Race Closed

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, race closed, Carrie brings the case against her boyfriend Jim.

Jim plays and streams car racing simulators.

He's developed an audience and has a bit of a following on the internet.

But Carrie thinks all of this racing is cutting into their quality time.

She'd like to be able to plan more activities for them to do together without worrying about his racing schedule.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

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

Yeah, the podcast was really fast.

We just couldn't get a long enough green flag run there toward the end to get a good run on Flophouse and the McElroy's, but we were fast.

Jesse Thorne, Jennifer Marmor, and everyone on the JJ Ho team and Max Funn gave me an awesome podcast to drive tonight, but we ran out of time to get back up there and race them for the win.

Pitt stop attendant Jesse Thorne, please swear them in.

Carrie, Jim, please rise, raise your right hands.

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

So help you, God, or whatever.

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that the only race he runs in is the human race?

Yes, I do.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

You may be seated, and I don't really run in it that much.

It's more of an asthmatic amble, but sure.

For an immediate summary judgment and one of your favors, Carrie, Jim, can either of you name the person that I was quoting as I entered the courtroom.

I changed a couple of words, but otherwise the quote was intact.

So let's see, Carrie, you're bringing this case.

So, Jim, what's your guess?

It sounds familiar, surprisingly enough.

Is it a quote from Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

Is it a quote from Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

Is the question that I will put as a guess in the guest book?

A quote from Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Hmm, interesting.

The famous NASCAR racer.

Right, right.

What about you, Carrie?

What's your guess before I reveal the answer?

It could be that he's right.

It could be that he's wrong.

I am going to guess that it is a Richard Petty quote from a memoir that he wrote.

Richard Petty,

another famous NASCARian, correct?

I did my research.

I did about 30 seconds of Wikipedia and NASCAR for this.

Never thought I was going to have to do that for this podcast, but I did it.

And that's how I know all guesses are wrong.

Shucks.

It's Kevin Harvick.

Kevin Harvick.

Am I pronouncing his name correctly?

You are.

You are very good.

Yeah.

Why didn't you know that, Jim?

You love NASCAR.

And he only just won last Sunday's Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at Michigan International Speedway.

As of this recording, he just won, number one.

Get your head on straight, Jim.

Oh, boy.

You watch so many of them, they start blending together.

Kevin Harvick was the one who said that about some race.

I don't understand what he was describing.

And he wasn't referring to a podcast, obviously.

The podcast in that quote replaced the word truck.

Is a NASCAR car called a truck?

They have different series.

They have like a tertiary series from the top that runs truck.

So when he was referring to a truck, he was referring to a truck?

Yeah.

Okay.

This case involves Jim's passion

for NASCAR

and running NASCAR race simulations on streaming internet

and

all of these things I know nothing about.

So I love the opportunity to learn.

We're up here in Maine, by the way, still.

We're recording here with Joel Mann, WRU.org.

Joel, you a big NASCAR fan?

I'd love to listen on the radio.

So you're going to have to lead me down the trail.

So I just want to clarify.

When I think of truck, I think of a pickup truck or a hand truck.

I'm pretty sure Kevin Harvick is not running around with a hand truck with other guys, so that would be a cool race.

Are these pickup trucks or not pickup trucks?

They are pickup trucks.

They have Toyotas, there's some Fords, and then they're Chevys, but yep, they're the

same trucks that most like landscapers drive kind of, but, you know.

Aren't they lower?

Well, they're souped up like crazy.

Yeah, they don't look like what you would see in like upstate New York or like upstate Maine.

They're like modified to be on a racetrack.

Midcoast, Maine.

Thank you very much.

But you are currently in upstate New York at the beautiful studios of WAMC-FM.

Is that not correct?

That's right.

Yeah, when I'm in western Massachusetts, I pull that signal right over into Massachusetts and I don't pay extra or anything.

It's a good deal.

It's a good radio station.

All right, enough talk.

Here's the problem.

Jim,

I understand loving NASCAR and watching races, but you also are doing this other thing where, and I'm going to just use, are you on Twitch?

Is that the service?

Yes, I am.

So Twitch is, I'm very happy you're here because Twitch is something that is coming up.

in my cultural ecosphere to a certain degree, and I really don't know what it is.

And I'm reaching that part of adulthood where I'm starting to say, like, maybe I'll never know.

And maybe I should stop listening to young people and start reading TV guide in print again.

What is Twitch and what do you do on it that is causing all these problems between you and Carrie, your partner?

So Twitch essentially allows me to stream exactly what I'm doing on the computer,

everything that's going on on my monitor in front of me.

And I've been racing with like the same group of people for

years now, since like 2013, which is a scary thought.

It's scary to me that you think that that's a long time ago.

How old are you?

I just, no, I turned 27 earlier in January.

And as a 27-year-old, you're enjoying your life, and it doesn't matter what a 47-year-old understands, which is great.

But you have made the 27-year-old thing of saying like, yeah, I've been racing with these guys for, you know, practically half my life since last week or whatever.

And I don't know whether you're talking about racing in IRL or computer racing.

I wish it was in real life, but um, no, it's all through a video game uh that we pay for.

We have like wheels, like little plastic wheels, hooked up to our computers that we use as controllers.

Oh, I've seen your whole rig, and it's in the evidence at the Judge John Hodgman page at maximumfund.org, and also on our Instagram at Instagram.com/slash judgejohnhodgman.

And it's amazing, and we'll talk about that in a second.

But just so that I completely understand what's going on, you watch NASCAR on TV and go to NASCAR events.

You also

play a NASCAR simulation.

I'm buzz marketing the hell out of NASCAR because that's a private company, isn't it?

That's an institution.

But you pretend to race on your computer with your little toy steering wheels and Twitch TV, or what is it called?

Is it called Twitch TV?

Is that dumb?

Is that a dumb thing to say?

No.

No, you're on point.

All right.

I like that.

On point.

I remember what that means.

All the time.

You,

Jim, pretend to race on your computer with friends over a network, and you broadcast via Twitch TV to the internet exactly what's happening on your screen.

Correct?

Yes, correct.

It makes very little sense, and even for the smartest person, it's kind of hard to grasp that concept, but that's exactly what's going on.

I think it's simple.

Yeah, no, I get it.

It's a live podcasting of your video game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's exactly it.

It's like Dan TDM streaming his Minecraft games.

You know who Dan TDM is?

No.

He's a Minecraft superstar, and he's making a lot of money.

Are you making a lot of money, Jim?

I'm making enough to take Carrie out for dinners every now and then.

That's nice.

But doesn't make up for the time that you're spending on the computer, Carrie.

You argue that he's spending too much time

in both real and virtual NASCAR planet.

Tell me what your concern is.

So, basically, depending on the season for his sim racing and the in-real life NASCAR season, I have time to spend with Jim like maybe one or two days out of the week.

He will argue that I have more time than that, but when it comes down to the amount of like production that he puts into his videos, he's spending days, you know, editing everything and going through and posting stuff.

So really, my time to plan events is very limited.

I can't do like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Sometimes I can't do Thursday and there's a Friday race and then the real life races come on on the weekends so that's also limited.

So your time is constrained by work I presume or school or something?

We actually work at the same place so we have the same work hours but I just moved up here to New York.

So I want to like go meet new people because I don't really know a lot of people here yet.

Right.

So I like want to go out for like trivia nights but the bar that's closest to us does a trivia night on Tuesday, and that's a no-go per gym of his favorite races that he is refusing to give up.

A race to watch on TV or a race to play on his computer?

It's one to play.

So he's saying to you, I can't go to trivia night and help you meet new people in this town that you moved to, presumably for him, it sounds like.

Is that what happened?

Yeah.

Because I've got to play my video game with my friends right now on Tuesday night.

Yes.

And just to clarify, and

all judgment is reserved for later.

I'm just getting information right now.

Although that sounds terrible, and I made it sound terrible on purpose.

Just pull back the curtain a little bit.

You're also talking about Jim editing things and posting videos.

That's different from streaming the race itself.

Yeah, so he'll like stream.

And then what he'll do before he does the races is he makes his own paints for the cars.

So he puts hours into these like paint schemes for the cars and he works really hard on those.

He also does like promotion videos for himself.

He's like created like this.

I hate to interrupt you, Carrie, but I just need to make sure I understand.

He's creating paint schemes for the cars in the game, not in real life.

Yeah.

Jim, you're not a professional NASCAR painter.

Funny thing is, is I made a paint scheme for someone that used to be a NASCAR driver and then it actually did get translated into real life last year.

Oh, really?

That's true.

You made a paint scheme for one of your faky cars and then that got used on a real-life car?

Absolutely.

And it drove around in meat space and everything?

A couple times.

Yeah.

I got to watch the race on my TV and look at a paint scheme that I whipped up in a video game.

And he has his own little die cast of it, too.

This is a different kind of fakey car, right?

This is a toy car.

A little die cast.

Diecast, yeah.

They're like the little like Hot Wheels cars, kind of.

So that we're always on the same page.

Please, Carrie and Jim, when you're talking about real NASCAR racing, let's call it racing.

We're talking about real-life cars, let's call them cars.

And when you're talking about in-game racing, let's call them fakey cars and fakey racing.

Okay, or fake, if you want.

I think fakey is cuter.

But fake racing, fake cars, just so that I understand exactly how Jim is dividing his time.

You have sent in some evidence.

I have a feeling that visual aids are going to be of use to me here.

Yes.

So the first piece of evidence that you sent in was the, Carrie, you sent this in.

And again, all this evidence is going to be available as links and images on the Judge John Hodgman showpage at maximumfund.org, where you can always find us week after weekend.

Donate if you feel like it.

And also at instagram.com slash judgejohnodgman.

The first piece of evidence is the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup schedule.

Boy, all these companies are getting plugs on my show.

This is a sport that relies on corporate sponsorship.

So that's the way it goes.

And this is the schedule.

I never thought I'd be looking at a NASCAR schedule in my life, but here it is.

There's a lot.

This season goes, starts in February of 2018 and goes to November of 2018.

And there are races all the time, right?

Yes.

Okay.

And that's what you were trying to show here with this evidence?

Yeah, he actually went to two of those races in the past month.

Oh, okay, physically.

Yeah, physically.

Jim,

though we are talking about balance issues in your life, I'm glad that, at least in the NASCAR world, you're both in your head and in the world.

That's cool.

Well, thank you.

Let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's Judge John Hodgman sponsor.

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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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.

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Court is back in session.

Let's return to the courtroom for more justice.

What do you love about NASCAR, Jim?

So it all kind of started, my dad was very into this and everything.

And then it fizzled out, but like senior year of high school, for no reason, really I kind of started watching it again and it kind of reignited it and brought back a lot of good memories and stuff

so I I kept kind of watching it and it's just

it's fun because you can definitely like if

first of all if you go in real life even if you hate it like on TV or the concept of it you're gonna have fun in real life it's a very fun thing to watch But

you can see there are subtle things that these drivers can do where it's not just, you know, driving around a track just waiting for it to end.

Like, there's a lot of like energy and mental gymnastics that have to get played and a lot of different strategies that goes into it.

So it's not for everyone, but it's fun for me.

And part of the fun for you is trying to sneak onto television coverage.

That's happened once or twice, yes.

Because one of the videos that Carrie sent along, Carrie, can you explain what this video is?

I've watched it and enjoyed it, but for the listener, if they go and look at it, what are they looking for?

So this is Jim, like, being in an area, first of all, that he's gained special privileges to be in based on the connections that he's made.

So he's already kind of like a guest in this space.

And he is watching one of the monitors in one of the team's areas.

And he's watching the TV broadcast.

And he sees himself.

And you see him double take and then like get really excited and put his water bottle down and just start waving

and it's not pictured but the cameraman actually moves his camera so Jim's out of shot because he doesn't want Jim there anymore.

I kind of ruined that shot.

It seemed I'm looking at now.

Are you Jim?

Are you the guy with the big beard?

Yes.

That's a world-class beard, first of all.

Thank you very much.

And people will see if they look at the images.

This guy has got a lot of beard.

Jesse, can you see this beard where you are in Los Angeles?

Yeah, I can see the beard.

How would you describe this beard?

Voluminous?

Yeah.

High volume.

That's true.

Yeah.

Round?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not just coming down.

It's going out.

Yeah.

I don't need it.

All right.

So why am I looking at this video, Carrie, of him sneaking into the shop or waving when he's in the shop?

I sent it in because I just think it's kind of like a testament to how much Jim loves being a center of attention and just like the kind of antics he will pull to get attention for his stream and his persona on social media and all that.

I'm seeing him wave at the camera in this video and you know what I want to do?

I want to wave back.

I want to wave back this adorable dude who's clearly doing something he loves.

This evidence is working against you is my point.

Well, I do think it's worth stating that I saw the original video, then I saw his edit, then I saw him showing it to other people,

and I saw it like several times throughout the week.

So I never really got to escape that video.

I think if I had just seen it once, and actually, the first couple of times I saw it, I did think it was really sweet and adorable, but it was a little bit overplayed.

So, this is something that Jim is sharing on his socials and with me in real life, yeah, over and over and over multiple times a day.

Yes,

I was so happy.

Why was this moment so special to you that you would annoy your partner multiple times by showing it over and over and over again?

I think I just want her to be proud.

Carrie, are you proud of your Jim?

I'm proud for like the paint scheme that he got to put on a real car.

I'm not sure I'm proud of him being in the background of a TV broadcast.

Are you proud of him live streaming him eating a brick of cheese?

No, I begged him him not to do that.

So this is another piece of evidence, and here's Jim and his beard over time eating a pound of cheese.

13 ounces, yeah.

13 ounces is just shy of a pound.

Before anyone goes and looks at this video, this is a definite mesophonia trigger warning for you.

Oh, you don't want to hear a large, no offense, Jim, but a...

a voluminous man with a voluminous beard eating a voluminous amount of cheese.

There's a lot of mouth sounds.

That's more than fair.

Why'd you put this out in the world, Jim?

So what had happened with that is I had a race that was going to happen later that night.

Fake race?

Fake race.

Fake race.

I had a fake race.

Pixel race.

And it was going on later that night.

So I sent out a tweet on my

account that just kind of sticks to like the Twitch streaming that I do.

And I had said

if I win this race tonight, I'll eat a whole block of cheese live on stream.

And unfortunately for me, I ended up winning.

It was one of those races that I wasn't good at and I didn't really have a chance, but the stars aligned and I ended up winning.

And

I

have to be a man of my word.

Okay.

Well, the court will hold you to your word, whatever my ruling might be.

I'm still figuring out all of the many, many sides of Jim that are being thrown at me.

Because you also have a fake lasagna company called Papa Jim's.

Oh, yeah.

I was sent a fake commercial for a fake lasagna company.

You also have this online presence that I want to talk about a little bit here that is making you a little bit of money.

And people are sending you things in the mail.

And one of the things, Carrie, you sent in a photo of a picture, a large format picture.

of an older woman using an asthma inhaler that is on Jim's wall above his rig.

And I have to say, this is one of the more disturbing images I've ever seen.

Yeah, this is not a licensed upper deck wall star.

That surprised me when I opened it.

It's not gruesome or anything.

It's just a weird, like, stock photo image of an inhaler demonstration.

And as an inhaler user myself, I thought I had seen them all.

Yeah.

For a second, I thought it might be Dream Team Small Forward Chris Mullen using an asthma inhaler, but it definitely does appear to be an older lady.

And that was actually sent to him like unlabeled.

So it was like he didn't even know what that was, which is kind of creepy to his personal address.

And do you know who you didn't know who sent it?

Someone anonymously sent this?

I didn't know at the time, but I know now.

And it's one of the people I'm close with.

David Lynch.

Yes.

Oh, I wish.

That'd be cool.

And this has Pride of Place here above your rig, which you sent in a photo of, which is, this is where you have your computer and you have a fake steering steering wheel and a faky gear shift and fakey pedals and a real-life microphone and a real-life computer and real-life camera.

And this is where you put all this stuff out into the world and as a result, get back a few dollars.

Definitely some disturbing images of a woman inhaling an inhaler, but also this real-life miracle of this fakey car design turning into a real car.

That's pretty cool.

You guys work at the same place.

May I ask what you do?

We work for for a pool company that sells liners all across the country

and then Canada and then a little bit in Europe.

But essentially our job, because we're such high volume, we are the people that will go in and sort absolutely every single incoming request and get it sent to the right like region of people or yeah, and like start the order entry process basically.

Like we put in all the information, then it gets checked by people higher up.

Every young person's dream.

Yes, basically.

Get to listen to a lot of podcasts.

Yeah.

Fair to say that following NASCAR and putting your love of weird jokes and real designs and NASCAR streams out into the world is more of a passion for you than sorting through pool lining orders.

Is that fair to say?

Oh, hands down.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So I can see why this would be a big moment for you to get something out of the matrix and into the real world of NASCAR.

That's awesome.

So Carrie, do you get any pleasure out of this NASCAR fixation?

Does any of this spill over to you?

Or is this just something you put up with?

I think that, like, one of the things that I like the most about Jim is how much he cares about this.

It really is, like, something that he's, like, very driven to do.

And I'm I'm really impressed with, like, how much he's grown his network just in, like, the past two and a half years that I've known him.

So I do, like, get enjoyment out of seeing him be happy.

And I do, like, go to the races sometimes, but I don't really like the bigger ones that that we go to.

I'm really pale.

It's hot.

Like, I don't ever tan.

So I'm usually like under a tent somewhere, like drinking warm beer.

Yeah.

It may not be for you, but it's definitely for him.

So how do we find balance in this?

Right.

Because, Jim, you got to go to trivia nights sometimes too, you know?

Yes.

Yes.

There might be NASCAR trivia there, and she might need me.

That's what I'm saying.

So you got to come.

Carrie, let me understand how much time this is.

So

if there is a race on television,

Jim will be watching it.

Yeah, he'll watch the main race.

So like if there's a race on Sunday, usually it starts around like two,

maybe a little bit earlier, and it goes until about like six or seven, depending on how many like accidents or wrecks they have, or if there's like a rain delay.

But he'll also watch the warm-ups before the race.

He watches like the qualifying or whatever they do the day before.

And usually he like gets himself set up to watch it like the whole day.

So pretty much his day is dedicated to that race at least and then part of the day before.

All right.

So there goes the weekend.

How much time, Jim, would you say you're spending sitting at that rig?

And what's your sketch?

So that everyone can find you on Twitch TV.

This season, we break it down into seasons.

So we have an A season and a B season.

The B season just started two weeks ago.

So now this is Tuesday and Wednesdays that I'm definitely doing racing.

And it's 9 p.m.

on Eastern.

And they'll go from 9 to 10 or 11 at night, I want to say.

And then I'll have to quick upload it to YouTube, quick make a little...

you know, thumbnail image graphic.

He says quick, but it takes about like two hours afterwards for him to get like the perfect angle and the perfect, like, this is where I started, this is what I finished, and like all of that.

It's not quick.

Oh, because he's got to do an after-show.

Oh, that's just it, too.

Like, after the actual race is over, he'll go through and look at highlights of the race.

And he didn't mention that.

His race starts at 9, that's true, but he has to be in the server at 8.

So, usually, he's like on

his program.

I don't want to buzz market it, and just kind of talking with his friends before the race, too.

So, on a race night, he's on the rig at eight prepping.

The flag waves, right?

That's what happens.

A flag waves and you go at nine.

You race, fake you race, fake you race, fake you race.

And then you're going to do the after-show talk show where you go through all your highlights.

That's all been streaming.

Then you're going to take all of that and throw it onto YouTube and other platforms.

Yes.

When does he wrap it up for the night, Carrie?

He says it'll be shortly after, but if the race ends at 11, it's not uncommon for him to be done for the night and like going to bed at like 1 o'clock.

Right.

8 p.m.

to 1 a.m.

How many nights a week?

Right now, until the end of the year, two.

But that's not necessarily true, because also sometimes you do stream other things.

Yeah, you have your fake lasagna company.

Right, I got to whip up a new recipe.

Does he have any other hobbies or interests that are basically pure solo time for him that's compromising your together time?

That's like his main one.

I think everything else is just kind of branching off of the racing.

So like Papa Jim's is literally an account only to kind of spoof this one paint scheme he made for himself.

Oh, so Papa Jim's faky lasagna is a faky sponsor for a fakey car.

that he did a faky design for.

That's right.

Correct.

It's very meta.

Unfortunately, that was before the most recent stuff with the company I was mocking.

Oh, right.

I understand.

Yes.

I mean, it's fair to mock them before that.

It's fair to mock them after that.

I think he did condemn them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, Papa John's pizza is owned by a racist creep who had to resign because he said terrible things.

And it's bad pizza.

And has a very shiny face.

That's true.

He puts his face in every pizza.

That's his promise.

That's the guarantee.

Yeah, that's what I heard.

That's what what people are saying

uh

you know jim you're adorable but carrie what are you doing all the time that he's making his fakey fakes and watching the real races like what do you do all day i mean it's not like if he wasn't racing i'd be going out on the town i'm still kind of a homebody i usually just like hang out with my cat and like do crafts.

I uh I draw, I'll knit, or like I'll play video games myself.

But I do think it would be nice to be able to like spend spend a little bit more time, like, you know, cooking dinner together or be able to go out like a night or so a week because we can walk right into one of the cities here.

So it's really nice to be able to have that opportunity to experience it.

And I don't really want to walk into it alone necessarily.

I'm kind of an introvert.

I mean, I only ask because you make a point of walking into the city.

Do you have a car?

Oh, we totally do, but we want to get exercise.

And the views are beautiful.

Yeah.

Well, I love that.

I just, I was looking for any dark twist of irony that

for a person as obsessed with NASCAR as he is, that he doesn't own a car, nor does he know how to drive.

No, we do own two cars, but the walk into Troy is like literally 10 minutes.

So it's nice to be able to do that and we want to take advantage.

Lovely.

Yeah.

And do you feel like you would like to set aside one or two nights a week to walk into Troy, either literally walk into Troy or fakey walk into Troy, which would be some other version of spending time together?

Yeah, I mean, even if we like grab a movie, you know, and just like are at home, like just experiencing a movie together, I think, you know, just one or two nights a week that it's like guaranteed that I can say, like, hey, Jim, I want to do this tonight.

And it wouldn't be like, yes, and then him go, oh, wait, no, just kidding.

I do have a race tonight.

Sorry.

I can do this for two hours with you.

Jim, is two nights a week too many to spare?

Is your brand going to crumble?

Well, the thing is, is as of right now, the only ones I'm interested, there's a lot more.

There's a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday series going on, but I scaled it back down to Tuesday and Wednesday.

We were long distance when we first met.

We met online and

we would spend weekends together.

So I got kind of defaulted into she wouldn't be here, so I'd have a lot of free time.

So slowly it just kind of kept snowballing that I was doing like a ton of fake racing on my computer.

And it did get to a really extreme point, but I have dialed it back down to right now just two nights a week.

I would like to keep those two nights.

So two nights a week of fake racing, and then the weekend is usually given over to watching real racing.

Yes.

Do you agree, Carrie, that he dialed it back for you once you moved in?

He says he dialed it back like it was willingly, but really the series that he ran on Thursdays just isn't running anymore.

So I have no faith that there won't be more like attractive races for him to run that he'll want to then start again.

All right.

Is this what you signed up for when you moved in?

I did obviously know that he was like kind of over the top with this, but I was really hoping and I had mentioned prior to moving in, that, hey, you know, since we're going to be next to like this really awesome city, like I definitely want to go in.

And he'd be like, yeah, that's great.

And it wasn't until it actually directly conflicted with a night that he wanted that he was like, just kidding.

It's not great.

We can't do that anymore.

You guys met online.

I gather you were not fakey racing and you crashed into each other.

The most millennial meet-cute of all time.

Right.

And where did you move from?

Connecticut.

Connecticut.

Jesse, Connecticut is one of several states in New England, if you weren't familiar with it.

Sometimes I forget that there is Connecticut, but it's still there.

It's little and angry, but it's there.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so were you aware of his fakey racing brand, online brand, before you met him?

Or?

How soon did you become aware that he had this secret life as a moderate Twitch TV stream star?

He tried to hide a a lot of it from me when we first met.

Oh.

I'm like a pretty good sleuth.

I did find a lot of them before we first met.

But definitely when I first met him and we like we would play video games together.

Like we played and talked together like two months before we even met because we're both like huge nerds.

But um so that wasn't necessarily an issue that he plays games.

Like obviously I I do too.

But I didn't know that his racing did last as long'cause I mean you hear him talk about it.

He'll say, Okay, we race at this time, and then, like, really quick, we'll just wrap up, and then that's done.

So, like, before I really, you know, got invested in this relationship and really started wanting to talk to him after the hour of like 11 o'clock at night, I like

didn't really know that, oh, just kidding, he won't go to sleep for like another three hours.

Jim, how does it make you feel when Carrie says that she doesn't have faith that you would keep your promise to keep a night clear if a race happened to come up that you wanted to be in?

I think that.

I think, Jim, feel.

How do you feel?

How does it make you feel?

I feel like that she should have faith in me.

I have been scaling some stuff back.

I really have.

But I think that she should feel more confident.

And if something did come up and I promised that I wouldn't do it, that I won't do it.

And I would love to show her that.

Mm-hmm.

All right.

If I were to rule in your favor, Carrie,

you've said one or two nights a week.

Here's the question.

One or two?

Honestly, if I just got to pick one night where he would not be able to contest what we do, and I would just be able to go, hey, on Tuesday night or Wednesday night, I would like to do this.

And he would just be like, okay, then one night is fine.

I wouldn't even mind waiting until like after the season was done.

But I just want, say, when the next season starts about like, hey, if I want this night, I can get it.

By the way, Carrie, I don't even know what you're talking about, the seasons.

It's too much information.

I don't understand.

So much car racing, fakey and real.

I don't know, Jim.

This is a fakey season, yeah.

It's like a bowling league kind of starting up, how they'll go for a bit.

How is that going to help me, Jim?

Come back.

Kind of like TV shows, I guess.

Like a certain show will be on, you know, fall, and then a certain show is on in season.

This is a spring season.

This is like his fall.

Thank you, Carrie.

TV show.

Now I get it.

She's saying that she's willing to wait.

She's willing to wait until summer hiatus to see you again.

She's being extremely accommodating.

Jim, what would you have me rule if I were to rule in your favor?

I'm willing to drop most weekends to spend weekend times, but I would really prefer, if possible, to keep Tuesdays and Wednesdays, or at least whatever nights might get relocated to the...

the top series and then the little i understand but let me clarify when you talk about dropping weekends my impression was that you spend weekends watching real racing.

Are you also doing seiky racing on the weekends?

What are you dropping on the weekends?

Dropping, watching occasional real races.

Like, maybe still watch some, but you know, not have to sit there and follow up every weekend watching the real race.

All right.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to drive to my chambers now in my sweet 2009 VW Passat station wagon that I have tricked out with a Bluetooth streaming plug-in plug that I plug into my aux port so that I can listen to my podcast.

Also, I have a vent-mounted phone holder.

I'll be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Jim, do you have a vent-mounted phone holder?

No, my car is not that cool.

It does have Bluetooth, but that's it.

How do you feel about your chances in the case?

I'm kind of, to be honest with you, I'm a a little worried.

I think there's a lot of points that was brought up that's hard for me to see, but I'm hoping that the judge will still allow me to

have my fun, at least a little bit, while still being more mindful of her.

Are you at all worried that you might end up racing simulated F1?

I hope I don't have to do that.

I like the big cars.

Carrie, how are you feeling about your chances in the case?

I'm feeling pretty confident.

I think that I've prepared my evidence well, and I think that my asks are reasonable, so I think I'll do okay.

You ultimately think that you have a righteous case.

I mean, I usually do.

I'm kind of like a, that's how I go into most arguments.

I'm self-aware.

We'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

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 Lum.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

So I have to say, you're both adorable.

And Jim, I have enjoyed getting to know your social media presence

and watching your fake commercials for your fake lasagna company.

Thank you.

I'm never going to watch that Twitch TV stream.

That is not for me.

I don't even know how to, I don't even know what channel that's on.

And I am glad that you, Jim, managed to hijack my podcast, to jack your stats on social media.

Oh, no.

Feel good about it because you're cute.

Thank you very much.

I'm blushing.

I agree.

And, you know, I think you also, Carrie, are super lovely.

And I wish you guys the very best.

You are non-married cohabitants.

And the court has an opinion about that.

But I am not going to chide you for it.

I hope you have a wonderful, loving time there.

And I have to say, part of why I don't feel bad about your using my podcast for free advertising for your fake lasagna,

aside from being kind of funny, is that something miraculous happened.

That you

made

this thing

in the fakey world

out of a love

for a sport and a world that is, you know, you are only a fan of, that you you will never, I mean, you're never going to be a NASCAR driver, Jim, right?

No, no, time has passed.

Too old to begin the training.

You can't do that.

Too old and not enough money.

Right.

And you need money.

You need a lot of money.

You need, you need real Asagi companies hacking you.

And yet, through this love of this real world and through this fake world, you made something and you broke it out of that matrix into the real world and onto an actual car.

I mean, I think it's great,

especially since, you know, what you do in your daily life.

And I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but it sounds like, you know, it's a kind of a drab office job, right?

It's a nice environment, I think.

Well, I'm sure it's great.

It's not a bad place to work for, but.

No, no, no, no, not at all.

But

it's not like kids, you know, pay a lot of money to Sarah Lawrence College to get an MFA in selling pool liners.

That's right.

There's a lot of running down the clock there.

Yeah.

It's like their parents are like, oh, I love their artistic spirit, but I wish they would just get a real job.

You have a real job.

You both have a real job.

You work together.

That's also adorable.

And Jim, you have this passion that is bringing really, I mean, you sent me a financial statement.

And just to people understand, Jim is not making a ton of cash.

Maybe after a while he will, but it's bringing a little money in,

but mainly it's just bringing you into a bigger world, which is great.

It's great, right?

Now, Carrie, you did not articulate that you have a similar passion.

You knit, you have your cat, you have your fandoms, you're a nerd, you seem like a very happy person.

Would that be fair to say?

Yeah.

I mean, I used to,

like, I used to be really big into illustration, but I kind of fell off of it.

So I'm, like, I'm kind of just all over the place with like various crafts.

So I would think it's fair to say that I don't have anything that rivals Jim's passion currently.

Well, it's not a race.

It's not a real or fake race.

I'm just saying that you do have a passion, though, right?

Jim, you see where this is going?

Yes.

You're the passion, Jim.

She moved there for you.

Come on, dude.

She moved there to spend time with you in real life.

And she's saying that

She currently does not have faith that you will keep your promise to keep a night clear if you get a fake erase bat signal and you got to get on the rig immediately.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And this isn't to say that her lack of faith is earned necessarily.

I mean, it is earned because of your behavior of backing out of things that you agreed to do.

And it's also the case that you, in your mind, you're like, I'm dialing it down.

I'm dialing it down to be here with her.

But you're not doing a good enough job showing her that you're doing this on on purpose in order to inhabit this real life together that you have, right?

So it's a little bit of like, you're great at creating fake advertising for fake lasagna companies, but you're not getting your message across to her, like, I actually, you don't understand, I would be doing this 15 nights a week if you weren't here.

So this is a communication issue to some degree.

And I do think that ultimately, Jim, it's an issue of showing openly that you're making a commitment

to the smallest amount of time that she's asking for and not backing out of it.

That's the thing where I feel like the faith began to erode.

Whether or not it's happened one time or a dozen times, Carrie has made reference to a moment where she said, I would like to have this night to walk into Troy.

And you said, okay.

And then you said, oh, no, I can't.

And that's got to stop.

It's got to stop.

You know, that's all.

That's a communication thing, and it's a planning thing, and it's a like sacrifice thing.

Because if you say okay to a walk in Detroit, and then you forgot, oh, there's a race I want to race in,

either you have to sacrifice that race to honor the sacrifice that she made by moving from Connecticut to upstate New York.

She moved out of New England for you, dude.

You know what that means to me.

I miss it.

Or

you have to not make that mistake again of forgetting that you have a race because you can't let down your fakey race teammates or whatever.

You're not solo anymore.

You're not racing solo.

You're racing on a fakey race team and you're in a team of two in the real world.

I think one night a week is available based on my understanding of your schedule.

And I think, you know,

you're a cohabiting couple.

You need to have a date night.

I don't want you to stop your dreams.

I want you to grow your empire, dude.

Go for it.

But I think you need to set aside one night a week.

I don't care what season it is.

One night a week that is just no NASCAR.

That is fair.

That's beyond fair.

Yeah.

Go to Trivia Night.

Walk into Troy.

Walk into all the Troys in the world.

And I don't doubt that you will make that commitment because

you said here that you are willing to give up your weekends of watching NASCAR.

And I think that it would be good for you to prioritize which races are most meaningful to you so that you can have at least

one weekend a month, in addition to this one night a week deal, where you guys can go walk into a different Troy or do something else.

One weekend a month, one night a week.

And I also just want you to kill it out there.

I want more.

I want to see all the cars that you designed.

I want every NASCAR to be a Papa Jim's car.

I wish you guys the best of luck.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Carrie, how do you feel about this decision?

From the judge's ruling, it seems like I may have to pick a night that's not a Tuesday or a Wednesday.

I can find a Thursday or a Friday thing to do instead.

But I'm really happy

about,

you know, the weekend.

In addition, I think that I definitely came out pretty happy here.

Jim, how are you feeling?

I mean honestly I'm feeling a little bit ashamed because it's one of those things where like in from my perspective it's you don't see everything happening while it's happening and building up but this has been like a nice little eye-opening experience where it's nice to have like this third party come and you know, show me exactly what's been going on.

So I'm happy with it.

And even if you guys wanted, I could show my gratitude and paint up a little Judge John Hodgman car to whip around in the fake world.

Yes.

First of all, yes.

Second of all, if you're interested in dad jokes, here's an offering.

Sounds like that would bring a new meaning to Funny Car.

Wow.

Oh, man, that was bad.

Wow.

I liked it.

I liked it too.

Our thanks to to both of you for taking the time to be on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another Judge John Hodgman case in the books.

In a moment, Swift Justice.

But first, we want to thank Ian McKechney for naming this week's episode Race Closed.

If you'd like to name a future episode like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, we put out our calls for submissions there.

You can follow us on Twitter.

In fact,

John, I'm going to take this a step further than I usually take it in the credits of the Judge John John Hodgman podcast.

Oh, boy.

You should

follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Yeah, I said it.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ Ho.

I always enjoy seeing what people have to say.

And you can also join us on Reddit at maximumfun.reddit.com to chat about the episode.

This week's episode, by the way, recorded by Rob Chacone at WAMC Radio in Albany, New York, and by Joel Mann at WERU in Orland, Maine.

Our producer, the ever-capable and astonishingly glamorous, Jennifer Marmor.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with quick judgment.

Meg says, should my husband be allowed to secretly rearrange the dishwasher after I've loaded it because he thinks I did it wrong?

Yes, it should be allowed.

I don't even think he should be secret about it because I think Meg does it wrong.

I'm pretty sure Meg does it wrong.

Because only a person who loads the dishwasher wrong would ask that question.

It is an unconscious confession.

It's stop me before I load wrong again.

That's what I think is happening here because there is a right and a wrong way to load the dishwasher.

It is a puzzle to be solved.

And the right way is how I do it, and the wrong way is how others do it.

No, I do mean to say that it is not merely like

glasses should be here or there.

You know, I have a kitchen in which the dishwasher blocks my passage through the kitchen.

So,

you know, the geography of the kitchen determines like certain things on the left side of the kitchen should go into the left side of the dishwasher because it's just easier.

And the reason I know that is that I unload the dishwasher a hundred, well,

90% of the time.

That's how I learned that it's more efficient to load it a certain way than a different way.

Like

everything in the Judge John Hodgman world of legal precedence, the person who does the greater share of the work makes the call.

So if Meg is the one unloading the dishwasher most of the time,

then she is the one who is doing it right.

She is loading it correctly.

And her husband should keep his paws out of there.

But if, as I suspect is true, her husband is the one unloading the dishwasher and has learned the correct way to load it, then Meg should not be upset and indeed should be grateful that he would come in and fix her poor work.

But if I've got it upside down, Meg, you didn't specify who unloads it.

So I'm just taking an intuitive guess here.

If I've got it upside down and you're the one who unloads it, then you're right.

That's how it works.

That's it for this week's episode.

You can submit cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ

In fact, you should

submit cases at maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

Talk about bold.

Yeah.

You're making strong recommendations.

I'm as bold as a spicy barbecue sauce.

You can also email your cases to us at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

We will decide if they're good or not.

So if you're wondering if it's on the edge, maybe it's not quite strong enough, just send it to us.

It'll be fine.

Nothing bad happens if we don't pick it.

We're grateful for every submission at maximumfund.org slash JJHO and Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

On behalf of Judge John Hodgman, I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

Court is dismissed.

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