins' phraseology more than a decade ago.

And now we live in a time

when folks are constantly telling us

that the truth of our own lived experience is not real.

Or they're telling us outright lies that we know are fake.

But they will not keep telling us that their truth is real, even though it is obviously a constructed narrative, and at times a destructive constructive narrative, a destructive constructed narrative.

I wish I could use English good.

Point is, the stakes are different now than they were then.

The mystery about what truth is

is not a fun thing anymore.

It's more of a destabilizing thing.

And while you're obviously great friends, you're both number one dads.

One of you is anyway, finally.

Point is, you've been friends for a long time, over a decade.

And even though you are paling it up,

I feel like we got to get to the bottom of this.

Mystery isn't fun the way it was around

issues of what is true and what is not true.

Joey was either there or not.

And I'll tell you where I'm leaning, Nick.

I'm leaning

to believe that Joey's theory and Colin's theory

is probably the case, that you are conflating

your Discord experience and your wedding experience

somehow.

And indeed, when you did wave across the gazebo and said, hey, poker guy,

Joey was definitely not poker guy, but too shy to say something about it.

And instead waved you off.

I think that that's probably what happened, right?

But at the same time, I don't want to just rule in Colin's favor because I know and trust that you believe in your memory.

And I don't want to be a party

to telling you that your memory is fake,

given the evidence at hand.

I don't have enough evidence.

The truth is,

Colin and Joey might both be teaming up to lie to not only you,

but me, Jesse, Jennifer, Daniel Spear, Dan Telfer, A.J.

McKeon, Joel,

the entire Judge John Hodgman team, the entire listenership.

You might be being epically trolled right now, and we're part of it.

And I don't want to be a part of that, if that's what's going on.

I don't know you people.

I don't know what Colin and Joey are capable of, if there is indeed a Joey.

Joel, you're an audio professional, right?

Yes.

Programming operations director, producer, everything else.

Yep.

Didn't Joey's voicemail sound a little bit like it

Colin through a voice modulator?

An AI.

Yeah, like an AI.

Joey could be an AI.

Yeah.

For all we know.

Joey could be an android.

What if Joey launched a nuclear strike himself?

That would be quite a whopper.

What a fella that would be.

That seems unlikely.

Do you know what I mean?

But I don't want want to bring the gavel down

until we know for sure.

Now, there used to be a podcast called Mystery Show, hosted by the great Starley Khan.

This would have been a great case for Starly.

I miss that podcast a lot.

I trust that it is archived.

You should listen to all of them.

That was Starly

literally going on the road to solve mysteries like what happened to that video store that I remember and David Reese's eternal question: How tall is Jake Gyllenhaul really?

We need to find the truth.

And I don't want to send Starley to Spokane, though she probably would go.

I think that you and Joey,

the three of you, need to get together and figure it out.

You need to go on a friend investigation road trip.

You got to go to Idaho.

You got to interview his family.

You got to look through

his philofax, his day planner.

You got to figure out what day it was that you thought that Joey was there, Nick.

And then you got to go through Joey's phone

and see what photos he took on that day.

Check the metadata.

See if it was even possible that he could have been in Spokane on the night of poker.

Colin, for your part, You're obviously going to help Nick solve this mystery, but also you're going to have poker.

You got to invite Joey to this thing finally.

It sounds like Joey really wants to play poker.

Maybe around the poker table, the three of you can talk it through and reconstruct the night such that Nick, you come to some peace.

Because the fact is, memory is very malleable.

Ask someone who went to a party at a secret society at Yale my freshman year only because I wanted to see the inside.

I saw the inside, then I fell down the stairs and I forgot it for the rest of my life.

You need to know that your memories are real, or if they're not real, you need to come, you need enough evidence so that you can personally come to terms with it.

So I'm holding over my judgment as to the reality of Joey at poker until you both go through a thorough investigation.

It's premature, Nick.

It's premature for you to concede just because Colin started to convince you.

I need the two of you to go to Idaho to play poker, to talk it through, examine all of the hard evidence you can

until, Nick, you come to a theory that you feel represents the truth.

Honestly, the truth.

Not just your truth or their truth, but what really happened.

And if it can be proven, because Joey, if he is a real person, exists in physical reality.

There will be someone who can either corroborate your story, Nick,

or not.

Joey has left physical evidence of where he was in the world on the night you supposedly met him.

Please

reassure me, yourself, all of our listeners, that an objective reality exists and get to the bottom of it off podcast

and let us know your report when you've had it.

So I'm picking up my gavel.

And by the way, this gavel is not even my gavel.

The reality is this gavel belongs to Joel.

It was Joel's great-grandfather's gavel, right?

Yes.

And it was made

from the wood in a door after the sacking of the United States Senate.

January 6th.

No, we're talking about the War of 1812.

January 6th never happened.

That was just fun.

That's right.

That's right.

And I'm not going to bang this gavel yet, Joel, if that's the true story.

I mean, you could be just lying to me about this.

I don't know.

But I am holding over judgment until the two of you solve this mystery together.

Enjoy your friendship mystery quest.

You're really fine fellas, and

I look forward to hearing the outcome of your investigation.

This is the sound of a gavel.

You're not going to hear it because I'm not banging it.

Judge John Hodgman doesn't rule.

That is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Nick, how do you feel?

I feel

very good that the judge believed in me.

You know, I think that that meant a lot to me.

Colin, how do you feel?

A little disappointed.

I was really hoping to be vindicated today,

if that's the right word.

But I will really enjoy, like we did this morning to road trip out here.

I'm going to enjoy another road trip with you out to the Molloy's household.

And yeah, we'll have a good time.

Well, Colin, Nick, thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Hey, thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

We're going to have Swift Justice in just a second.

First, our thanks to Redditor Dead in the Future for naming this week's episode Texas Hold'em in Contempt.

You can join us on Reddit at reddit.com slash r slash maximum fun to name a future episode.

Evidence and photos from the show are on our Instagram account.

That's at instagram.com/slash judgejohodgman.

They're also on this episode's page at maximum fun.

We're also on TikTok and YouTube, where we insist that you smash those like and subscribe buttons.

Smash them.

You know what I recommend if we want to grow our YouTube audience?

This is a lesson I'm drawing from

my YouTube audience for the podcast Bullseye, the NPR show Bullseye.

I'm going to guess that we should start broadcasting from the Orient Express or a yacht or a cruise ship.

No, I would say book Mark Hamill.

Yeah.

It's a multi-step process.

Book Mark Hamill.

Yeah.

Have him insist that he wants to talk about The Last Jedi and Ryan Johnson because he loves Ryan Johnson so much.

Yeah.

Have him talk about how he loves Ryan Johnson, but then also casually mention that he invented his own backstory for his character in the movie The Last Jedi, his own really intense, dark backstory.

That's not all.

So then that will be in a lot of newspapers and variety and deadline and so on and so forth.

But that will not affect your audience numbers at all.

Then we're going to need to have an evil Star Wars YouTuber talk about it on his YouTube channel.

And then the audience for the video will blow up.

Sounds like a plan to me.

That's how you game the algorithm.

You get that, Joel?

You can blow up WDRU.org that way.

It's Al Gore's fault.

If you're out there,

if you're out there and you think SJWs are ruining Star Wars, please comment on our videos.

You know what?

Don't, actually.

Because the comments that we get on our videos of the Judge John Hodgman channel at YouTube slash whatever, Judge John Hodgman pod.

Comments are so great, so supportive, so much fun.

In fact, We started choosing a YouTube comment of the week, and this week's comes from Rob Thomas3732.

We're not talking about the rock star.

We're talking about 3732 Rob.

I believe, Jesse, is our friend from Madison, Wisconsin, the newspaper journalist Rob Thomas, who would wear his minion shorts, rather, his minion pajamas outside.

But Rob commented on our recent episode, Mayo, It Pleased the Court, which wife took her husband to court because she was tired of him hoarding too many condiments and hot sauces.

And Rob wrote, came here to see the hot sauce mind palace, and it did not disappoint.

It's true.

All of our evidence is presented in real time when you go watch our full episodes over on YouTube.

And if you're watching on YouTube, well, here I'll ask you a question for you to put in the comments.

What's your favorite poker game?

You like a traditional game like Texas Hold'em or Omaha Hold'em or Seven Card Stud, or do you like a fun-time game with a lot of wild cards like Fiery Cross or Queen and Follow the Queen or Midnight Baseball?

Do you like to play a poker game called Midnight Extinct Hockey?

I just made that up.

I I don't know what the rules are.

What do you think they should be?

I'm 80% sure you made all those up.

No, no, no, they're all the rest of them are real.

Talk to my poker buddies about it.

But let us know in the comments and maybe you'll be YouTube comment of the week.

But even if you're not, we're really grateful that you're there.

While you're making a comment and you're typing anyway, why don't you go ahead and click that share, that like, that subscribe, click the little bell, do everything that we ask you to do.

Not merely because we ask you to do it, but because as you've probably figured out by

people discover podcasts on YouTube all the time.

Sharing on YouTube is very simple.

You press that little share button, and it really does help people discover the podcast.

So thank you very much for everyone who's been over there doing those things.

Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

This episode engineered by Bambi Buccini and Bryson Templeton at Mode Podcast Studio in Liberty Lake, Washington.

Our social media manager is Dan Telfer.

The podcast is edited by A.J.

McKeon.

Our video editor is Daniel Spear.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

You ready for Swift Justice, Judge Hyde?

Yeah, but would you just say the names of the folks at Mode Podcast Studio in Liberty Lake Washington?

You did it perfect, but I just want to hear their names again.

That's going to be Bambi Buccini and Bryson Templeton.

Yeah, that's the stuff.

Those are some great names.

Amazing.

All right, let's get to Swift Justice.

Okay, something from Cheryl.

That's Cheryl who cooks her sun baskets at night.

Do you remember?

Listener, Cheryl, Arthritis Life.

Arthritis Life, Cheryl.

Yeah.

On the Washington State ferries, there are signs that say, bags without people don't make sense.

The idea is to watch for unattended bags.

But my husband and I disagree on the wording of the sign.

My husband says the sign is right.

Bags without people don't make sense.

But I think bags without people do make sense.

What's wrong with if you see something, say something?

That seems to convey the appropriate amount of paranoia.

Yeah.

That's enough to make us feel queasy all the time.

Bags without people don't make sense

is as a sentence.

I mean, it makes sense as a sentence, but I think it's just too, it's too much of a thinker.

Bags without people making dollars.

Yeah, get that bag.

That's what they should say.

That's the sign they should put up.

Get that bag.

Get the bag.

Don't steal anyone's bags on the Washington State Ferry.

I think that if I were to see a bag that was unattended for a long period of time on the ferry, I would probably bring it to someone's attention.

So I guess bags without people, they raise a question in my mind these days.

So I would say, Cheryl, you're correct and your husband is wrong.

It makes sense in the sense that maybe someone, you know, is going to the bathroom or going to go borrow a deck of cards to play solitaire.

Like I borrowed that deck of cards from the snack bar at the ferry that we took across Lake Michigan that time, Jesse, when we were on tour.

But if you see a bag for a long time, that doesn't make sense and you should probably bring it to someone's attention, I guess.

So if you are listening to this episode on the day that it came out, congratulations.

It's National Hot Dog Day.

Joel, did you have a hot dog today?

I had one yesterday.

Yeah, I'm going to go get a hot dog at the gas station after this.

They got Thai food in Bucksport now.

Do they have hot dogs in the Thai food?

No.

Well, then save it for a different day.

Save it for Pad Thai Day because today is hot dog day.

And I would like to hear your hot dog disputes.

What is the worst topping for a hot dog that you still love anyway?

Do you like a standard bun or a toasted New England style bun?

Well, you know the answer to that one.

Is it weird to order a hot dog at a sit-down restaurant?

I want all of your hot takes on hot dogs, even if they're not disputes.

Just give me your weird opinions about hot dogs and someone tell me how you make celery salt.

Send us your most controversial hot dog disputes and other opinions to Judge John Hodgman by going to maximumfund.org slash jjho or email me directly at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

And of course, we're eager to hear about all your disputes, no matter what the subject.

No cases too small.

Please remember to submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash jjho.

We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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