Jean's Heat Lamp Terrarium

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bill of Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket.

And with me, as always,

is hooded sweatshirt memo getter

Judge John Hodgman.

That's a joke about something that our audience can't see: that everyone on this week's program is wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

We are all wearing hooded sweatshirts today on our weekly Judge John Hodgman Zoom call.

Yeah.

This is how we stay in touch, how we stay connected.

And it's not just you and me and producer Jennifer Marmer, Jesse.

Look,

I'm going to introduce our special guest in a second, but I got to set this up.

It is now December.

We are approaching the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, which this year is December the 21st, the longest night of the year, the longest night of 2020.

Like we needed more of it.

Whatever holiday you observe around this time, it's a time across cultures to kindle a light against the darkness and eat food, take comfort in family and friends, maybe only by Zoom as we're doing now.

Don't travel if you can help it, but definitely eat a lot of food.

And hope at the end of this long night, the sun rises again.

But given 2020 so far, all bets are off.

The sun may never rise again.

I don't know.

We'll see what happens.

December 22nd might be the beginning of perpetual night.

Who knows?

But if that happens, if the sun doesn't rise, there is someone you want six feet safely by your side.

And that is our special guest, Gene Gray,

your favorite polymathic artist of words and music and pictures and ideas, member of the Legion of Judge John Hodgman Guest Bailiffs.

Long live the Legion.

Famed throughout the world for a portrayal of Monica.

on Dick Town on Hulu,

throughout the world minus the UK and Canada and Australia, basically any other nation, sadly.

Get a VPM, mates.

Bit dolly slash Dick Town.

The creator of the forthcoming podcast, Stacey Jambles, Ace Detective with no short-term memory, and also a holiday entertaining super expert, the indescribable because she cannot be contained by words, Jean Gray.

Hi, Jean.

Hi.

And hi, Jane, is so important, especially right now.

So important.

Wash your hands when you come in.

And also,

hello to our special pandemic frequent guest, the leaf blower outside Jesse's house.

If you're concerned that the sun doesn't rise the day after the solstice,

well, I have an ally.

No leaves will be left unblown in my neighborhood.

You're going to be like Bruce Campbell and the Evil Dead 2.

You're going to strap a leafblower to the stump of your right arm.

It's going to be like Mad Max Fury Road, only instead of a guitar that spews flames, it's a guy on a giant spring with a leaf blower.

That guy's the Doof Warrior, you'd be the Leaf Warrior.

Yeah.

Gene Gray, thanks for

good jokes.

Look.

That's where my humor's at right now.

What happened?

I just listen a lot and I'm like, that was a fun chuckle.

That's more accurate.

That's more accurate than good jokes.

I'll say that was a fun chuckle.

I'll take that.

I enjoy that.

And relatable now.

Thank you.

Because there are lawnmowers and leaf blowers in my neighborhood.

This is a life I've never lived.

Right, because you have now moved to Ballmer, Maryland.

What used to be called Washington, D.C.'s Brooklyn.

I read that in a newspaper article.

What year was that?

That was in the 60s when Brooklyn was not a good thing.

It used to be called Loserstown, too, back then.

So they were like, this is where a lot of black people are in the city.

It's the same.

That's right.

And then in 1975, they got some advertising executives to come up with a new nickname for Baltimore.

And that nickname is, as you know, Charm City.

Yeah, it's very charming.

Charm City.

Gene, you have a new home in Baltimore, Maryland.

Yep.

You are getting ready to celebrate

the winter solstice, Saturnalia, the darkest night of the year, and all attending holidays for the first time.

And good thing, because we are here to adjudicate cases about holiday decor, traditions, home heating,

and more.

So let's get into it.

Here's something from Corey.

My wife and I always get into a dispute this time of year.

When we set up our Christmas nativity scene, she has the shepherds and wise men face in toward the baby Jesus, which is more like real life.

I prefer them to be faced outward toward the viewer, like a stage.

Who's right?

I can see and hear that Jean Gray is laughing at something she's having a pleasant time

yes what's happening Gene what are you

I'm looking at the photo and

this is a photo of their nativity scene this is a photo of the nativity and then I immediately realized

that

it is so awesome to have it have some sort of realism instead of to function like a stage play like I normally see nativities doing, because immediately in my mind, I went to like, I'm wise man and number one, and I brought the frankincense.

But wait, I'm wise man number two, and I've got the myrrh.

And then I'm wise man number three,

and no one's more important than me.

I brought gold.

Like, it's not a musical.

I see in this picture here, baby Jesus framing his head with his hands and giving a little shake.

He's selling the whole Son of God thing.

Well,

I think that it will not be too controversial to say that religion is theater to a certain degree.

Acceptable.

There is no realism in a nativity scene because there are competing descriptions in the Gospels about what actually happened in this manger.

For sure, there's no, the Magi, the bearers of the frankincense, gold, and myrrh.

By the way, good job, Magi who brought gold.

That's a good gift.

Yeah, it's the best one.

Like, right?

You brought oil and then incense.

Like, get out of here.

Somebody brought gold.

You better bring it.

Like, what are you doing?

I don't care about the other two.

I'll take the gold.

You two Magi can go.

That's the first words of baby Jesus.

Give me the gold.

Give me the gold.

If a Magi came to your birth, what would you like

the Magi to bring?

The Magis is the singular Magi, I guess.

Taking frankincense, myrrh, and gold off the table.

Yeah, those are, let's say, three Magi have brought you those three things, but hark, lo,

upon the horizon is a fourth magis.

What's he bringing, Gene, or she, or they?

Um, for you.

What is their whole deal?

Like, what do they do?

Are they supposed to be able to be like, oh, I know, were they like, oh, I know who you're going to be?

And so we've rebrought this stuff?

Alternately, they are

wise men or kings

who were drawn to visit the baby Jesus because they heard this prophecy that he was going to be hot stuff.

Yeah, there's sort of a stamp of legitimacy.

It's like,

you know, the prime minister of Canada calling Joe Biden.

That's right.

That's right.

They're saying, congratulations on being the son of God.

Right.

Yeah, I would want that to, I would want like the full truth about like stuff, or I would basically like want a new home because I don't know how they like brought him a bunch of stuff but they were like you're in a barn cool bye-bye kid child not merely in a barn I learned

it's a a trough a miniature I always thought a manger was the barn but the manger is a food trough that he that they used as his cradle which makes sense because it's manger for M-A-N-G-E-R it's the yeah the cognate display or whatever it is the word root is that plus there's no crib for his bed right they didn't have a crib.

They put him in a bowl.

They put the baby Jesus in a food bowl.

So maybe a bed and not gold.

Maybe.

Because I can't use the gold.

That is more practical because my first thought was ham.

Like I'm big ham.

Like maybe like a honey baked spiral cut type deal.

For a baby?

Just wait something for everybody to gnaw on because everybody's coming in.

You know what I mean?

If ham is in your dietary wheelhouse, wheelhouse, that's always a pleasant gift.

It lasts for years, 33 years, I believe, biblically speaking.

How about antibiotics?

Oh, yeah.

Like, she just gave birth.

In case there was an infection.

Yeah, there's a lot.

He's in a trough.

Or just the germ theory of disease.

Yeah, then.

Just the knowledge that people should wash their hands while delivering the baby.

Also, soak the beans.

Soak the beans.

Don't forget to soak the beans.

That's a Kasperhazer reference.

Look it up.

The Kasper Hasbur radio.

What is it?

Comedy podcast?

Yeah, Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast.

You need that.

Yeah, go check that out on maximumfund.org.

Yeah,

I agree.

The realism

here

that informs Corey's dispute is fakism.

Because, of course,

there are many different depictions of this moment in the life of...

the probably historical figure Jesus.

In the Gospels, they are often contradictory.

These three Magi did not show up until two years after Jesus was born in one of the Gospels.

Don't ask me which one.

I'm not a biblical scholar.

I looked up.

Gospel number 14.

Right.

And the nativity.

And the Nativity itself was always a piece of theater.

And in fact, it started as like a Christmas pageant, like a live stage show.

That was actually,

according to Wikipedia, St.

Francis of Assisi mounted the first live Nativity scene in 1221.

And that's why they refer to St.

Francis of Assisi as the corky St.

Clair of Franciscans, patron saint of community theater.

I just, I don't want to see it set up like a sitcom.

Like, I like the fact that they're all doing this, but I would say, like, maybe just make someone like break the fourth wall, just one.

Like, the office.

Just one sheep is looking out at the audience with one eyebrow raised.

Like, come on,

son of God.

What is this?

You're probably wondering how I got here.

Flashback.

Flashback to that sheep being born going, where's my golden myrrh?

I agree and concur with your wisdom, you two other Magi.

This Magi, I feel, this wise person says, it looks better.

Seeing their backs.

I mean, they are there in veneration of the Christ child, A.

B, if you had them all facing outward, it wouldn't look like a nativity scene.

It would look like a display of your Warhammer figurines.

This is better.

No offense to your display of Warhammer figurines, specifically Stuart Wellington from the Flophouse.

Yeah, Stu Wellington, who paints Warhammer figurines live on Instagram,

I would like you to create a nativity scene of your Warhammer figurines.

What am I doing with my life?

I know.

All you have is your own church, Gene.

Damn it.

I did forget to mention

that Gene has her own church called the speaking speaking of religion as performance

Gene has her own church which is the church of the infinite you which meets on occasional Sundays on Twitch and the and

everyone follow Gene on Twitter and Instagram we'll give all the handles at the end yeah find out when the next one is because this is some church you can really use And a nice family named the Wisemans once came to the church.

So

there you go.

What'd they bring?

A A ham?

A ham.

Three hams.

They brought me three hams and I was like, this is a lot.

And I was like, that's also an interesting gift from the Wisemans.

And before I get letters, people of faith, I honor and respect your faith.

When I say that religion is theater, That is, in my opinion, a compliment to religion because theater is where we come together when it is safe to do so

and sit in silence and contemplate bigger truths and enjoy a communion both in the audience and with performers on stage or asking them big questions.

So please do not feel that I am denigrating religion.

I'm trying to pay it a compliment.

All right.

Let's take a quick break.

More items on the docket coming up in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Made In.

Let me ask you a question.

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The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Quince.

Jesse, the reviews are in.

My new super soft hoodie from Quince that I got at the beginning of the summer is indeed super soft.

People cannot stop touching me and going, that is a soft sweatshirt.

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Oh.

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You know what I mean?

It's a stink-rejecting technology, John.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week with our friend Gene Gray.

Here is a case from Leah.

My husband and I traditionally do not get too much into Christmas decorations for various reasons, not the least of which is that he's Jewish and I am a lapsed Catholic.

However, During this pandemic year, the spirit of Christmas has struck me to the core.

I want to go go all out with Christmas decorations to bring some joy and whimsy to this dark winter.

I have my eye on a fiber optic rainbow extravaganza Christmas tree from Hammacker Schlemmer, which he thinks is garish.

He prefers a more natural and understated tree.

I want an explosion of color and maybe an inflatable Frosty the Snowman on our lawn.

Help us decide whose design aesthetic prevails.

Gene, have you received the most recent Hammacker Schlemmer catalog in the mails?

I have not.

I'm sure

your new address is updating throughout the catalog community.

So it'll be coming up.

So, all right, I have received it.

So, I knew exactly what Leah was talking about, and I found it on their website.

I put a link in the document that you can all now open.

This is my present to you.

Do you see it?

The White Northern Lights Tree.

I don't know why that's a joke.

It's a white Northern Lights Tree.

You know why it said White Northern Lights.

This is why I don't order this catalog anymore.

This is a full

fluffy,

fiber optically

pine-needled fir tree imitation

that has programmable lights.

I think it can pulse and change.

It says it creates...

a dancing cascade of colors along its branches.

I got to say, what do you think about this in their home, Gene?

I think that that is awesome.

And as someone who grew up in a, my dad was a very strict Muslim, and my mom was sort of like, I'm everything, but she didn't get to celebrate that.

So we never

got the opportunity to like have Christmas in the house.

Or I had my first like real Christmas and like Christmas tree like three years ago.

Oh, wow.

And

man,

I

love,

I love Christmas so much.

I am not a religious person.

I just, the feeling of it, the idea of it.

Neither is Christmas.

No, it's not.

It's got his name in it, but

I was so excited to do it.

I was just talking to Kwale about like my mom took us when we were kids to go see The Santa at Macy's, like the Macy's Macy's, not a Macy's.

Yeah.

Macy's, you know, Macy's.

Miracle Macy's.

Miracle on 34th.

The Miracle on 34th Macy's.

So we got to, you know, it was like 10 blocks away from us and she got in a whole bunch of trouble because of it.

And she was like, no, I want my kids to have this experience.

And I still have the picture of us like sitting on Santa's lap and I look very upset.

But the idea that she was like, no, you should get to have these experiences.

We're at like this Macy's, it's magical.

It doesn't matter, you don't have to be a part of this faith or anything to appreciate celebrating or feeling good or good feels and lights and you know, and toys.

And right.

Um,

so we do big Christmas, and this year, especially, because everything has been horrible, I'm like, no, we should go all out.

Like, yeah, let's get a blow-up

snowman and a Santa and like maybe one of the car wash tube guys for no reason and paint him in Christmas colors.

They have them online.

They're $129 and the pump is $99.

And you can get the one with two legs, which is much better than the one with one leg.

Well, the one with one leg is just a tube.

He's just a one leg.

He's just a tube.

Right.

And I'm like, let's go all out to have some like joy.

Just,

yeah, go for it.

I love this tree.

I don't know if it would be our only tree.

You mean you might get two of them?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, they do come in a four and a half foot size and a seven and a half foot size.

Well, I think

the husband here is not wrong that it is obscenely Garrett.

Yes, it's also extremely expensive.

That is true.

That is true.

It costs about as much as 10 regular Christmas trees.

Oh, well.

Unless you're in Manhattan, then it's a cost of two.

It's $500.

For the 7.5-foot one, it's $500.

And for the $4.5-foot one, it's $250.

But

you really need to have both to get the mother and child garish Christmas tree look.

I feel like if you spend the $500 to buy the 7.5-foot version of this tree, you are sort of morally obliged to spend the rest of the money to get the hologram Liberace to perform in front of it.

You mean the rest of the money in the world?

Yeah, all of it.

Why not the little tree?

Why not the smaller one, like next to the bigger one, or in another room?

No, go hard or go home.

That's my feeling about these.

No,

I think you guys are skimping on the factor of walking because all we have is being inside.

So don't just make that one room the special room.

Like put something in another room and you're like, Oh, this is a Christmas tree, and then you go into another room, you're like, But what about this Christmas tree?

This is a whole new Christmas.

I think it's different this year.

I think put as much joy in different rooms as you can if you got the space.

I have always wanted one of those aluminum Christmas trees that have

some colored up lights.

Yeah, I think those are really neat.

I always have had a

natural Christmas tree

because what better way to celebrate

whether it is the birth of Christ or the general sense of rebirth after the longest night in the year?

Because, after all, Christmas is a synthetic observance, taking in all different kinds of traditions, pre-Christian pagan traditions of Yule in Germany and across the Celtic area, and then obviously later all kinds of commercial traditions of Coca-Cola and Santa Claus and all those other sort of commercially invented traditions that kind of got rebranded with Christianity

sometime during the early Christian church.

But in fact, Christmas itself was not celebrated by most Christians.

Indeed, the Puritans who invaded and then lived in New England, the region of southeast Canada where I am from,

abhorred Christmas.

They thought

it was a completely

decadent tradition and essentially a pagan tradition.

It wasn't until the Victorian era that Christmas, as we know, came to be propagated throughout the English-speaking world.

So the point I'm saying is, there are a lot of different traditions.

My tradition was always to get a natural tree in my home with my mom and dad, and then in my own home, because what better way to celebrate rebirth during the darkest night of the year than killing a tree and watching it die slowly.

But

my grandmother always had a,

not a mid-century modern aluminum tree like you speak of, Jesse, but just a really classic fakey tree, faky hardware store tree

that was, the needles were all silver.

And there was a, I have a fondness for that as well.

And this particular year, as you point out, Gene, this is a year where we really need a lot, a lot of light in all of this darkness.

I think it's a great time, like as many in many ways, the way we've been re-evaluating our relationship with work, our relationship with our friends and our family, our relationship with our government, what we want from a society, it's a good time to just go ahead and try something new for Christmas.

And if Leah and her husband are in a position

financially to splurge on the seven and a half foot tree,

I think they should do it because here's what.

You have this tree for this year and you just enjoy this garish display, and then you can keep it next year if you love it, or I bet you could donate it to a school, or to a nursing home, or to some other organization that might appreciate it next year.

I would hope that you would make some equal donation to a charitable organization or to people who are in need.

Like if you only have $500 left in your life, take care of yourself.

Don't buy this tree.

But if you buy this tree, if you can afford $500 for this cuckoo tree, then put $500 into the hands of people who need it.

And I think that's a very nice way to create a dancing cascade of new experiences in your Christmas and in others or your holiday.

Quite like the Northern Lights themselves.

A dancing cascade of colors.

That's right.

One thing that I used to do with my son, we would play a game when, remember the Sky Mall catalog?

Oh, yeah.

Well, the Sky Mall has gone to the great recycling bin in the sky.

We'll always have Sky Mall, M-A-U-L, Kasper Hauser's pair of perfect books.

Pair of perfect Sky Mall parodies, yeah.

Yeah.

But I've put a link in the document, which you guys can both open if you don't mind, because we used to play a game with my son and I in the Sky Mall catalog where we would go page by page while we were maybe flying to a place and passing the time.

And we would, our agreement was, as a thought experiment, if you have to buy something on each page, what would it be?

And while Sky Mall is no longer around, Hammacker Schlemmer certainly is a good way to do this.

So I've sent you the link to their new arrivals page.

So Gene and Jesse, here on the new arrivals page, top row, there are four items you have to pick one.

The 750-watt wall outlet heater,

the Hammacker Schlemmer classic Lionel train that goes around a tree, children's race car simulator, or four-foot twinkling Christmas bubble light.

This is easy for me.

I love that giant bubble light.

This is something distasteful that I could get into in an instant.

I, uh, you know, I, this summer, my, uh, my father passed away, and there's never been, in my life, anyway, a greater bubble light enthusiast than my dad.

Like, my dad would plug in the bubble lights that he had bought at

Coal Hardware down the street from our house, and he would like giggle with glee as they feebly bumbled on our Christmas tree, just barely working, just always barely working.

He'd love them so much.

And this one, which is four feet tall,

seems perfect.

All right, four foot tall.

Gene, do you concur or do you get something else?

No, something else.

The race car simulator, hands down, because I have been known to, anytime I see

like a if I'm somewhere and I see those like kids like the the little horses outside a supermarket just anything that that is only for children and I should not be able to fit into I will cram myself into that area and and get on that child's toy and make children wait until and I have spent like $20 just being there for a long time perhaps I was drinking perhaps I was completely sober nothing would give me greater joy than to put this

in the living room and to randomly hurt myself.

Trying to get into it.

Trying to get into this.

I'm sure I would break it, and my knees would be up in my ears, but

it would bring me a great amount of joy.

I have to say, though, John, that you unnaturally constrained our choices.

And on my front page, as it appeared on my computer screen, the item I would choose above all others comfortably by an enormous margin is item 96554, the illuminated ear wax remover.

This is the ear cleaning tool that uses five LEDs to illuminate the ear canal and an integrated 1080p camera to see and target wax buildup.

So you hold it in your hand, shove it in your ear, and look at your phone where there's like a colonoscopy camera broadcasting directly to your phone via Bluetooth.

all right i'll give i'll give you that one gene

i i will offer you one more chance to trade up i'm not gonna trade up but if it were anything else it would be the hand pain relieving mitt because i would just keep them on all the time

just as an excuse it'd be like oh i'm sorry i can't i just just type in with them just everything and be like i got it looks like it looks like a giant black gore-tex oven mitt yes that has mysterious red light inside.

No thumb pocket.

So you just, your whole hand is in it, and you can't get anything done.

The mysterious red light cannot be overstated here.

Its mysteriousness,

its odd quality, and like the, you know, the neoprene body gloveness of this thing.

It really is like...

anything could be inside there.

Like it's designed to be a void into which it's like a trust fall where you put your hand into the void and a red light comes out.

It says it's mitten-like.

It's mitten-esque.

It's not a mitten.

For legal reasons, we cannot claim we cannot.

Unfortunately, it fails to meet the FDA standard for me.

It's a hand pocket.

It's an outside hand pocket.

Well, all right.

So, Jesse, you get the illuminated earwax remover.

Yes.

Gene, for this holiday season, I'm giving you the cordless LED mysterious hand pain relieving mitt.

I'm glad none of you snapped up the world's largest putting pool table.

It's a putting surface that's shaped like a pool table.

This is a time when we all should try to be a little less material, especially since everyone's, a lot of people are hurting these days.

If you want to make your holiday season gift-less, which is kind of an awesome thing to do, just get a free copy of the Hammacker Schlemmer,

the Hammacker Schlummer catalog, and sit down with your family and pay this thought experiment.

What junk would I take if I had to take something?

And you will feel so happy that no one gave you a single gift this year.

And as you do it, just simply send $25 to maximumfund.org as a royalty because I invented this game.

Page by page.

Wait, there's an air-propelled bowling game.

Oh, there's more.

You can always load more.

I forgot.

There's so much more on here.

There's so much more.

Basketball hoop.

Where would I put that?

Gene, please close the Hammocker Schlimmer website.

Okay, but can I just say one more thing that we bought for the house?

Yeah, please.

This is going along with that, like

you needing to find like joy all over the place.

So

I

re well, like in the past two years, I found out about the

wonder of electric fireplace inserts.

Sure.

Because we had one in our last place and we did an entire built-in around it, and it was amazing and wonderful.

I grew up with the fireplace

and

never had it again in another house or apartment or anything.

And although this is a very old house, a lot of things were covered up.

So we believe there's a fireplace hiding.

But we did not want to be in this house without a fireplace.

So

in

you're just smashing down walls looking for

I would like to

in

trying to

find the right electric fireplace insert to build into something

I'm creating, like I'm building mantles around them.

We now have four of them

and they all operate differently.

But one of the best things that I did in the past month was to put them all in the living room and turn them all on

at once.

Four fireplace inserts?

Yes.

One for each wall?

No, some just in the middle of the floor because they're just the log.

Some in a cabinet.

Gene, would you do me a favor?

I've already taken a picture.

Okay, yeah.

Please send it into Jennifer Marmer so we can get that up on the Judge John Odgman Instagram.

And they're very cheap.

There we go.

That's another way to

liven up the winter solstice.

Fold away illuminated bowling arcade game.

Let's close the hammocker Schlummer catalog and move on to some more justice.

Aaron says, we live in Michigan, which gets cold in the winter.

Every winter, my husband and I battle over the thermostat.

I'm cold, he's hot.

I turn the heat up, he turns it back down.

I wear slippers and sweatshirts and blankets.

All I want is to be cozy and not shivering while wearing multiple layers.

He frequently turns the heat down to 65 to 67 degrees.

I want Judge Hodgman to order that we maintain our thermostat at a minimum of 70 degrees in the winter months, which is what I feel is a typical or average household temperature.

I'd really prefer 72 degrees to be extra cozy, but we'll compromise at 70 degrees.

Michigan is a cold, cold place in the winter.

You know what Michigan is?

No.

Mitten-like.

It's true.

It's true.

It's like a giant, mysterious hand warmer.

It's the giant, mysterious hand warmer of the Great Lakes.

That's what they call it.

Why is that red light emanating from it?

What is the glow?

Oh,

You know, this is such a common dispute in life, and certainly in the Judge John Hodgman mailbag.

I have heard some hearsay over the years that gender-assigned at birth men

tend to run biologically

hotter than gender-assigned at birth women.

There's research about that in offices.

Is there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And therefore, there is this fight over the thermostat constantly.

And

what do you think, Gene?

Do you and Quelle, your husband,

have this dispute?

Well, this is our first time.

I mean, also, I think my first time living in a place where we are in control of our own heat.

Oh, right.

And having a thermostat, because coming from New York, like, that's not a thing.

Like, it's just on, and you're either like, my skin is falling off.

I'm dying.

I'm burning.

It's so hot.

Or like, I'm freezing so we we've never had the chance to do that and this is our first

thermostat living together he's he's had you know this experience before

and

he is a generally

like like a walking

radiator that's just constantly like a bleeding radiator.

He is very warm all the time.

And I generally,

because I'm dead inside, I'm just freezing.

That's why you have four fireplace inserts on the bottom.

Well, that's why I have them all over the place.

That's right.

And which is also part of our kind of compromise, so I can get my heat in areas where I really want it.

Jean sleeps on one of those heated logs like a lizard in a terran.

Let me tell you, if I could enclose part of the bedroom like that, I would 100% do it.

And then just like a little water bowl, and I would roll over and just throw my face into it because I get very thirsty at night.

That sounds awesome.

That's right.

A few crickets to my bed.

A few crickets.

Listen, thank you.

I think

we haven't finished our bedroom and maybe this is part of the construct.

Just Jean's heat lamp terrarium.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We ought to

start a Build Gene a Terrarium Fund.

Thank you.

Please go to Jean, BuildGenaterrarium.com and donate what you can.

You know, just donate any money you're going to use for yourself.

It really is what I want.

If you're buying a $500 eight-foot fiber optic tree, throw Gene a little bit of money so she can buy that multicolored gravel to put on the floor of her bedroom.

Yeah, buy me that, just give me that $500.

Just give me, I need the gravel.

What are we really talking about here?

So as things are getting colder in Baltimore, are you guys starting to fight over that thermostat or what?

No, we don't fight.

I think 70, 72 feels like the normal thing that I've heard in life and we've tried it a few times.

I think it's great in the

I

think 70 is a good compromise.

I didn't know I was going to feel the difference between something being like 69 or 70, but that gets to the point in a day.

And

if I'm feeling a little cold, I'm like, hmm, I feel like it should have switched over by now.

That feels like

it's at least falling below a 68.

I think 70s, that's where we have it right now.

Does this come up in California, in Los Angeles, Jesse Thorne, between you and Teresa at all?

No, this was a concern when I lived in San Francisco, a little cooler in the winter in San Francisco.

But I don't think I ever had a thermostat until I moved to Los Angeles that wasn't the kind where you move a little stick left and right and you're really looking at five degrees-ish of precision.

You know what I mean?

Like it's like a little mercury-powered spring or something that powers a furnace from 1928.

My mom really does have a furnace.

Her furnace is huge and terrifying in the basement and it really is from like 1930.

We had a furnace like that

in our basement when I was growing up, and it was this massive cast iron nightmare machine

that with tendrils going out to all of the different hot air registers throughout the house.

It was very impressive and very terrifying.

But it's definitely a question between my wife and I, where we have very strongly different preferences.

And it is the classic:

I am usually too warm, and she is usually too cold.

For me,

I had always attributed it to being a native San Franciscan, like

any temperature below 60 or above 70 seems uncomfortable to me.

So

like anytime I'm not wearing a sweatshirt, I feel uncomfortable.

And indeed, like when I read Erin say that she wants to be cozy in the house, my immediate thought was that I am much more cozy in a sweater when it's 68 than I am.

in a shirt when it's 73.

Yeah, Aaron, I mean, it costs a lot of money to heat a house in Michigan, I bet, during the winter because it's cold there.

So you do want your home to be a refuge from the cold, not just a version of the cold.

You definitely want to feel a real difference between the outside and the inside.

You're not just looking for reduced brutality.

Right.

And I kind of feel like 65 is pretty low for inside temperature.

But I also concur with Eugene and you, Jesse, that coziness, if that's what you're after, Aaron, coziness is enhanced by

woolens and socks and sweatshirts and blankies and throws

and usually like a point, like

a focused source of heat, like a roaring fire or one of Gene's many electric fireplace inserts.

That to me is coziness.

So for ambient temperature,

I think I need to rule in favor of Aaron,

but not all the way up to 72, and not even all the way up to 70.

I think the appropriate compromise here is 69.999.

If you have that level of control, put it at 69.999 because 999 upside down is 666, the number of the beast.

I looked on energystar.gov,

the federal government's energy efficiency website.

Oh, you know, the federal government?

I know.

Hopefully, we still do by the time this episode comes out.

They recommended 68, but said 70 is also acceptable.

Shooting for 68 is

what they recommend.

And I think probably even more important than the difference between 68 and 70, for example, is certainly 69.9999999 and 70 is,

you know, a smart thermostat, not a computer computer thermostat, but a programmable thermostat, is very inexpensive and easy to install.

And you just make sure that you are heating your home less when you are asleep

and when you are away from the house

when leaving the house returns to our lives.

Yeah, you know what?

But put Santa Claus in charge of the thermostat because he knows when you're sleeping and he knows when you're awake.

So terrifying.

He's the original smart thermostat.

That's right.

Yeah.

69 feels right to me.

That's the best number.

And by the way, Aaron, when you're really, really cold there in Michigan, think of late June.

June 21, 22, depends.

That's the summer solstice.

The longest day of the year.

Unless you're in the southern hemisphere.

In which case, psych, it's the longest again because the earth is a globe.

Jesse, Gene, before we go to a break, can either of you guess

where the holiday known as Midwinter Holiday is celebrated in June?

It could be my hometown because we are the reverse.

Cape Town?

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

You're in the southern hemisphere.

We are.

We're the flipsies.

Close but not cigar.

Close but not cigar.

That's the saying I just made.

Well,

same to you then.

Antarctica.

Every southern hemisphere winter solstice, all of the research stations in Antarctica stop what they're doing and celebrate midwinter holiday.

And they have a feast based on whatever they have around because they cannot take any shipments during the winter.

And do you know what some of them do as a ritual?

They watch the thing.

What?

What?

They watch the movie John Carpenter's The Thing,

which is about a research station that is snowed in and then

terrorized by an alien creature that wants to eat them.

That's their holiday.

I'm telling you, Jesse, when we get to Jennifer Marmor, when we get to do live shows again, book Antarctica, please.

I want to do

it.

Are you booking Antarctica as a guest bailiff?

Yeah,

we can all go.

Just do a huge midwinter holiday pageant in Antarctica.

The frozen body of Shackleton or whatever is the guest mail.

You know, John, I have been in the very dawn days of podcasting, maybe the proudest moment of my entire podcasting career.

In maybe, I'm going to say 2005, perhaps, there was a call that went out on the Yahoo group for podcasters that said, I am sending data CDs of content to Antarctica via airplane for Antarctica's radio station.

If you send me data files and give me permission to air them on Antarctica's radio station, I will.

And I sent in MP3s of the sound, then called The Sound of Young America, now my NPR show Bullseye.

And it was the thrill of a lifetime to know that they were airing in

frozen Antarctica.

I'm wearing a Ross Island Trail System Antarctica t-shirt that was sent to me

by Listener Dave from Antarctica.

I still don't understand why Listener Dave was in Antarctica.

He wasn't even a scientist, if I remember correctly.

He was working on painting things.

I don't, I guess they need someone to paint things.

And I don't, and I think that this was not sent from Antarctica.

I think he brought it from Antarctica and then sent it to me.

He also sent me a t-shirt that said, take only one banana, please.

Because

apparently there's a big problem with banana hoarding in the cafeteria at this particular, whatever research station he was at.

Apparently, Jennifer Marmora, producer's grandma, went to Antarctica.

Oh, she's nodding along.

Did she come back?

Oh, that's a good, that's good.

That's good.

A midwinter holiday miracle.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll hear disputes about scratch-off lottery tickets and an update from a past litigant about solar panels.

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, 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.

Welcome back to the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket.

We're joined by our friend Jean Gray.

Here is a dispute from Sarah.

She says, My husband and I both dislike receiving scratch-off lottery tickets as gifts.

We both feel that they are a waste of money and they rarely result in winning anything other than more lottery tickets.

However, several members of my family enjoy giving scratch-off lottery tickets as gifts.

It's a quote tradition, unquote, started with my grandfather, Pop, who is no longer with us.

My husband says we should ask my family to stop giving us lottery tickets and to save their money.

I feel that if my family members get enjoyment out of giving us lottery tickets, we should just let them continue.

Well, Jesse, Gene, what do you think?

Should Sarah and her husband honor Pop?

Or throw his legacy into the garbage like so many used $1 New York State lottery snow me the money cards?

A real scratch-off card.

I have immediate strong feelings about this, John.

Please.

I'm not a gambler.

No.

I went on an entire trip to Las Vegas where all I don't know when to hold them, nor do you know when to fold them.

No.

I went on an entire trip.

You don't know when to walk away.

Usually you're walking closer and people are like, what are you even doing?

Are you a gambler?

It's not his fault.

It's because the song doesn't tell you when to at all.

It just presents the problem and then there's no resolution or no suggestions.

It's one of those, if you've got it, you've got it situations.

It's not intended to be instructional.

It's about an essential quality of a human being.

I guess.

Jesse, you and I are islands in the stream, and I talked all over you there, and I apologize as your friend and partner.

So please go ahead.

I went on an entire trip to Las Vegas once where I just put $1 into an antiques roadshow slot machine because I was so excited there was antiques roadshow themed slot machines.

I'm so happy.

I had no idea.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my days, as they say on Love Island.

It was a really fun trip to Las Vegas, it is not my favorite place to visit, but

I stayed at the Golden Nugget,

which really does have a giant golden nugget, which I didn't know.

It has a titular golden nugget.

And there was a women's bodybuilding competition going on in the hotel at the time.

So it was just full of enormous muscled women and their tiny male handlers, which was just a great vibe.

Just in general, it was just like, this is cool.

This is great.

This is why you want to go to Las Vegas.

But yeah, I am not a gambler, but I have to say that as a non-gambler,

I think it is a waste of money.

to spend your money on scratch off lottery tickets.

But I think this family tradition is fun and if i was in a family where it was a family tradition to give lottery tickets out as gifts i would think it was very fun to get them as gifts as long as no one was spending an amount of money on them that was problematic you know i wouldn't want i wouldn't want my mother-in-law beth to buy me 500 in lottery ticket where lottery tickets where it would you know cramp her household budget i would only want her to do that if it was offsetting her purchase of a seven and a half foot fiber optic tree yeah but i mean if it if it was in the scale of

an appropriate gift, in my wife's family, they give each other $20 gifts usually, and they do a secret Santa type situation, I would think that would be fun.

A $20 lottery ticket,

that's quite a ticket.

Well, $21 lottery tickets or $10, $2 lottery tickets.

And then, you know, the net proceeds, probably, depending on the state, go to schools or something.

What do you think, Gene?

You are a gambler.

I know that because we went to Las Vegas together.

You do.

Stayed at the El Cortez Hotel.

I did not see an antiques roadshow slot machine there.

I'm very upset about it.

No, I didn't see one either.

You were very successful

at

your slot machine.

For a while.

For a while.

And then

for a while, and then

it was not.

And I was like, yeah, you should have gotten out of here.

I was down there until 3 o'clock in the morning and didn't go well for me.

But I love slot machines.

I love Vegas.

I love the whole vibe of the place.

However,

I have a song on

my that's not how you do that adult instructional trilogy called You're Not Gonna Win the Lottery

about

me being annoyed, especially in bodegas,

when people are in front of me in line,

having me in there all day because they're picking up goddamn numbers.

And I'm like, you know what?

How about you just step to the side and let everybody else go?

Because I want to get out of here.

You're not going to win the lottery.

It's not going to happen.

I know you want to do this.

That being said,

I under,

like,

you, how are you going to be mad at Pop for wanting you for also getting joy?

like out of buying his lottery tickets and then being gracious enough to be like and you know what because this is how pop sounds.

I want to give it to you so that maybe you can win a million dollars.

And then be like, I don't want that.

That's rude.

Take your lottery tickets.

I want someone to give me lottery tickets.

I'll take them.

In the secular observance of midwinter holiday,

there's a creature called the Grinch.

Somebody just can't get into it.

Now, look,

gambling can be a seriously destructive addiction.

And I certainly wouldn't want

my aunt or aunt, as we say in New England, who's got a gambling problem, buying $5,000 worth of scratch tickets to give to me, even though that would greatly increase my chances of winning.

That would be bad.

So I don't mean to diminish gambling, its deleterious effects.

But,

yeah.

I come from a family where I had a grandfather named Pop.

We get some scratch-off tickets in our our stockings.

It's fun.

It's like there's so much,

if you're stuffing a stocking, it's going to be junk anyway.

Might as well have something to do for five seconds.

Maybe you'll win 25 bucks.

You can't fill a whole stocking with Satsumas.

One thing I learned looking into this is that

the Maryland Lottery has an extremely

elaborate web page detailing all the different scratch-off games they have.

There's a Scratch Off Finder where you can filter them by payout,

what kinds of games there are.

Celebrity endorsers.

Cal Rutkin Jr.

Oh, wow.

John Waters.

John Waters

would be amazing.

Yep.

The character, Omar.

Just the character, Omar.

Omar Scratch Off.

Yeah, you come at the king you best not miss.

You can even get a sortable, exportable spreadsheet that you can download.

It's an incredibly elaborate website.

So

yeah, Gene, I'm going to send you

you and Quella each a peppermint payout timestamp.

I don't want that.

I don't want that.

I want

we're not talking about pop sending us lottery tickets.

This is John Hodgman sending us something.

And we want slot machines.

So you're going to send us a slot machine?

You send us nothing.

I'll tell you what I want.

I'll tell you what I want.

I want to get back into the seat

of that huge

Game of Thrones

slot machine that I played in the Elk Water Tez.

It was like 12 feet tall.

And it surrounded you.

And you had to get into it.

Yeah.

You didn't just sit down.

You got into the slot machine.

Right.

And it was like surround sound.

It was incredible.

Like you're playing Need for Speed at the arcade or whatever.

Yeah, exactly.

But bigger, just more.

It was just, and I was doing so well on it.

It was so loud.

For a while,

did you sit on an iron throne?

I sat on an iron throne.

And you know what?

I got some scratches because that's you're supposed to be a reminder as the ruler.

But

it had all these voices in it, including this Peter Dinklage soundalike, who would say things like, well done, or whatever.

And after a while of this, I realized, oh, from an 826 Valencia event I did a million years ago, I have Peter Dinkledge's email.

So at 2 o'clock in the morning in Las Vegas, I emailed Peter Dinkledge to say,

did you record your own voice for this Game of Thrones slot machine that I'm in?

Five minutes later, yes.

That was the whole email back.

So

the Dink is a straight shooter, John.

He told me the truth.

Told me the truth.

Okay, so we finally have some follow-up here from Carrie in Minnesota, who you may remember from episode 443, Daylight Savings Crime.

I wasn't the bailiff on this episode, John.

What happened?

That's right.

Ify Wadaway was our guest bailiff that week.

The host of Maximum Fun Zone film show, who shot you?

Exactly.

And member of the Legion of Guest Bailiffs.

Long live the Legion.

And so for your benefit and yours as well, Gene, Kari brought the case against her husband, Joshua, about the home solar panels that he had installed.

And she was feeling that his obsession with energy energy efficiency was getting out of hand uh and and so what did kari have to say

joshua is excited to report that we went net zero on electricity for the year in fact we produced 69 more kilowatt hours than we consumed wait how many

69.

Sorry, I want to read it.

Thank you.

It was a squeaker, but we did it.

Joshua is complying well with your ruling by majorly toning down the frequency of his stats reports and back-of-the-envelope jottings.

It's been a win-win.

Thanks for your help.

And they sent in a photo, which if you scroll down, Gene, you can see

Josh snow squeegeeing his solar panels on his shed

in Minnesota.

Oh boy, oh boy.

You know, look, I spend part of the time and even part of the winter in Maine, but I'm telling you, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, they get the real winter.

That's the real stuff there.

I tell you,

I think if you've gone net zero and you've put out 69.999 whatevers,

you've earned yourself a fiber optic Christmas tree, you guys.

Happy midwinter holiday.

It's impressive.

It's cold.

That looks cold.

It's very cold.

It looks cold.

That was taken recently.

You know how you just look at something and you're like, yeah, but it's snow.

You're like, ah, but I just feel it.

I feel it.

Yeah, that's the.

There's snow all over the ground.

There's snow all over the roofs.

There's snow all over the trees and the tops of the gates.

And we record this in advance.

This was recorded in August.

So Minnesota is not.

I love Minnesota.

Never seen a more bleaker landscape than in Minnesota in the middle of February as I drove from Minneapolis, St.

Paul airport.

to Morris, Minnesota to do a show up there at the University of Minnesota at Morris, which is up on the way to Fargo.

And I would just drive through what literally seemed to be abandoned towns.

Like nothing was open.

No one was on the streets.

No cars in the streets.

I'm like, where is everybody?

And then I would crest a hill, and then I would see

down off to my left, one of these lakes they have.

They have about 10,000 of them.

And

I realized where the town was.

It was on the lake.

Everyone had moved onto the frozen lake.

There was trucks after truck after truck after fishing camp after fishing camp after fishing camp on this lake.

Wow.

Hardy people, hardy people up there in northern Minnesota.

John, I'll never forget when my radio show was with Public Radio International, which is based in Minneapolis, St.

Paul,

having a phone conversation with my person there.

We had a weekly meeting.

Her name was Heidi, very kind woman.

And

I'll never forget the feeling I had when Heidi said to me that she was hiring a man later that day to clear the snow from her roof and i said oh it doesn't just fall off or whatever and she says no if a man doesn't come to clear it my house would collapse

oh my lord oh my days

that's uh too much of snow

I like a little bit of snow.

I like a snow apocalypse here and there because it gives it, it was originally the excuse to be like oh man I'm sorry that got canceled can't do it right and at this point I just want you don't need a snowpocalypse no we don't need it but I do want to see the environment like do something else like

like just just do something else and then it would give me a reason to be like oh I can't go do anything like for a different reason That would be great.

The docket's clear.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.

our thanks to our friend jean gray for joining us this week you can find her on twitter at jean greasy and on bandcamp at jeangray.bandcamp.com j-e-a-n-g-r-a-e dot bandcamp.com.

Jean has some holiday EPs up on Bandcamp right now, including one called, with her husband Quelly Chris, called Merry Pocalypse.

Outfitting.

That's fun.

And there's all kinds of other stuff that she's created up there, including

the adulting trilogy, right?

Yeah, check out

all the that's not how you do that, which does include the song.

You're not going to win the lottery.

Our producer is the ever-capable Jennifer Marmer.

You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets, hashtag jjho.

And check out the maximum fund subreddit to discuss this episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJHO or email Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

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

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