The Shears Club

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week to clear the docket.

And with me, as always, is the

judgist with the mostest.

Judge John Hodgman.

The judgest with the mudgest.

Yeah, well, you know, either way, we could have gone judge

with the judges, the judge with the most.

Judge John Judgment is the most common mispronunciation of the

admittedly hard to pronounce show title.

With us as all Judge Judgman.

My friend Houseman, Judge John Hodgman.

Hello, my friend Bailiff Chessey Thorne.

We are, as usual, talking to each other through the miracle of technology.

Very socially distanced across an entire continent.

You are in Los Angeles.

This time, I am in the state of Maine,

broadcasting to you from

the sanitized studios of WERU in Orland, Maine.

That's 889.9 in Blue Hill, 99.9 in Bangor, and all over the world at WERU.org.

Across the glass from me is our friend, summertime producer Joel Mann.

Hey, Judge.

Yep, Joel.

Okay, easy, Joel.

Don't talk.

You know, catch your breath for a second.

Don't bring out your signature catchphrase, yup, already.

Got to save it for a key time.

Joel, are you this, you're the program director here?

Program and operations.

Program

P and Ops.

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

That's why we're calling pops.

That's why we call them pops.

But I'm going to tell you, Jesse,

we just slated.

using a website

to coordinate our time across this continent to make sure that Jennifer Marmor,

our super producer, can

mix our dulcet tones together in the proper order.

And so we slate according to time,

this website that gives us the correct time.

And this website is telling me my clock is 0.4 seconds behind.

Devastating news.

Jesse Thorne,

what other injustices besides my clock being 0.4 seconds slow can we resolve here?

We can do our small part to resolve some small injustice here.

What do we got on the docket?

Here's something from Jessica.

She says, My husband is obsessed with electric vehicles and free charging.

We recently attempted to go camping only to find out the campsite had been temporarily closed.

Instead of staying at a motel, we spent the night in an empty hospital parking lot because there was a free charger for our car.

My husband also refuses to run the dry cycle on the dishwasher in order to save energy.

We dream of building or buying a home soon, but while I look at school districts, he needs solar roofs or ICF builds.

I don't know what an ICF build is.

You keep reading, I'll look it up.

I seek an order that we use a gas vehicle on trips that are longer than 10 hours, so charging stations are not the main factor in our planning.

I would also like to use the dry cycle or have him towel dry all the dishes.

dishes.

So an ICF building is a building that is constructed out of ICFs, insulated concrete forms.

I thought it stood for ice cream foams.

That would have been delicious.

Yeah, you bet you've you have molecular gastronomy on the brain.

This guy wanted to build his house out of ice cream foam.

White chocolate flavored, please.

No, it's blocks of polystyrene foam with space in between to pour a concrete wall.

So your concrete is a very...

It's like the MCDLT.

It keeps the hot hot and the cool cool.

Got it.

That's a very, very old reference

to a long-discontinued McDonald's sandwich.

Is it like Brill Cream?

Will a little dab do you?

Yeah, that's right.

If you can read this, you'd be home now.

You ever have a MCDLT, Joel?

No.

No.

All right.

Check it out.

Jason Alexander from Seinfeld, who you don't think of as a famous song and dance man.

Did the ad for the MCDLT in, I gotta say, 1986 or so.

It's on YouTube.

And it's all like song and dance, musical pattern, Music Man style from Jason Alexander,

as though he's come to town.

to sell this town on his new invention.

A styrofoam box that keeps the cold part of the burger cold and the hot part of the burger hot.

And just like in the music man, everyone's buying.

Anyway, let's talk about Jessica and her husband.

First of all, they should go back and listen to episode 443, Daylight Savings Crime.

Similar husband and wife, where the husband, in this case, Joshua, had put up some solar panels and became really, really into reducing their energy output and maybe being negative energy, like producing more energy than

they spent.

And also had a drying issue.

He didn't want to use the clothes dryer, so he wanted to dry all his clothes on a rack in the basement.

And we're like, go for it.

In this case, though, I'm concerned the husband might be, I think, turning your vacation into an impromptu hospital parking lot camp out is maybe going too far.

What do you think, Jesse?

Yeah,

I don't know if a hospital parking lot is where I would want to spend

any

voluntary overnight.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of where a ma like, what place with a free charger for a car would be more depressing.

I mean, like, honestly, if you gave me a choice between spending the night in a hospital parking lot and

spending the night in the parking lot of

a

gentleman's entertainment venue?

Uh-huh.

I think I might choose the latter.

Just like, okay, yeah.

From the scale of sad places to sleep

that are packed with Tesla chargers, a gentleman's nightclub.

Well, I live in Los Angeles, John.

That's true.

I don't know.

I don't know what it's like.

I've never been.

Where do you think Robert Downey Jr.

is spending the night?

How dare you?

You're talking about Tony Stark, inventor of time travel.

Also, Dr.

Doolittle.

What if Robert Tony Jr.

loves this podcast and now he's sad?

Oh, well.

Sorry, RTJ.

You're a very talented man.

Yeah, I mean, I think Jessica's husband's heart is in the right place.

But

that's a bad outcome for what was going to be a fun camping trip.

They should have just charged up and gone home, I think, or else they couldn't have.

So Jessica wants that I order, that they use a gas vehicle on trips that are longer than 10 hours.

I don't know if Jessica's husband's going to be okay with that.

And I applaud the fact that he is being thrifty and conservation-minded.

I think what's lacking here is a certain amount of planning.

You should find out if that campsite's going to be open before you drive your...

your spark or whatever and get stuck in a hospital parking lot all night.

And one of the things that I've learned during the time of COVID-19,

it's a real, I don't know if you've noticed this, Jesse, but like there is zero information online

about when and what is open that is trustworthy.

You have to, you have to go back in time and call places and say,

do I need a prescription in order to get a COVID test at your clinic?

Or is your campsite going to be open?

And similarly,

you know,

Jessica and her husband could go farther than 10 hours with just a little advance planning about where the charging stations are so you don't get stuck in a parking lot.

I think this is a matter of planning as much as it is about conservation.

Now, as far as drying the dishes,

Jesse Thorne, do you have a dishwasher and an

electric dishwasher?

I do.

Not to brag, but it's portable, baby.

What are you talking about?

It's portable.

Well, my kitchen doesn't have a place to put a dishwasher.

It does have a place where the kitchen door would open,

but we decided to put a portable dishwasher there rather than ever open the kitchen door.

So

our dishwasher is of the type that is roughly the size of a built-in dishwasher, maybe a little smaller, but rolls around our kitchen on wheels and attaches with a hose to our kitchen faucet.

So you could take it with you on a camping trip, say, in a hospital parking lot if you need it.

Oh, we take it with us everywhere.

I mean, not just camping trips.

We're going downtown to the library, we take it with us because you never know when you're going to soil dishes.

Yeah, and also those books are dirty.

Oh, hose them down.

That's what I say.

Wow, a portable dishwasher.

Does it have a dryer cycle on it?

It does, yeah.

It has like both a speedy dry and like an Ecano dry, I think.

Yeah.

I mean,

our dishwasher is broken, and it's proved a little difficult to get it fixed because it's not a high priority for anyone right now

to come out and fix our dishwasher or for us to have a functioning dishwasher.

Because what I've learned and realized is it's not that hard to just wash your dishes as you go.

And it's rather simple to let them dry for a few minutes and then wipe off excess moisture and put them away.

So I would say that, again, Jessica's husband is being thoughtful and conservation-minded by not wasting the energy on that drying cycle, especially since in a lot of dishwashers,

it's not very effective and there's a lot of residue left over.

I have no problem with him, you know, running the dishwasher and then opening it and letting the dishes air dry by bringing out the racks or towel drying all the dishes and putting them away.

But I do think that it is his responsibility to make sure they're dry and to put them away because that's his thing.

I see no real, I mean,

in terms of his everyday practice, I see no real misdemeanor here other than poor planning.

I'm not going to find in favor of Jessica entirely.

With a little bit better planning, I think they can use their electric vehicle to go far and wide, especially when and if it is safer to do so.

But I do order her husband to drive the dishes.

And even then,

I'm not sure that justice has been served for the night that he made Jessica sleep in an electric vehicle in a hospital parking lot.

So I'm going to order as punishment, as damages, that Jessica's husband has to go spend the night alone in the car

in the only parking lot that I can think of that is more depressing and terrifying than a hospital parking lot.

She's going to spend the night alone in a car in the parking lot of an abandoned hospital.

Good luck sleeping, Jessica's husband.

Here's something from Jared.

My longtime girlfriend, Emma, uses regular office scissors to cut food instead of a knife.

This includes foods with layers and sauce, like pizza or sandwiches.

We have several perfectly good pizza cutters and knives.

I need you to make her stop because our scissors are gross.

I have to say, my first instinct here is that this is an extraordinary innovation.

Uh, yeah.

Do you keep scissors in your kitchen?

Do you have a pair of kitchen shears, Jesse?

I have kitchen shears and paper scissors in my kitchen.

And what do you use them for, respectively?

I use kitchen shears primarily for food-specific tasks like

cutting up a chicken.

Right.

I use the paper scissors for opening packaging and also just as a place to keep paper scissors that I need for household tasks.

Right, right.

You got that, it's that combo culinary office supply station in your

exactly.

Right.

That makes sense

in every kitchen.

Welcome to the Shears Club, Club, Jared.

Maybe you don't know what Emma is doing.

You say she's using regular office scissors, and I'm going to take you at your word.

But the use of scissors in the kitchen is not only tremendously common, but great.

You know what I like to use scissors for

is cutting up chives.

You know, just snip, snip, snip.

Right over a plate of scrambled eggs.

And as far as your thing about pizza going, first of all, I have two issues.

One,

you say we have several perfectly good pizza cutters.

That's a lie.

You may have several, but the reason you do is none of them is very good.

You ever use a roller pizza cutter, Jesse, like they have in the pizza shop in the pizza pie parlor in New York City, for example?

Yeah, but you know what?

I recently watched a YouTube video by a friend of Max Fun Adam Ragusia, who's become a big YouTube cooking star.

And

on merit, he's wonderful at it.

And

Adam has a special way of making pizza that he does.

And then at the end, he says, don't bother with the roller thing.

It's annoying.

Just use a knife.

And I used a knife and I was like, yeah, this is great.

Yeah.

It's the,

the roller things are

a great way to make the crust flat and to not cut cut the pizza all the way through.

Anyone who's ever gotten a pizza pie

delivered to your door or

from a takeout situation, you get it home,

you got to recut all those slices because those roller things are bad.

Perfectly good.

You don't have a single perfectly good pizza cutter, I tell you, Jared, except for one thing.

One tool.

Scissors.

Now, I agree with you, Jared, that Emma should have dedicated culinary scissors.

We're calling them kitchen shears.

You don't need any special equipment.

A good pair of scissors is fine.

Kitchen shears offer you a little extra heft in the handle department, I guess.

But you don't want to be mixing, cross-contaminating your kitchen scissors with your opening of packages.

Separate scissors.

But one thing I saw,

the very last day we we were allowed to travel, just as I was leaving the city of Venice, Italy.

Now, Venice is not known for its pizza.

In fact, in general, its food is considered to be fairly pedestrian compared to the rest of Italy.

But they have it there.

And I walked by a big pizza parlor, and there's women, there are all these pizzas, and there are these women just cutting them up with shears.

I was so excited, I dropped my jaw right into a canal.

It's incredible.

You know what else they also had that was good in Venice, Jesse?

What's that?

A chain restaurant.

It was like somebody's dream, somebody's shark tank dream to launch a new fast food restaurant where they boiled fresh pasta on demand and then served it in a cup.

with your choice of sauces.

And it was pretty good.

I have to say the pasta was, you know, fresh pasta is great.

The sauces are pretty good.

The best part about it was the name of the place,

past food.

Yeah, that rules.

Past food.

Oh, well, anyway, Jared, yeah.

Scissors are great.

What else can you use scissors for in the kitchen, Jesse?

I mean,

haircuts.

Yeah, that's right.

I completely forgot about haircuts.

The final step in the traditional making of a table-side Caesar salad.

That's how they do it at the Dal Ray here in Southern California.

Yeah, that's right.

The owner of the restaurant comes out and gives it a little haircut.

Yep, takes a big wooden bowl, rubs it all over with a fresh-cut garlic clove.

The other thing is it's important to squish the anchovy with a mortar and pestle.

Yeah, you got to mortal and pest the anchovy.

You got to put in a raw egg, fresh black pepper, freshly grated parmesan cheese.

I think that's in a Caesar salad.

Let's say it is.

Yeah.

Then all the waiters come around.

They sing, snip, snip, snip, snip.

And I don't remember, Jesse, who gets the haircut?

The youngest person at the table.

The youngest person at the table.

They sit back in their chair.

And it's like getting your hair washed at the hairdresser.

But instead of putting your head over the sink, it tilts back into the bowl, the salad bowl.

And you just get a little haircut snip, a little, a little bowl cut.

It's called this is the origin of the bowl cut.

Did you know that?

That's where the term comes from.

Oh, I did not know that, but I can see it.

They're also at the Delray famous for their pepper steak.

What's the pepper steak at the Delray Steakhouse?

It's a steak.

It's a ribeye.

Yeah.

Nicely, a prime steak, nicely marbled and aged.

Then they cover it in pepper

and a little bit of arm hair.

Which is the one that has the leg shavings?

The leg hair shavings?

Oh, that's the Clam's Casino.

Oh,

gross.

This is really gross.

I don't want to talk about this anymore.

Believe it or not,

when I came up with arm hair, I had an even grosser specific in mind.

I bet you did.

But there are children listening.

So we'll just say butt hair.

You're welcome, parents.

Enjoy the rest of your drive.

Let's take a quick break.

More items on the tacit 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 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.

And I agree with them.

And it goes so well with my Quince overshirts that I'm wearing right now, my beautiful cotton Piquet overshirts and all the other stuff that I've gotten from Quince.

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John, you know what I got from Quince?

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And I also got a merino wool polo shirt.

Oh, it's like a it's like a mid-gray.

Looks good underneath anything, perfect for traveling because with merino wool, it like, it basically rejects your stink.

You know what I mean?

It's a stink-rejecting technology, John.

It says, get thee behind me, stink.

Yeah, exactly.

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

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know that most of the dishes served at Tom Clicchio's craft restaurant are made in, made in pots and pans?

It's true.

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We're both big fans of the carbon steel.

I have a little carbon steel skillet.

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And I know that she can, you know, she can heat that thing up hot if she wants to use it hot.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Hey, everybody, it's your judge, John Hodgman.

Recently, we had a great docket episode with the incredible Trevell Anderson as guest bailiff,

co-host of the great Maximum Fun podcast, Fantai, which you should take a listen to.

But it was a podcast that prompted some letters.

We often get some.

But we did get a few letters around one particular case.

This was between Andrea and her husband, Shane.

Shane likes to tickle Andrea.

Andrea doesn't like it.

And even when she tells him to not do it, he tries to still do it.

And Trevell and I both endeavored to make very clear that this was not okay.

That, as with any question of touching another person's body, full and complete consent should be sought.

And if it is not given, or if you are told to stop tickling someone, stop it.

Stop it, Shane.

We had a lot of conversation around that very serious message, but more than a few listeners felt that that message got a little lost in the conversation.

So, just

in thanks to the listeners who wrote in and to honor their concern, I just wanted to reiterate that.

Shane, stop tickling Andrea.

Don't touch another person's body without consent.

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

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We are clearing the docket this week.

Jesse,

have you ever been in an abandoned hospital or

research facility?

No, I can't say I have.

I have been.

I have been because acting sometimes happens in them.

Sure.

And

I'm the star of the Tina Faye movie Baby Mama.

Yeah.

And we did a long, a long sequence

in which Amy Poehler supposedly is giving birth, and we had to go, you know,

three hours out of town to find an abandoned hospital to shoot this thing.

And it was the most terrifying day of my life wandering around these empty surgical operating theaters.

But then on

the beloved and late and lamented the tick,

we worked in 2018, Griffin Newman and I and Peter Sarafinowitz, we all did a bunch of days at an abandoned, I think it was an abandoned Pfizer lab.

And it was just the floors and floors of empty laboratories with the most bizarre signage on the creepiest doors.

So there would just be this deadpan sign

that just would say cold room.

And then there would be a sign.

I just took so many pictures when I was there and I just found them in my phone thinking of this.

There's a sign where it's just this panel

and there are one, two, two, three, four, five options.

Each one has

an emergency light that could be illuminated.

And the options were

alarm,

audible silence, audible silence.

That was an alarm.

Supervisory means nothing.

And then security.

But none of those were illuminated.

Do you know which one was illuminated?

What was illuminated, John?

It just said trouble.

Right here in River City?

Yeah, right here in River City.

That's why you need this MC DLT.

How did they spell trouble?

Was it all lowercase?

No, it starts with a capital T, and that rhymes with P.

And that stands for proceed.

So David asks, which side of the road is the proper side to walk on when there's no sidewalk?

I live in Altadena, California.

It's a quasi-rural suburban part of Los Angeles where there are almost no sidewalks.

I was taught as a child that if you're walking in the road you walk against traffic on the left-hand side so that you can see the cars coming at you.

I notice almost everyone else around walks with the traffic on the right side of the road.

The issue now is staying six feet apart from people.

If I'm walking on the left side and someone's walking towards me, who should cross the street to maintain distance?

I just became a father, so I'm pushing a stroller.

It doesn't feel safe to push the stroller back and forth across the street.

Should I abandon my childhood training and just walk with the traffic?

First of all, John, before you get into the answer to this, I just want to give a shout-out to Altadena, California.

One of my kids goes to elementary school in Altadena, California, or does when elementary schools exist.

And I just want to give a shout-out to a couple of my favorite Altadena, California businesses: Woollima Hat Company and McGinty's Gallery at the end of the world.

That's just for my Altadena people.

What is the hat company called?

Woolley, the hat company?

Wollima.

It's run by my friend Cody Wolema.

W-E-L-L-E-M-A.

He makes hats.

That sounds awesome.

What kind of hats does he make?

Beautiful ones.

He's a real hatter.

Oh.

And then the other place, the gallery at the end of the world?

It's a combination antique store and art gallery, and it's run by my friend Ben.

They're on the same block right there in Altadena, California.

And how can you have a curbside brick and mortar store if they don't have any sidewalks in Altadena?

Is this personal?

This is a commercial, it's a commercial block.

So there are some, there are some, but the residential streets, he's, they're absolutely right.

And this was terrifying to me because, you know, my, my son's school has a curbside drop-off, but

you can only do that once your kid is, you know, in first grade, maybe, let's say.

So you have to walk your kindergartner in because otherwise they'll just space out and and wander away from the school.

Sure.

And parking in the neighborhood.

That's a kindergartner's job.

Space out and walk away.

And parking in the neighborhood and walking my son into his school

was to me, a city dweller who's used to the main streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles, absolutely terrifying.

Right.

To be in this

bucolic suburb

was horrifying to me.

Yeah, no.

I mean,

there are very few sidewalks here in Maine.

And

yet people do need to walk along them, these roads, to get to where they're going.

What is the rule of thumb in your growing up, Jesse,

in terms of walking in the road?

Right?

You just aim for the center, double yellow lines, and walk straight down that, right?

No, you can make kind of an S curve, like evasive maneuver style.

Oh, so you're swerving into the different lanes, keeping everybody on notice.

Got it, got it, got it.

That way, to avoid snipers.

Yeah.

My sincere experience is

while certainly I have heard the you should walk on the left-hand side to face the traffic or ride your bike on the left-hand side to face the traffic

from people who are excited to tell you about a counterintuitive thing.

Generally, my experience has been that people walk on the right-hand side.

That, Jesse,

it may just be a regional difference, but Joel Mann here in Maine, do you walk with traffic or against traffic?

I don't like to walk.

I know.

But let me put it this way.

When you're driving

and you see a pedestrian...

I honk my horn.

Yeah, okay, I know, I know.

But in which direction do you honk?

Straight ahead of you or off into the other lane?

I'll do it both ways.

What do you see out there in the roads, Joel?

Deer, moose.

Okay, that's enough.

Shut it down.

Shut it down.

Joel.

Yes, Judge.

What are the other community-supported free-form radio stations in this area?

Or is this the only one?

Stephen King has one.

That's pretty.

Stephen King has a radio station?

Yeah, yeah, it does.

Maybe a couple.

Yeah.

Yeah, broadcast from the basement of an abandoned hospital on.

A couple radio stations, like James Brown in the 70s.

Yeah, he has a sports station, an alternative station, and a classic rock station.

No nightmare creature station?

Does the classic rock station only play songs by the Rock Bottom Remainders, the cover band that he has with all of his author friends?

No, no.

No.

You know, John, my late friend and mentor, Kathy Kamen-Goldmark, founded that band.

Really?

Yeah, and I got to meet Amy Tan and Dave Berry and many of the other members of that novelty band that played at book conventions for charity, featuring lots of famous authors and my friend Kathy Kamen-Goldmark.

That's right.

Dave Berry, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Ridley Pearson, Scott Toureaux, Mitch Album, Roy Blunt Jr., Barbara King Solver,

and honorary member Maya Angelou.

Yeah.

Maya Angelou was homies with my friend Kathy, and she said, Kathy told me this really great Maya Angelou story one time, which was Maya Angelou was calling in to one of those psychic hotlines.

This is in the 90s when psychic hotlines were really big.

I hope I'm not besmirching the memory of the great Maya Angelou by telling this story, but it's a good one.

So she would call into psychic hotlines all the time.

And Kathy was like, Maya, why are you like, you're an educated woman.

You know, you have 75 honorary doctorates.

Why are you calling into psychic hotlines?

And Maya Angelou said in her like Maya Angelou voice, like, well, Kathy,

she said, the first time I called,

they said to me before I'd introduced myself, I'd only said my problems.

Well, Maya, we think you have this situation.

And so I know that they're really psychic.

And Kathy said, do you think on the telephone there's anything distinctive about you, Maya Angelou?

You think all those call-in psychics were tuned into Maya Angelou's voice?

I think so.

After she did the inauguration for Bill Clinton and everything.

But Amy Tan in the Rock Bottom Remainders would dress up in full leather with like thigh-high boots and do these boots are made for walking with a whip.

Amy Tan was a cool lady.

Is a cool lady.

Yeah, absolutely.

They played their last concert in 2012 at the Animal Conference of the American Library Association.

And they also did a gig on the Late late, late show with Craig Ferguson.

The Rock Bottom Remainders.

Stephen King said there's an audience out there and the key is to kick it in the,

well,

this is a family non-averse podcast.

So I'll say, there's an audience out there and the key is to kick it in the butt hair.

I'll tell you, I have one other rock bottom remainders anecdote, which is that's family friendly.

I had no idea what door this was going to open in your mind.

I'm excited to see what is falling out of the hall closet of your mind at this moment.

Go.

But this is very family friendly.

So Kathy was romantically involved with Sam Berry, who also worked on the radio show that I worked on with both of them.

And Sam is Dave Berry's brother.

He was a really lovely man and a minister, actually, a harmonica playing minister.

Yeah.

And

so Dave Berry would be around sometimes, either as a guest on the show or just because he was visiting his family and he was hanging out.

And if anyone like me, you know, spent the late 80s and early 90s reading Dave Berry books and wondering if anyone could be so pleasant and gentle a funny dad as Dave Berry appeared to be, the answer is yes.

Real life Dave Berry is just exactly like that.

He's just a really lovely, pleasant man.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, he's so sweet and such a, such a dad goof and just

everything you would hope he would be from Harry Anderson's iconic portrayal on Dave's World.

You know,

I'd do almost anything.

I'm looking forward to the time when there are concerts again.

I'd love to see these rock bond remainers play again.

But I guess the point I'm saying, like, Stephen King has radio stations, Joel.

That's correct, Judge.

With recording facilities?

I've never visited one of those.

I was going to say, why am I here when

I could be doing the night shift at W

KIT.

KIT, is that what it is?

That's just Rock, Classic Rock Station, yeah.

Oh.

King Industries Telecom?

Something like that.

He's very good to us, though.

We work with him.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

You guys,

it's like the two-party system up here.

There is no difference between them.

You're all one organization.

All the independent radio.

It's an independent radio mafia.

That's it.

I can't get out of this situation.

There's nowhere else for me to go.

I'm locked in.

No, you couldn't go up there.

All right.

I guess I'm going to have to continue to record here.

Even though you were very unhelpful to me just then.

Just say what, you know what I'm asking you, Joel.

What side of the road do people walk on when they're walking down the road in Maine?

Against traffic or with traffic?

I'd say against.

Against traffic.

Yep.

Yep.

Or with it, one or the other.

Okay.

That's it.

All right.

Thanks.

Thanks a lot, Joel.

I would say that it is more com let me say this.

I agree with David that I was also brought up to believe that when you are walking on a sidewalkless road

for pleasure, exercise, or mere transportation from point A to B,

that you walk

against traffic, obviously far to the to the left of the road.

so that you will see cars and make way for them.

And they will see you.

And I think that that is the right way to do it.

I did not know in Altadina.

I don't know why they're doing this in Altadena.

And I think that it's a problem because there was one time

when my wife and I were walking on these main roads

and a car was coming and I crossed to the other side to get out of its way.

But my wife did the right thing and just moved off to the side of the road.

And the driver slowed down and yelled at both of us, pick a side.

So I think that that consistency is the critical issue here.

You don't want to be presenting a surprise to drivers.

And while I don't think walking on the right-hand side of the road with traffic is safer, in fact, I think it's less safe than walking against traffic, even though walking against traffic is scary.

It's all scary.

If it is the regional custom that people are walking on the right-hand side, I think you should

join that crew.

And I think, you know, don't wear headphones.

A car can't sneak up behind you.

Maybe mount a rearview mirror on your stroller.

I'm sure those exist.

Or mount a GoPro on your shoulder facing backwards that feeds directly to your phone that you mount.

I don't know.

Just make sure you've got your back covered.

And as to your social distancing question, David.

This will also solve the same problem.

If the custom is to walk on the right-hand side,

you walk with the flow and people won't be coming towards you and you won't be having to get out of their way.

Anyway, you slice it, however.

It sounds terrifying.

Altadena sounds terrifying, Jesse.

Is it terrifying?

No, it's dope.

Shout out to Hughes Estate Sales, my man Todd Hughes.

Shout out to the Party Masters.

That's just a storefront that I see all the time.

I think there's no one worked there anymore, but it says that they have records and tapes, but I've never seen it open.

That sounds like a fun parking lot to spend the night in.

Heck yeah.

Let's kick it at Party Masters.

Party Masters sounds great.

Here's something from Kate.

I've started listening to the podcast Election Profit Makers.

Yay.

Shout out to David and Starley and all them.

And have joined the betting site they use, Predict It.

I'm considering betting on Trump.

and a small assortment of other Republican candidates, though I'm a Democrat.

My rationalization is this.

I work many hours volunteering for Democratic campaigns in groups like Fairfight 2020.

We contribute many dollars to these causes as well.

If Biden loses the election, I'll be devastated beyond words.

I want just a small silver lining.

My husband thinks this is a terrible idea.

He says, I'm betting against everything good and right.

Any winnings would be dirty money.

He also thinks it's a jinx.

Am I wrong here?

Should I put all my money where my mouth is and go full blue?

Hmm.

Yeah, so for those of you who don't know, Election Prophet Makers is a podcast that is made by our friends and colleagues, Starley Kine, David Rees, and David's old friend from Chapel Hill, John Kimball.

John Kimball

is

not only a guy who

socked away a nest egg squatting on domain names in the 90s.

True story, incredible.

Got to listen to the special election profit makers about the go-go days of registering homework.com, only to get a lot of money for it later.

But also, he's really into this website called Predictit.org, which is, you've probably read about it.

It's the kind of virtual stock market-like

betting or investment website.

where you are not investing in financial outcomes, but political outcomes.

So you might set up an account with 20 bucks and invest 20, you know, buy 20 shares of,

and a market might be, will Donald Trump be the next president?

And if you feel that that outcome is good, you could buy yes at whatever the market is selling that for with your $20 and buy X number of shares and then sell them later if the price goes up.

or dump them if the price goes down.

And Election Profit Makers is a great podcast about that.

It's a lot of fun.

I just just listened to an episode today.

I encourage you to check it out.

But it comes up quite a bit as to whether you are going to treat your portfolio as an analysis of people's shifting political fortunes, and you're making bets based on what you think are likely outcomes in order to make money

and have the pleasure of guessing correctly, or whether you're going to use it as they call it as a wishing well.

Like, I really don't want this person to be the next governor, so I'm going to put all of my money in no and hope that that outcome will happen.

Both approaches are fine.

I mean, it's your money.

And I appreciate,

I mean, I get why Kate's husband feels hinky

about

investing in

a presidential candidate that he does not want to win.

It feels like a vote.

It feels like you're rooting for a side you dislike.

But I disagree with Kate's husband in the magical thinking that somehow the way Kate invests her money in this hobby stock market is going to affect the outcome in any way.

I went back, I was thinking about this lately.

Like, I always knew that I was going to vote for Barack Obama,

both before and after the primary.

I was never going to vote for John McCain in 2008 for all kinds of reasons, because of my core values.

And yet, you know, I joined with a lot of Americans in feeling that

aside from some very, very serious policy discussion.

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.

It 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 London.

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.

Disputes and,

in my feeling, immoral choices that he made in terms of public policy.

I join with a lot of Americans feeling he seems like

he seems like an okay, cranky grandpa who could probably be uh an okay president

but then i realized i i that was not true because he was talking about how when he you know he had won the new hampshire primary in the year 2000 lost the uh the nomination to george w bush in 2008 he made a big point about carrying a lucky feather with him throughout the day

on the New Hampshire primary day

because that was the same lucky feather he had in his pocket when he won the primary before.

And I had a lot of problems with this.

One,

what's a lucky feather?

If you want a luck charm, a lucky coin,

a lucky rabbit's foot, kind of gross, but it's a thing.

No one is a lucky feather.

That's weird.

You see, a feather is like something you want to just flick off your fingers.

Two,

this world is not ruled by magic.

I don't want a president who believes, who is superstitious, who believes in magic.

This world is ruled by a much more terrifying and awesome power, which is chaos

barely shifting in certain broad directions over generations, not by incantations, but by hard work among groups of dedicated people.

Kate's betting on Donald Trump in the predicted fake stock market is not a jinx.

That's not going to affect anything.

And similarly, the winnings would not be cursed money because there's no such thing as a curse.

Kate's trying to protect herself emotionally if her candidate, Joe Biden, and I can say, though others on this podcast cannot state their political affiliations, I can say, personally, speaking only for myself, Joe Biden is my chosen candidate.

Surprise.

But if Joe Biden weren't to not win the election, it would be a small consolation to win 25 bucks off and predict it.

But at least Kate will know,

I made this bet to console myself early on.

But the most important thing

is that not only does Kate get to spend her money however she wants to spend it, Kate's husband, but also Kate's husband, the only thing that's going to jinx, quote unquote, the outcome of this election

is

you, Kate, all of us not doing everything we can

to work for the outcome that we want.

I mean, there's no magic.

to this fake, phony stock market.

There's no magic in this world.

There's only the effort that we put in.

That will affect the outcome.

Not Kate's phony bully investment.

I rule in favor of Kate, obviously, and just remind everyone

that as of this recording, we're some 95 plus days out from Election Day, which will happen on November 3rd, no matter what.

I guarantee it.

I'm going to make a bet.

I'm going to make a bet.

I'm predicted right now.

I'm going to win big.

Everyone's worried that it's going to be delayed.

It can't be.

It's not going to be delayed.

It's not going to be delayed.

There's no time to do the legislation.

Let's just keep doing the work as we go towards that day.

Work for your candidates.

Work for your issues.

Walk in the streets, masked and safely,

in protest of injustice and indecency.

Do the work.

Don't bother Kate about her fun secret investing portfolio.

Do the work.

Sorry, you know, I'm an NPR host.

I don't have any opinions about politics.

And also, I kind of spaced out I was betting $100,000 on the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the World Series.

It's going to come true.

I just want to have a little silver lining.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I do need to clarify that when I say

superstition is pointless and there's no magic in the world.

I meant specifically the world of politics.

In the world of sports, there's only magic.

Yeah,

absolutely.

I wouldn't be wearing this colorful magnetic necklace if it weren't true.

I mean, technically, that's science.

Yeah, I know that the Pittsburgh Penguins lost to the other hockey team on that one hockey game that I ever went to because I put on my Hartford Whalers hat.

I know that I caused that to happen.

I disappointed a stadium half full of Pittsburgh fans because I changed my hat.

I I know it.

So, yeah,

Kate's husband,

go bring your superstition where it counts.

Bring your spells and your curses and your hopes and your wishes and your jinxes over to sports.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll hear a case about grocery lists and an update from the litigants of episode 402, Double Histime.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week, and here is something from Dave.

My partner Kara and I take turns grocery shopping.

We use an app on our phones to update a shared grocery list.

It's a digital checklist where each line item has a checkbox next to it.

When you check the box, the line disappears.

Dave, I prefer to input my...

You don't need to explain it to me.

I use this thing too.

This is awesome.

Go.

I prefer to input my items one per line so that they can be checked off as they go in the cart.

Kara prefers to list multiple items on one line that pertain to a recipe.

A single line input of hers will read smoothie stuff, pineapple, kale, carrots, bananas, etc., and so on.

Who is using the checklist correctly?

Who's driving their partner insane when they pull up the shared list at the store and have to stand awkwardly by the money cheese island for 10 minutes, separating out all the recipe items into their own individual lines?

Dave, you're correct.

Cara, you're wrong.

That's easy.

Next question.

Yeah, that one's bananas.

That one's not just bananas.

It's pineapple, kale, carrots, bananas.

Look,

there is a way within, I know the app that you're talking about.

And I'm going to tell you right now, it's an Apple product.

And I'm happy to advertise for it or any Apple products.

For any reason, call me Apple.

I want to come back.

But you don't have to, you can create subheadings within that app.

And if I were you, I would show Kara how to do it or spend some time, as I might do,

reorganizing the whole list in order of where you're going to encounter this stuff in the store.

Just spend some time with the desktop version of the app to make sure to separate all that stuff out.

Because Kara's never going to change.

I can tell you, Kara's never going to change.

She thinks she's making a shopping list the old way.

This is the new way, Kara.

So we have something from Britton from episode 402, Double Histaminer.

This was an allergy-related case, as I recall.

A couple with some significant allergies.

Well, and Britain, I think, in particular, had some cat and avocado allergies.

The classic combo.

Yep, it's called Britain's Dyad.

Classically presents.

Allergic to both cats and avocados.

So what's going on with them?

Hi, Mr.

Judge and Mr.

Bailiff.

This is Britton

from the Double Histimener episode.

We just wanted to send an update to you guys because Jackson and I ended up adopting a puppy about a month ago.

His name is Archie.

He's named kind of ironically but mostly unironically after Riverdale star KJ Appa's rendition of Archie from the Archie comics.

He's a perfect little Australian cattle mix that can jump higher than Britain.

He would definitely eat a cat if one ever crossed his path and besides that my allergies have gotten exponentially worse

so we definitely won't be adopting a cat anytime soon.

Hope you all are doing well and staying safe with everything going on in this weird reality.

They've sent in some photographs of Archie, some adorable photographs of Archie.

What a beautiful pup and a real doofus.

She's got a real doofus face.

It's immensely charming to me.

I know it's not my job to laugh at animal pictures on this podcast, but this is a delight.

These will be on our Instagram at instagram.com/slash judgejohodgman.

Oh man, look at this guy.

Look at those beautiful eyes.

Okay, the docket's clear.

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

Our producer is 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 judgejohn Hodgman tweets, hashtag jjho, and check out the max fun subreddit to discuss this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash jjho, or you can email hodgman at maximumfun.org.

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

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