Office Supply Caper

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm guest bailiff David Reese, filling in for Jesse Thorne.

We are in chambers this week to clear the docket.

John, hello.

Hello.

It's me, David.

I know you're my friend, my pal, my bud.

Doubly blessed.

And we've got a lot of justice to dispense.

But first of all, I want to say thank you, David Reese, for dropping by to help me wade through all this injustice today.

Because I know you're busy over there on your own podcast, Election Profit Makers.

Extremely busy making profits off this election.

Starley Kine and John Kimball talking.

I'll say this.

I listen to only a couple of podcasts that touch on politics of the day.

Because it's a hard, there's a lot.

There's a lot going on.

Yep.

And sometimes you just want to listen to two guys talk about what food they ate or whatever.

But if you all have not checked out Election Profit Makers, check it out because Starley and John and David are having conversations about events of the day structured in a loose way around this website, predictic.org, where you can essentially buy stock in various political events happening or not happening.

But it is so funny and so cathartic and so great to hear you guys talk about whatever you're talking about.

And can I also say the skyline rating that's been going on is amazing.

I'll explain.

Please.

So, one of the co-hosts on Election Profit Makers is my friend from seventh grade.

He's not in seventh grade, but we met in seventh grade.

He's old like me now.

Right.

John Kimball.

And John Kimball is a huge fan of all kinds of data.

Especially, obviously, being from Chapel Hill, he's very interested in college basketball and infrastructure, modern urban infrastructure, and especially skylines.

And he's consistently re-ranking the world's great skylines, you know, sorted according to

population of metropolitan statistical area, sorted according to raw aesthetics.

And so he's always bringing in these crazy theories about skylines.

And I don't know if you've listened to this week's episode.

I don't know that I have.

You don't have to put this in your podcast, but it is an exclusive, so you might want to.

All right.

A teacher in Bali who listens to our podcast asked their class of third graders to rank the world's skylines.

Wow.

And sent us a pie chart of the results.

And John Hodgman, guess what the number two skyline was, according to these third graders in Indonesia?

All right, number two skyline.

Number two.

According to third graders.

The place you and I have been together.

Oh, okay.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Hartford, Connecticut.

No.

Yes.

How dare?

How dare they?

It was number two.

And John Kimball, when we were talking about these results on the podcast, John Kimball was like, you know what?

Hartford is a great skyline.

It's thick.

And I got disgusted.

You know what?

I've driven up I-91

many, many times in my life.

There is a certain Emerald City type majesty of all of those fairly tall buildings arising up out of the otherwise bland poppy fields of Connecticut surrounding it.

But let me tell you something.

I've been in that skyline.

We both have.

Right.

After 5 p.m., you know what makes that skyline so pristine?

Complete absence of human beings.

Right, exactly.

That's like the World Without Us skyline.

Yeah.

Remember that book, The World Without Us?

Oh, no, I haven't read that one.

Is that a book that you wrote?

It was a bestseller like 12 years ago, and people are talking about it now in reference to COVID.

It was basically a scientist was like, okay,

pretend all humans just disappeared off the face of the earth.

Firstly.

First of all, what a relief.

Right.

What would happen?

And then it's like, well, after four hours,

the New York City subway pumps are no longer pumping water, so all the streets start to collapse.

Oh.

After a year and a half, deer are living in the top floor of the CEO suites of Skyscrap.

It just goes through like, The World Without Us.

It's the perfect title.

Like, here's what would happen.

Yeah.

It's really wild.

All right.

I'd like to read that.

Recommended reading the David Reese Book Club, The World Without Us.

But do check out Election Profit Makers.

And there's another reason that I'm so excited that you're here, David, because you and I, I've discussed this with the listeners of Judge John Hodgman many a time.

You and I have been working on a secret project for going on 300 years now.

And

feels like it.

An animated project.

Animation takes a long time.

And we just learned very recently that our short-form animated show for the cable network FXX

is a go.

It's happening.

It's being released.

They're going to put it on TV and the internet.

That's right.

That's how it happens.

July the 9th, 2020.

7920.

Burn it in your brains.

The name of the show is not Cake, but that's what you want to look for.

Because Cake is the animated, short-form animated live-action comedy anthology show that our show is a part of

and then each episode of cake will be streaming on hulu the next day now what is the name of our show i cannot tell you it did not occur to me that when we named this show

I would never be able to mention the name of the show on Judge John Hodgman because we do not like to swear on the show.

And while the name of the show incorporates one of the, I would say lower tier swears, swear words, wouldn't you say, David?

Well, it's your show.

Right.

It's on the bubble.

Yeah, that's true.

It's on the bubble, the liminal space between polite and impolite language.

Yeah, that's right.

Also, by the way, a little stealth market for Bubble, the maximum fun sitcom.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

No, so here's the thing.

Our show is a detective show.

It's about detectives.

So you can do a little detective work if you want.

Here are your clues.

The title is lifted from a lyric

in a They Might Be Giants song called Can't Keep Johnny Down.

By the way, surprise me that TMBG would use this phrase in one of their songs.

Are they not dirty?

They tend to be pretty clean.

All right.

And when you're listening to all your They Might Be Giants songs,

this one is called Can't Keep Johnny Down.

It has the exact word that is the title of our show in it somewhere.

Also, take a listen to Your Racist Friend by They Might Be Giants.

Good to listen to right now.

Two, clue two, David.

Are you ready?

Hit me with the second clue, investigator.

The one word, or I should say compound word, but the one word title of the show is the nickname of the fictional town in North Carolina in which the show is set.

And that fictional town in North Carolina is, David Reese.

Richardsville, North Carolina.

Richardsville, North Carolina.

By now, the seventh graders listening in the car have probably already guessed what it is, while the parents are scratching their heads wondering.

And the third clue is that the title of the show incorporates

slang for a private detective because in the show,

I play

John Hunchman, a private detective, who in Richardsville, North Carolina, was once the most regionally famous boy detective in town, solving all kinds of crimes for middle schoolers, solving all kinds of mysteries.

For classmates, solving mysteries for classmates.

Solving all kinds of mysteries for my classmates, like maybe like a young adult series of novels you might have read that Chunko also unnamed for legal reasons.

And now I am in my 40s and still living in this town, but I have failed to thrive and I'm solving crimes for teenagers still, and it's embarrassing.

And David Reese plays David Purifoy,

my character's former high school bully and arch enemy, who is now my partner, driver, unlikely ally, and I dare say, friend.

I would dare say only friend.

You are my only friend in the show,

except for my dad.

Your dad is also.

Your dad is my friend.

Voiced by the great Stephen Tobolovsky.

Yeah,

he was incredible.

He was.

This show was so much fun to make with you, David.

It really was a lot of fun.

It was fun to write the scripts.

It was fun to review the animation and the designs of the characters and the backgrounds.

And it was fun.

It was fun for me growing up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to try to sneak in little references, little local references into the place names and business names and character names of our show.

Well, right.

Stephen Tobolovsky's character, the character of my dad, is based on your friend John Kimball's dad.

Based on John Kimball of Election Profit Makers, aka the skyline, Svengali.

It was based on his dad.

Yes.

And we also have other incredible voices on it.

One of our favorite guest bailiffs, Gene Gray, is in the first episode.

This one that's coming out July 9th on Cake, on FXX.

Gene is in the first episode along with Zach Galifanakis, who

plays an alt-right guy with diarrhea.

It's a pretty good episode.

Plus, Kristen Shaw, Paul F.

Tompkins, Janie Haddad Tompkins,

Obey Janice, so many great, great voice actors.

Glazer,

John Glazer, John Benjamin, Archer himself.

So in any case, it was really, really fun to record all these friends, to work with my friend David Reese, to make this thing over a period of years.

You know what, David?

There was only one part that was not fun.

Oh, this is a little mystery for me to solve.

Give me a clue.

I'll see if I can solve it.

The one part that was not fun to make.

It has to do with the date July 9th.

7, 9, 20.

It's not a numerology issue.

Oh, it's not?

Okay.

I'll give up.

I'll tell you.

Tell me.

The one unfun part of this

was working with you over the past couple of years and contemplating the fact

that when this thing comes out, there's so much television and

there's so much now going on in the world, more than we could even possibly imagine,

that

no matter how long a lead time we had to let people know about this,

no one would watch.

Even the Judge Sean Hodgman Hodgman listeners and the Election Prophet Maker listeners

would not remember to watch.

Then I would contemplate that and I would be like, this is all for nothing.

You don't think all this stuff will be wrapped up by July 9th?

No, I do not think it will be.

So that is why I beg your indulgence, dear listeners of Judge John Hodgman.

And invited my friend David Reese, who also, by the way, is

a person of profound moral compass and will add a lot to this docket as as we separate justice from injustice coming up.

But that is why we've taken all of this time

to say to you, please check out the show that has too salty a name to name on Judge John Hodgman by tuning in to FXX.

If you're a subscriber at 10 p.m.

on July 9th, it's part of Cake.

Or check it out on Hulu the next day.

Salty titled David Rees and John Hodgman Project.

I would say

you could also come over to my podcast, Election Profit Makers.

I'll tell you the title in two seconds.

That's right.

You just say it over and over again.

I don't think kids listen to our podcast.

That's the surest way to solve the mystery that we have laid for you.

Follow the Red Cross

and

our podcast.

The third act of each episode is just me repeating the name over and over again.

I know everyone's got a lot on their plates.

And the number one message of the Judge John Hodgman podcast these days is don't add burdens to other people if you can help it.

But we we did not get a lot of time, we did not get a lot of advanced notice as to when this was gonna come out, and now we know.

So now you know, and let's move on.

Let's clear the docket.

Let's do this justice.

Are you ready, John?

Yes, please.

Have something from Joe here.

He says, My husband of more than 30 years has placed our marriage in jeopardy.

He picks through the large bag of chocolates from Costco to get the ones he wants at that moment.

Like most of us, he enjoys all the flavors inside, but he has changeable favorites.

This This has included, for example, his eating all the sea salt soiree in one sitting, leaving none of that flavor for anybody else.

Please order him to blindly choose and happily accept any and all flavor grabs at random.

Leaving one's spouse sea salt soiree less, repeatedly, is akin to alienation of affection.

Darius, you ever go to Costco?

I don't get over there.

But I could only guess that

when you're talking about a large bag of chocolates from Costco, we're talking about like a contractor's garbage bag size.

Yeah, you have to leave it out front of the house like a storage pod.

You have to go back into the house.

You walk into the bag and pick out the chocolates you want, and then you walk back into your house and eat them.

That's right.

You have a pod delivered to your house.

Choco pod, Costco Choco pod.

And Joe's husband goes in there and goes, sea salt soiree for me, sea salt soiree for me, not for thee.

What do you think, David Reese, about this idea of picking through the bag to get your favorite flavor and leaving none for your husband?

I think this is a good argument for holding a second bag.

What?

A double pod?

Well, if you're already going to Costco,

right?

I've been to Costco once or twice in my life.

Once I went

on a friend's membership,

and I just remember there,

I bought the biggest box of Sharpies.

I was so excited.

I felt like a millionaire.

I bought the,

it was like a 50, because you know how you leave pens all over the place and you can never find a pen and you're scrambling around like, wasn't there just a pen here?

Where did I put my Sharpie?

Right.

As soon as we got to Costco, I was thinking, this is, I'm going to buy so many Sharpies.

I will never have to look for a Sharpie.

And I walked out with a huge box of Sharpies that I feel this is like maybe 15 years ago.

I might still be using some of these Sharpies is incredible.

Wow.

They're like self-generating or self-propagating or something.

You're still sitting on the Costco horde of Sharps?

Something like that, yeah.

And my brother and his family are big, big Costco.

They're power users.

They go to Costco for everything.

Right.

How many Sharpies did you think you got in that pack?

Would you guess?

Ballpark.

Honestly, probably 20.

25.

I love Sharpies so much, too.

Well, I was

labeling a lot of envelopes at the time.

Yeah, that happened.

And that's perfect.

Sharpie is the best for labeling, write down an address on a manila envelope on a Sharpie as just like,

oh, Office Depot, super model mode.

The pleasures of the textile world.

Do you know what I mean?

The tactile world.

Sorry, yeah, the tactile world.

Excuse me.

You're right.

All that stuff, all those feels and smells that we remember from seventh grade that aren't a part of our lives anymore.

The smell of a Sharpie.

What's your favorite color of a sharpie?

Black.

Right?

Okay.

But I recently got into the sparkle colors, the gold and the

silver.

And, well, what happened was, we don't really have to get into this, but

I got really into circuit bending a couple years ago, and colored Sharpies are a great way to mark up a circuit board for where the bend points are.

So it's like, you, you have like color-coded, like, okay, the leg of this resistor pairs well with, like,

this

other resistor over here.

I'm going to label both of those with this red sharpie so that when it comes time to solder the wires, I'll remember what to connect with what.

Because otherwise, you just lose track and it's overwhelming.

So, I love circuit bending,

you're taking old audio tech and guitar pedals to make weird, crazy sounds.

Yeah, like old Casio keyboards from the 80s, you open them up and you can rewire them to produce

like really, really, really crazy noises.

So, those

sparkle sharpies, let's say they come in a pack of 100.

Woo!

And let's say you and I go in on them together because we're on one of our adventures.

We're off to Hartford to check out the greatest skyline in the world.

One of our

Costco office supply capers.

Right.

Spotted Costco.

And you're like, you know, for my circuit bending, I need a certain style, I need a certain couple of sparkle sharpies, but they only come in a pack of 100.

Let's go over to that Costco and get them.

And I'm like, okay, I'll split the cost with you.

And then as soon as we get to the car, I'm like, hang on, David.

And I go in and pick out all the sparkle sharpies that you want.

And I'm like, these are mine.

This is my half.

How would you feel?

Annoyed.

I mean, I understand.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cheated.

Yeah.

Cheated.

That wasn't.

I would say, hold on, hold on one second.

I'll be right back.

And I would just run into Costco and get my own bag of Sharpies

and say, since I can't trust you.

Yeah.

To handle the equitable distribution of these goods that we've both invested in,

you leave me no choice but to come up with my own private supply

from which I will get high.

Private source.

Yeah.

I think that.

Also, sea salt soiree, I would be like, you can eat all those you want.

That doesn't sound good to me.

That sounds like eating

sea salt soiree.

It must be that type of chocolate that has big chunks of salt in it.

But what does soiree mean?

Party?

Yeah, soiree, an evening party.

Yeah, Yeah, because after you eat all that chocolate, you are not taking a nap.

You're going to be jumping up and down, dancing to an orchestra of the gazebo on the boardwalk of Ocean City, New Jersey.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

That's a soiree.

Yeah.

Second source is always when people have difficulty sharing, it is often, I think, my tendency to solve the problem by saying, just get your own bag.

Come on.

What do you, you know, you're going to Costco?

Was it two cents for 500-pound?

Yeah,

chocolate?

You know?

But I think there needs to be a punitive element to this because this has been going on for some time.

And let's face it, Joe's husband owes Joe some back chocolate.

So I would say this.

Next three 500-pound chocolate pods you get ordered to your house by Costco, Joe's husband does not get to pick any favorites.

Joe decides.

Joe picks out the chocolates for his husband

and he can do that with extreme prejudice.

Yeah, I like this.

You know what I mean?

Like this time, you only get the kale Dinay chocolate.

What's the worst chocolate in a bag of chocolates, David Reese?

I don't know because I don't eat a lot of chocolate.

I'm not really a chocolate person.

I guess just like.

Jennifer Marmor, do you have a thought?

What's the worst chocolate?

Nougat?

I like nougat,

but people don't.

I like nougat too.

Caramel.

I would get rid of all the caramel.

I think caramel tastes funky.

It tastes funky.

I don't care for caramel.

I don't like it at all.

I don't like caramel.

I like it.

You like it?

Okay, we got to get Jennifer Murmur on board with this one then.

It's fine.

What about a brandied cherry-type situation?

Absolutely not.

Oh, cherries and chocolate.

Crazy.

It drives me crazy.

And then you bite into it, and it has that goopy brandy.

You're saying that it's good, but it also doesn't.

It's so

the most mature

thing.

It makes you feel like

a PhD when you eat chocolating food comes out.

Yeah.

It's so fancy.

Dr.

Cherry Brandy is in the house.

Yes.

Yeah.

Terrence Cherry Brandy, cultural anthropologist at your service.

Look, Joe, you know your husband best.

You know what your husband dislikes.

Right.

Next three bags, that's all the chocolate that he gets.

And then thereafter, here's something to do to pass the time while you're staying safer at home.

Then, after that, the bag you get, sort out the chocolate, split them up by half equally.

Yep.

Or do some classic

Halloween evening horse trading.

But no, Joe, you can't be just going in there and grabbing whatever your fave is these days and hoarding it all to yourself.

It's uncool.

All right.

We got that solved.

I agree.

We got that solved.

Thank you, David.

All right.

Next one.

Let's move on.

Diane writes in to say, I read on a message board a suggestion to buy used books written by Tucker Carlson, Bill O'Reilly, and others, and then use the books as kindling for campfires.

My better half, Mark, thinks burning books is wrong.

He says that by taking them out of the supply chain, we're actually increasing the demand for them.

I believe that I am doing a good public service by shopping at local bookstores, removing the books from public rotation, and saving money on fire-starting tools.

I would like to be allowed to burn books written by right-wing n ⁇ s.

Whoa, whoa.

When I am camping with friends other than Mark.

Mark would like to have no books burned at all.

This is

heavy.

I have a very...

I have a feeling about this.

I mean, I just have a repulsion to the idea of burning books.

I'm with Mark.

What do you think, David Rees?

Well, it's so interesting because this week on Twitter, believe it or not, there was a controversy.

What?

And the controversy involved...

You're talking about the famous website where people get together to collaborate on fun jokes that lift everybody.

Chill out?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There was some, I mean, I did not follow this one closely.

It just flew by me, but it's enough for me to make an uninformed opinion about it in the spirit of Twitter, so I will summarize it as follows.

There was some article about quote-unquote decolonizing your bookshelf, you know, like making sure that the books you have in your home, it's not just a bunch of old white fuddy duddies.

Right.

And maybe like swapping out some of your old,

I don't know what the examples would be, you know,

swap out some of these old guys for writers who are not old white fuddy duddies.

Right.

And a conservative

columnist was like, here it is, book burning.

The book burning has begun.

And I was kind of like,

taking a book off your shelf or just squishing it up to make room for a new book, I don't think that's book burning.

It produces no heat.

There is no destruction.

You know, it is not an arresting image of intellectual contempt.

And John, you know this.

My dad was a librarian.

So obviously the issue of books or the burning of books is something that he has strong opinions about.

And I guess I do too.

I mean, look, look, I don't like Tucker Carlson.

By the way, if any listeners didn't know that this is where I stood,

here it comes.

Bill O'Reilly, I also have

no fondness for, and I think it's done more harm in the world than good.

But Bill O'Reilly,

you know, is an is in appropriate, I'm sure he's making a lot of money, but he's an appropriate cultural exile now

compared to Tucker Carlson, who has his old spot on Fox News.

Right.

Tucker Carlson is in his ascendancy.

Yeah.

And Tucker Carlson

is, I think, actively spreading horrific misinformation and frankly racist rhetoric that is harmful to lots and lots of people.

I think he's bad.

I don't think he's fake news.

I think he's bad news.

And one of the the things that disturbs me the most about Tucker Carlson is

I know someone who used to

sort of work adjacent to Tucker Carlson and knew Tucker Carlson somewhat.

And that person has said to me,

I don't know what happened.

Tucker Carlson was always conservative.

I didn't see eye to eye with him politically or in terms of policy.

But there was a conversation to be had with him.

but he has now transformed into a person that I don't recognize, particularly around the issues of anti-immigration and frankly racist dog whistle.

That was not part of his repertoire before.

So not only is Tucker Carlson causing, I believe, damage to our society, culture, and real people by espousing hateful views, in my opinion, and I'm right.

But also, I'm now met with the possibility that he is doing it all in bad faith, that it is not even a

conviction of his, that he has changed.

He has had some conversion experience that maybe he just became more racist naturally or he made a decision to push hard on that.

So that's gross.

So these guys are gross.

But even then, I feel like I don't want to burn their books.

That is such...

a symbol of right-wing, anti-intellectual, anti-free speech destruction that I don't want to have part of that.

That is not something.

That specific action in particular, I don't care for.

I have a question.

Do you think the iconography and the associations of literally burning books?

Like I picture

black and white photos of huge piles of books on fire in the early 20th century.

Do you think that's generational and that kids that spend most of their time reading do so on devices?

They just will not have the same visceral reaction to book burning that people of our generation will have.

Yeah.

I mean, you can't burn a TikTok.

Right.

So, I don't know.

I don't know whether they will have that visceral reaction, but I am, but that's why I am here,

elderly John Hodgman, speaking to all of the seventh graders who are listening right now.

If you and your friends are thinking of having a book burning party and putting on TikTok, let me, even if it's, even if it's Tucker Carlson's books, please don't do it.

That's going to, that is a highly charged visual that will live on the internet forever and will follow you for the rest of your lives.

Not if they wear black ski masks.

Oh, well, listen.

Now, I got to take Mark to task here because he doesn't know what he's talking about.

If they were buying new books by Tucker Carlson and Bill O'Reilly.

That was going to be my question exactly.

Yep.

Then yes, you could be juicing the demand for those books at those bookstores.

But Diane specifically said, buy used books by Tucker Carlson and Bill O'Reilly.

And here is what I would say:

used bookstores are amazing.

These are books that have been sold and are now out there in the world.

They're not going to generate

any further royalties to Tucker Carlson or Bill O'Reilly or whoever it is.

Purchasing those books from a used bookstore is a direct donation to that used bookstore, and

you will be taking those books off the shelves shelves of that bookstore and thus freeing someone who might be triggered by seeing them later on down the road.

You're taking those words out of the public conversation.

I would not burn them.

Just recycle them.

Just pulp them.

Turn them into new books.

Yeah.

Like the Bible says, beat your swords into plowshares.

Yeah, recycle them.

Let that paper be turned into

pages on which a new and better normal can be written, which we're all working together to do.

That's what I would do with it.

I think that's a much better symbol.

And by the way, Diane, where are you going camping?

What are you doing right now going camping?

Also, taking a bunch of books in your backpack to burn at the campsite, it's like you're at...

I imagine her going around town to all these used bookstores being like, yep, I'll take one killing of Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly.

And if you have...

Tucker Carlson, I'll just buy out your Tucker Carlson.

She has this huge backpack full of these hardcover books, these dumb airport books, lugging them along.

Her friends are like, what's in your backpack?

She's like, just wait, just wait.

It'll be worth it when we get to the campfire.

Then they get to the campfire and they're eating and they're making their smort and then Diane is like, well,

huge backpack hits the ground.

Now we're really going to have some fun.

We're going to burn all these books.

People will be like,

I mean, that's the thing.

Like, if your goal in life.

As it is my goal, is to do nothing that makes Tucker Carlson or Bill O'Reilly happy.

Don't burn their books.

They would love

for that footage to leak.

They would.

Antifa mastermind, Diane, leads deep wood sleeper cell and book burning.

Fascism is here, ladies and gentlemen.

You can read about it in my new book, The Dirty Secrets of Diane.

Make a donation to your used bookstore.

Take their words out of the thought stream

and recycle those books.

That's what you do.

Solved it.

Heavy one.

That was a heavy one.

And kids don't burn books on TikTok, no matter who they're by.

It's just bad luck.

It's bad luck.

Let's take a quick break.

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

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The brace short ribs, made in, made in.

The Rohan Duck Riders of Rohan, Made In, Made in.

That heritage pork chop that you love so much, you got it.

It was made in, made in.

But Made In isn't just for professional chefs.

It's for home cooks too.

And even some of your favorite celebratory dishes can be amplified with made-in cookware.

It's the stuff that professional chefs use, but because it is sold directly to you, it's a lot more affordable

than some of the other high-end brands.

We're both big fans of the carbon steel.

I have a little

carbon steel skillet that my mother-in-law loves to use because cast iron is too heavy for her, but she wants that non-stick.

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

She can use it to braise if she wants to use it to braise.

It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

And it will last a long time.

And whether it's griddles or pots and pans or knives or glassware or tableware, I mean, you know, Jesse, I'm sad to be leaving Maine soon, but I am very, very happy to be getting back to my beloved made-in entree bowls.

All of it is incredibly solid, beautiful, functional, and as you point out, a lot more affordable because they sell it directly to you.

If you want to take your cooking to the next level, remember what so many great dishes on menus all around the world have have in common.

They're made in, made in.

For full details, visit madeincookware.com.

That's m-a-d-e-i-n cookware.com.

Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm guest bailiff David Reese filling in for Jesse Thorne, and this week we are clearing the docket.

All right.

You ready for another one?

I'm ready for another helping of injustice.

Here comes another helping.

Rayner says, Dear Judge Hodgman, we often find in our house that ice cream straight from the freezer is rock solid and thereby difficult to scoop.

I approach this.

This one's too real already.

It's too real for me.

Tell me why.

Because I know what this feels like.

I mean, I don't eat a lot of ice cream anymore, but if you had one of those big things that Edie's ice cream, you could like snap the spoon in half when you try to get into it, you know?

Well, I was going to say congratulations to Rayner on having a freezer that actually keeps the ice cream hard.

Because

we have one now, but we've definitely

got high-quality refrigerators in our lives.

You know,

like brand name refrigerators.

You know,

not like off-brand

Frigidaine.

Or Whirlpool.

Like the real thing.

And they can't keep the ice cream hard.

This guy's got like a Nancy Pelosi-style freezer.

Yeah, this is classic Nancy Pelosi bait.

Listen to this, it gets better.

I just read ahead a little.

Okay, good.

So Raynor writes: I approach this issue with either a heated spoon, brute force, or some combination of both.

My wife Agnes, on the other hand, leaves the ice cream out on the countertop until it softens up enough to scoop with little resistance.

Melted and subsequently re-frozen ice cream obtains an undesirable texture.

Agnes is convinced that the benefits of scoopability outweigh any taste or texture-related damages.

I would like Agnes to adopt one of the following techniques.

A.

You go, Rayner.

Let's hear it.

The heated spoon,

B,

the brute force.

Brute force.

Or C, some new technique, please advise, that protects the sanctity of the ice cream texture.

Raynor is wrong on this.

I'm going to jump in.

Speak.

I love Agnes.

Agnes is living her life exactly how I would live my life.

You take the ice cream.

This is what you do.

You plan out your evening.

What time am I going to sit down and watch TV tonight?

And what time am I going to be done eating this entire bag of Trader Joe's peanuts?

So...

Don't forget your sea salt soires.

And my sea salt soirees.

And then I'm going to eat half this brick of sharp cheddar cheese, and then it'll be ice cream time when I'm like two or three episodes into my favorite show.

So given that, let's say ICT ice cream time is planning to hit around 11 p.m.

What time am I taking that ice cream out of the freezer?

Right.

And you know what I mean?

To just, as he said, until it can scoop with little resistance, until it's softened up enough to scoop with little resistance.

So poetic.

So you take it out ahead of time, let it find its balance with the room temperature,

get a little sludgy and soupy the way we like it.

I agree with Agnes.

Yeah, I do too.

Because Rayner, what Agnes is doing is not letting the ice cream melt.

She's letting it thaw.

It's a difference.

It's like decanting wine.

You have to let it breathe a little.

That's exactly so.

And also, there's something else I'm mad at Raynor about.

Please.

His argument against doing this,

against exercising a little forethought and doing a little menu planning by putting this ice cream out early.

Right.

He says, melted and subsequently refrozen ice cream obtains an undesirable texture.

Who has a leftover ice cream?

After that lid is off,

the great game is afoot.

If your argument is, I don't like it when my wife makes the ice cream warm because then when I go to eat it weeks later, it doesn't taste good.

It's like, you don't like ice cream if you're having leftovers of ice cream.

Yeah.

Right?

Right.

Come on, Raynor.

Get your head in the game.

Right.

Well, and it's a classic case of a person using pseudoscience to stand in for their own impatience.

Oh, it's such a type, and it happens all the time.

You're right.

Melted.

I don't have time to present my entire paper.

I'll just read you the abstract.

In our study, sample size n equals one, melted and subsequently refrozen ice cream obtains an undesirable texture

than a thousand footnotes.

Come on, man.

Right.

But he's, I mean, look, he's not wrong in the sense that if you let a pint of ice cream thoroughly come to room temperature and melt such that it is liquid, you can't go and refreeze it and expect it to taste right.

But thawing it, letting it get a little bit soft so you can scoop it,

we do it every night.

in our house.

I know a good ice cream texture when I see it, and it does not alter the texture in an undesirable way.

Please rule against Rayner.

Please rule against Rayner.

What Rayner is doing is he wants to avoid, right, the planning that you are talking about, because that's too much work for Raynor.

Rayner is impulsive.

He wants that ice cream.

He wants it right away.

Right.

You know what I mean?

It's too much work for Raynor to say, you know what?

Oh,

I think I'm going to have ice cream at, you know, whatever, 11.

It's 10.40.

I'm going to take it out in five minutes and then set an alarm to go get it and then put it back.

Doesn't want to take the care to take care of the ingredients.

He just wants to grab that ice cream out of that freezer.

And you know what I think Rayner really wants to do more than anything else?

What's that?

Heat up a spoon.

How did that pass without comment?

How are you heating up that spoon, Rayner?

Just got a requiem for a dream over here with this ice cream, Rayner.

Come on now.

And what drives me crazy about Rayner is that he

wants the spontaneity of just all of a sudden being like, eyes pop open.

I want ice cream right now.

But then, because he hasn't done the work, he's like, but the ice cream is hard because it just came out of the freezer.

And even when I heat my spoon or apply brute force,

It still doesn't work.

Judge, come up with a new way for me to eat ice cream that's soft as soon as it comes out of the freezer.

Like, who are you?

Judge ice cream?

Get out of here, Rayner.

You're banned from listening to the Judge Sean Hodgman Podcast.

I'm afraid Rayner's going to come for both of us with a hot spoon sometime.

What are you taking a...

You taking an ice cream scoop and holding it over an open gas flame?

Yeah.

No.

Agnes.

All in on Agnes on that one, Rayner.

Sorry.

All in on Agnes, queen.

of room temperature ice cream.

Not room temp.

FOD.

All right, fine.

You know what I used to do when I lived in Boston?

After a long night bending elbows with my friends at the Model Cafe

in Alston, one of my favorite bars of all time, I would then go to the 7-Eleven on Western Ave and buy a liter of 7-Up,

bring it back to our little apartment, and go into the little TV closet and open the 7-up and let it get completely flat.

And then drink it while I watched Kids in the Hall until 3 in the morning.

Why would you want flat up?

I mean, people like that.

But there's no bubbles and it's just the good stuff and none of the tingly stuff.

That was just a phase I was going through.

I thought of it when I was thinking about this ice cream thing, like letting it breathe, decanting it.

Yeah.

Also, by the way, you speak of Boston, and I'm just going to, I know we already ruled on this, but just

one more point to refute Rayner's point of view.

What's the number one ice cream place in Boston?

A town known for its ice cream?

A town?

I was going to say it's, whatchamacallit?

Harrell's, right?

I was going to say Toscanini's.

Oh, my gosh.

I forgot about them.

I mean, I love Steve Harrell.

I love Harrell's.

Right.

But, like, Toscanini's.

Anyway, you go into

any one of the palaces of ice cream that you find in New England.

Because New England, that's a region, by the way, in the northeastern part of the United States, David.

I'm not sure if you knew that.

Sort of southern.

No interest in it.

Yeah.

When you go into one of the ice cream palaces in New England, one of the high,

the upscale places, and you say, I'll have a vanilla cone, please.

And they scoop the ice cream for you.

What do you think?

Do you see them heating up their scoops?

They're getting in there.

They're opening the freezer, scooping it, putting it, and it's scoopable, right?

It's not so rock hard.

It's because their freezers are set to the proper temperature for ice cream to be held at a scoopable

colloidal state.

And because your freezer is doing too good a job, Agnes is correct to bring the temperature of the ice cream down that appropriate state.

It can stay in that state forever.

But you know what, John?

It's not even that.

And I know we have to let this case go, but it's

so under my skin right now.

This guy is driving me crazy because Rayner, go back and look at his initial submission was,

he says, the heated spoon.

He doesn't own an ice cream scooper.

Do you understand?

He's doing this with like a soup spoon.

That's why he's having to just buy an ice cream scooper, man.

An ice cream scooper is designed for this heavy-duty

cold

packed up ice cream scooping.

You can't go in there.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Yeah, forbidden.

All right.

Yeah.

All right.

We did.

All right.

Moving on.

We solved.

All right.

One more thing.

They don't call it hot stone creamery.

That's true.

Whoa, that's true.

Like when they're doing those.

Hot spoon creamery.

One thing that Steve Harrell pioneered back when the ice cream store was called Steve's and now called Harrell's in Northampton, Massachusetts, never forget,

is that is the mix-in.

When you're mushing your sea salt soiree chocolates into your ice cream, what do you think is happening?

Right.

It's thawed.

All right, let's move on.

You're aerating it also.

Okay.

Here's something from Alex.

My wife thinks it's weird that I flip past the first slice of bread in the loaf.

which is the end piece.

I think it's weird that she doesn't.

I think that the end piece acts as a sealant.

We got another scientist.

You have a lot of scientists listening to the show.

Oh, David Reese, you have no idea.

I think that the end piece acts as a sealant to keep the surface of the next piece from drying out.

Woo!

Now, David, before we get into this,

I happen to know that the Alex who wrote into us is someone from the MacLim Fun family of podcasts.

Okay.

All right.

Alex is the producer of Dr.

Game Show,

which is

an incredible podcast.

It comes out from Joe Firestone and Manolo Moreno.

It's an incredibly fun show where listeners make up game shows, and Joe and Manolo and the guest participants have to play the game shows.

Play the game shows.

It's great.

It's great.

And that said, Alex, you know,

as we discuss this, justice may still, may yet be harsh, even though I am your friend.

Because here's the thing.

I will say, David,

that Alex speaks to one of the great moral quandaries of the kitchen.

What about that end piece of bread?

Because no one wants.

Yep.

No one wants the heel of bread.

And yet, if you are like me and detest food waste in all forms,

you got to force yourself to eat it.

Right?

You can't.

Have you ever thrown away the heel of bread?

I'm going to tell you right now, I've done it from time to time.

I've taken it out, I've looked at it, and I'm just like, no one wants this.

Toss it.

I just want to make a sandwich here.

I don't need.

Right.

Yeah.

I don't need this extra.

I'm not a cobbler trying to make a new boot over here.

Right.

Right.

I want that slice right there behind that heel.

Yep.

Yep.

But it is, but it is, it's a, it's a, it's a hard.

You have to eat it.

I mean, you have to.

Wasting food is a sin.

Right.

And you have to,

especially now, you just have to eat everything.

We finally have permission to just eat everything.

Do your part.

Just eat everything.

Just eat everything.

Yeah.

So

I guess the question is, well, go ahead.

I didn't mean to cut you off.

Well, no, I mean.

Talking about it acting as a sealant.

I love it.

But I agree with him, but go ahead.

Go ahead.

Well, right.

we're, we're, we agree with you, Alex,

that that, that that heel of bread is undesirable.

I think where we take issue with you, Alex, is once again using pseudoscience to stand in for

basically your desire not to eat that hump of crust,

right?

Well

we actually need more information because

he doesn't make it clear.

I mean, I think, based on this correspondence from Alex,

I think Alex does what I do, which is

you slice into this new loaf of bread that you love so much and you're so stoked about eating.

And you have that heel, and you're like,

I can't deal with this yet.

Let me just keep moving this.

It's like a bookend, right?

And the heel, you just keep...

The loaf is getting shorter as you keep removing slices and that heel just keeps getting closer and closer to its mate on the other end of the loaf.

Right.

The whole time it's acting as a high-quality sealant.

It's keeping the rest of the loaf moist, right?

Which I agree with.

I do agree with that.

And I used to bake a lot of bread because I went to a hippie college.

And then finally, this is what happens.

You get to the end of the loaf.

All interior slices have been consumed.

And now you're left with two heels, right?

Two heels.

You make the heels.

And

you do the thing that stinks, but you got to do it, especially now.

You make a heel sandwich.

And you just have a heel on the top and a heel on the bottom.

And what you have to make sure, because I've eaten a lot of heel sandwiches, make sure this is an opportunity to make a really hearty sandwich.

Okay.

Because the heel, structurally, it can, it's a load-bearing piece of food, right?

Right.

I mean, this, and that's in part why it acts as such a great sealant.

Yeah.

It's so dense.

You can, this is when you can make a sandwich out of like gravel, right?

Or just bones.

Because this thing, these heels will stack up to anything.

This is not a tea sandwich situation.

This is not your cucumber sandwich where there's no crust.

This is actually the opposite of a cucumber sandwich.

This would make a British person's head explode.

Yeah, you put in some watercress and

a thin slice of lox in there.

The heel's going to overpower it.

You're just going to be munching bread.

Right.

You need to put like like about two pounds of high-quality meats and cheeses in there.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

And like, oh, you know what?

You know what it's like?

It's like a muffaletta.

You ever have a muffaletta in New Orleans?

Oh.

Basically, it's a whole loaf of bread.

Right.

Yeah.

But it's stuffed with high-quality meats and cheeses.

And then

a very specific

olive spread.

And it's

fantastic.

You make a muffaletta out of the heel.

heel.

But I'm going to, David, look,

I've not baked a lot of bread.

What I think Alex is talking about

is,

and even if you break baked bread, that heel is not going to, the heel will never protect your bread from drying out.

Only a plastic bag will do that.

Well, presumably, the

I don't think he's leaving the bread out on the counter with just the heel stuck up against it, attached with a rubber band, being like, what do we need a bread box for?

The heel's doing all the work.

I'm sure they're putting their bread in a bag or in a bread box.

He's just keeping that heel as an additional moisture reserve factor.

Okay, it's classic science, John.

Read any peer-reviewed journal.

It's in there.

I respectfully disagree.

Alex, we're actually finding in your favor here, I'm glad to say.

Because even though I find your argument that the NPC acts as a sealant,

your bread is going to be in a plastic bag anyway, particularly if it's pre-sliced.

You're buying it from a store.

If you're not making it yourself, I don't know what's going on in your house.

That end piece is not acting as a sealant.

You don't have to lie about why you don't want it.

It's perfectly fine to not want it.

And it is perfectly unweird

for you to flip by it until you get to the end and you make the David Reese heel sandwich.

And I am sorry that your wife has so heel-flip-shamed you to the point that you need to make up this fake science.

Just say,

beloved wife,

I'm just saving it for the heel sandwich at the end.

I'm going to make the heels.

Go heels.

That's a beautiful thing.

Go heels.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll hear a case about pencils.

What?

You're an expert on pencils.

Let's see how much I can remember from my glory days, my former career.

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 Law.

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 John Hodgman podcast.

This week we are clearing the docket.

Here's something.

Now, David, I'm going to interrupt you here.

I want to present this case to you rather than you.

All right, yeah, yeah.

This is to me.

Yeah, yeah.

Because listeners may not know that aside from Election Profit Makers, David's podcast with Starley Kine and John Kimball, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Aside from going deep with David Rees, the great two seasons of still available, incredible how-to show on TV about how to do things you think you know how to do, like tie your shoes and shake hands.

Incredible.

Watch that with your seventh grader.

Boy, that's so much fun.

And aside from his other cartooning and his circuit bending and all the work that David Reese has put out into the world, all of which is great.

He also...

was for a significant period of time a professional artisanal pencil sharpener, right, David?

Yep.

That started back in 2010.

It came out of my work with the U.S.

Census.

And you, people would send in their pencils and you would sharpen them for them and send them back.

And then you wrote a book called How to Sharpen Pencils, which sounds silly to some people's ear until they read the book and realize that A, it is literally about how to sharpen pencils, but B, more figuratively about the dangers of chasing absolute perfection in life.

Would that be fair to say?

That's very fair to say.

And you should know because you wrote the foreword to that book.

That's right.

We've been collaborating for a long time together, David.

And I tell you what, it's everything we've done together has been a pleasure, including...

The Too Salty for Judge John Hodgman named Animated Show debuting as part of the Cake Anthology series on FXX July 9th at 10 p.m.

and then streaming on Hulu thereafter.

Please, please, please check it out.

But this is a pencil-related dispute, so I'm going to present it to you because you're okay.

I like this.

I like this.

Roll reversal.

Here's something from Caleb.

This is a geometric philosophy dispute between my wife and me.

I think that a pencil has eight sides, but she says it is six sides.

My argument is that the so-called top and bottom of a pencil,

and I believe top meaning the eraser and bottom meaning the point of a pencil, also count as sides, geometrically speaking.

She says that the top and bottom don't count because only the sides are called sides.

She killed him with that one.

We moved the argument to how many sides a door has.

She says a door has two sides, the front and the back.

I say six because a door is a three-dimensional box.

I ask that you rule that I am at least technically correct.

Isn't that the subtext of every question a husband writes into you about?

It's like, Judge, we both know this is a bunch of BS, but just say I'm technically correct, right?

That I'm a little scientist.

Go get him, David Reese.

All right.

I rule in favor of his wife.

A pencil has six sides.

It doesn't have eight sides.

Because, okay.

This guy says he wants to talk about geometric philosophy.

Let's talk about Wittgenstein.

Let's talk about the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus, Logico-Philosophicus versus the Wittgenstein of the philosophical investigations.

Is the definition of a word some immutable Platonic ideal that in perfect conditions can describe the world perfectly, or is the definition of the word the way in which it is used in society, right?

Right.

He is trying to make a technical

definition of side such that any three-dimensional object, no matter how

narrow, like a pencil or a door, actually technically has this many sides.

You use that type of language in conversation.

You are deliberately obfuscating people's understanding so that you can feel clever.

And I know this because I study philosophy.

Like, that's the name of the game.

We invented this game, okay?

Right.

Go read the German idealists, okay?

See how many, see how many sides they think a pencil has, right?

So

as someone who has read and written extensively about pencils and has literally toured an American pencil factory.

Which one?

General Pencil in New Jersey.

Shout out to one of the last American-made number two pencils, the only pencil I use for my clients.

I'm in a rule with his wife.

A pencil has six sides.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm with you, David Reese.

I feel like now,

now, in these days more than ever,

we need to communicate clearly with each other.

And in these days more than ever, we need to not get on each other's nerves over nothing.

Yep, exactly.

On this issue, there's only one side.

How about that?

You could have like a harp.

You could have the sound of a harp play after that.

Sure.

Jennifer Marmert, do we have a harp?

Yeah, it's in my pantry with me.

Okay, good.

Cue the harp.

Woo, that sounded great.

Thank you, David.

Good suggestion.

Judge, do you know why most pencils have six sides?

I do not know why.

It's because of tessellation, because it is the most most efficient use of wood.

Pencil manufacturing is a game of margins, and they're constantly maximizing their resources under a lot of constraints.

And years and years ago, it was realized that if you are making a barrel-shaped object that can fit comfortably in the hand,

the way to pack the most pencil shafts into a single slat of wood is to make them hexagonal.

Hexagonal, meaning six-sided?

You got it.

And I'm going going to tell you something else.

This is something I discovered years ago, and I haven't had occasion to bring it up in casual conversation because I haven't had a casual conversation in years.

But

the iconic hexagonal six-sided barrel of a pencil shaft is mirrored on the molecular level by the hexagonal shape of graphite,

which is an allotrope of carbon.

And graphite composes a pencil's quote-unquote lead.

So when Caleb shows up talking about how a pencil has eight sides, I have to double down and insist it has six sides.

Because even at the molecular level,

the very stuff of life the pencil shaft contains, the graphite, is six-sided.

Don't dishonor graphite on my podcast, Caleb.

When you said, do you know why a pencil has six sides?

And I said, I do not know.

Do you know what it reminded me of?

What's that?

The scene in our Too Salty to Be Named on Judge John Hodgman Hodgman cartoon show

where one character asks the other one, do you happen to know,

what was the question?

I can't remember what it was.

It's the little blurp episode.

When your dad has become the manager of Richardsville's most famous SoundCloud Mumble Rapper.

Right.

And they're shooting a video in the abandoned mall and all the ocelots have gone missing.

And we are called in to find out what happened to the ocelots and who's sabotaging the video shoot.

And my character, John Hunchman, asks the mumble wrapper, do do you happen to know XYZ?

Oh, yeah.

What does the kid say?

He says, yo, I do not happen to know.

Lil Burp, famous mumble rapper.

Leave all that in, Jennifer Marmor.

That's a preview.

Spicy preview.

There you go.

There's a spicy preview of just some of the fun David Reese and I have in our new Too Salty to Be Named on Judge John Hodgman animated show,

premiering July the 9th, 10 p.m.

as part of the cake half hour of animated live-action short form haha available on Hulu streaming after that.

And,

you know,

I hope you get a chance to check it out.

And I hope if you like it, you tell a few people about it because we really enjoyed making it.

David Reese, thank you so much for

having me.

I'm a guest bailiff today.

Yeah, it's my pleasure.

And make sure that you listen to Election Profit Makers as well, wherever you get your podcast, because it's a a real delight.

It's a real delight every week.

All right, the docket is clear.

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

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Play that harp again, Jen.

Yeah.

Follow us on Twitter.

David Reese is at David underscore Reese on Twitter.

And there's those small letters with an underscore between David and Reese.

And Reese is spelled R-E-E-S.

No E on the end.

And I'm at Hodgman.

That's H-O-D-G-M-A-N.

No E in the middle.

Make sure you hashtag your JudgeJohn Hodgman social media posts.

Hashtag JJ H.

O.

Follow the show on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman and check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to discuss this episode at maximumfund.reddit.com.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash jjho or email me.

I read them all.

David Reese, I read them all.

Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No case too small, no case too big, some cases too medium.

We will not see you next time because this is a podcast.

But I hope you'll hear my voice on the next Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you for listening.

MaximumFun.org.

Comedy and culture.

Artist-owned, audience-supported.