All Laws Are Off

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're clearing the docket this week in Chambers.

Hi, Judge Hodgman.

How are you?

Rockhell

Heiner.

Heiner.

Rockhell Heiner.

Thank you very much for supporting the Judge John Hodgman podcast that I'm making right now.

You can see Jesse through the microphone.

What are you doing, Judge Hodgman?

What's going on?

It's Jesse.

Sorry, I'm thinking Rachel Henner, who was one of the leadership squad upgraders during the Max Fun Drive.

You know, we had such great response to the Max Fun Drive, and especially my many thanks to those who upgraded or joined at the leadership squad level or above.

And I'm still thanking them by mispronouncing their names on the internet.

I just mispronounced mispronounce.

And they were so generous, and I'm just a little behind, so I'm just trying to fit it in when I can, even on the podcast.

Yeah, I mean, I think probably on the air is the best time to do that, right?

I think it probably is.

I only have about 15 more to go, so stand by, Jesse.

Oh, no, no.

We have to clear the docket, Judge Hodgman.

Okay, all right, all right, fine.

We'll do

this is the podcast we make?

Choose your filter and post the video, and let's do this.

All right.

I am ready to go to make the podcast.

Good podcast to you, Jesse.

How are you?

Hang on.

Hang on, Jesse.

I know you want to get going on our podcast, but I'm just getting a word here, and you can tell because I'm touching my ear like it's a newscast.

Sure, like you're in the Secret Secret Service.

That Rachel has changed her last name to Rosing.

Oh, that's Rach Tacular.

That's, well, in fact, now my mispronunciation is doubly mispronounced because I've just said the wrong name.

Well, I think that's for the best.

Okay, here's our first case.

It's from Martine.

Or Martin.

Who knows?

I have a dispute with my partner, Andrew.

What's the appropriate way to fill an ice cube tray?

I fill the tray with water and then gently pour off the excess so that each cube is within one half and one and three quarters full.

One half.

Andrew prefers to just fill the F out of the entire tray, paying no heed to whether or not any of the cube wells are overfilled.

Andrew prefers big cubes, but his overfilling leads to cubes that are connected by a solid sheet of ice.

My method avoids this issue, but results in smaller cubes.

Since I've broached this, Andrew has simply stopped filling the ice tray, I assume in protest.

Judge Hodgman, please order him to continue to fill the tray, but to my specifications.

First of all, Martine,

Maritime, or whatever your name is, I appreciate your coming close to, but not actually swearing about ice on the podcast.

It's like, I appreciate that you realize that this is a family-friendly podcast, and yet you feel feel so passionately about ice cubes that you had to, you were like, I'm going to push the envelope on this one.

I have to.

I was impressed that she didn't even swear about, she or he, didn't even swear about ice, swore about ice to be.

Yeah.

Well, it did paint a word picture of how Andrew fills the F out of this ice cube tray.

Yeah.

Because I really see it now, just him

just hitting the water full on

and just smashing it under there and just waiting till it is totally full.

By the way, if you fill up the ice cube, if you have a standard ice cube tray,

you've learned by now that you can't fill up the ice cube tray with the water at full blast because it'll just hit one of those cube wells and then just splash right back out of it at full speed into your eyes.

You have to do it at low speed,

and then you have to fill up that ice cube tray

to the top of the ice cube tray

and then pour off a little

so that you don't get the sheet of ice.

But in no way, Martine,

do you want to have three quarters or

Cthulhu forbid, one half full

cube tray cubes?

That's,

you know, when you are using a standard commercial ice cube tray to begin with, those cubes are smaller than

is acceptable to start.

You certainly don't want to make them even smaller unless you're going to make a mint julep, which uses traditionally crushed ice or tiny little jewels of ice that you fill in a one-third full ice cube tray.

Don't do that.

Big cubes.

Why big cubes, Jesse?

Why do big cubes always trump small cubes?

Physics?

Yeah, they melt slower.

They melt slower.

They water down

your

beverage of choice

less quickly.

Took me a little while to figure out the syntax on that one.

And there are certain drinks like the men julep that call for crushed ice where you want it to get all

like watery and slushy.

And obviously, frozen drinks required crushed ice.

If your goal is to cool your drink for the longest period of time possible and maintain its integrity, particularly if you're making cocktails or serving something on the rocks,

they don't call it on the pebbles.

They call it on the rocks because the bigger the cube, the longer it keeps your drink cold without watering it down.

Now,

is Andrew reckless?

Sure.

Yeah, it's clear.

I mean, he's filling the F out of that tray.

Yeah, and when you get that sheet of ice at the top, when you fill it up too much,

then when you twist the cube tray, and we're talking about a traditional cube tray, a plastic cube tray,

not an old-timey ice shucker, which which I used to swear by, which is an aluminum thing with a lever.

But when you twist that cube tray to get those cubes out,

that whole ice shelf at the top, if you overfill it, shatters.

And then you basically lose the benefit of the larger cubes because you are probably going to be adding in

a bunch of shards of ice from the ice sheet, which will melt immediately.

And also, it's just wasteful of water, which is a precious resource.

So you can tell that I believe, and as someone who used to write about food and non-wine alcohol for a men's magazine, I care a lot about ice.

It's an incredibly important ingredient in

beverages of all kinds, alcoholic or non-alcoholic, because it really will affect the flavor.

And here's the other thing.

Those ice cube trays that you're using, if they are the standard, are

not good because, as I already said, they're too small to begin with.

And second of all, they're open at the top.

Now, if you go through a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of ice,

it's not a big deal, but ice will take on off flavors the longer that it sits in the freezer.

So,

you want to get ice cube trays that have

bigger compartments for larger chunks of ice.

And you also want to get them with covers on them, or you want to cycle them through very quickly every day.

I recommend, but you have a taste of your own, Martine.

You like watered-down drinks that don't taste good.

So I have no problem with you making the ice to your taste, but I would say Andrew has a taste of his own, one that I tend to share.

And I would recommend if he likes bigger cubes, there are all kinds of big cube makers you can get, including big spherical ice cubes that you can get and that's one where you have

it's a it's a special tray where you can make two globes of ice that are quite large and they go very well into a rocks glass and they're wonderful if you're having something in a rocks glass like a whiskey if you're of age and you can only fill those

if you are filling the f out of them because you totally have to overfill them and then shove the tops of the spheres down to make the perfect thing so it suits him perfectly because it'll get his

ice jones out and also it'll make the nice big ice cubes.

And also, they're covered.

So you can keep them in the freezer for a long time and then get them out and they won't taste terrible.

That's my ruling.

I have a question for you, Judge Hodgman.

Yeah.

I will admit, my wife has a large cube silicon ice tray that she got for Christmas from someone who loves her very much and lives in her house and is me

that she uses for her

bourbon.

She likes to drink bourbon at night.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's great.

It's an amazing machine.

I don't drink a cocktail, so I don't need a special giant ice cube.

Sure.

But

my ice preference is completely on the other side of the ice spectrum.

I'm an ice chewer.

Oh.

And

to my mind, the single greatest culinary luxury that exists is not truffles or saffron.

It is pebble ice.

Pebble ice, like you would get at a movie theater in your soda fountain?

If it was a really amazing movie theater.

Yeah.

So what is pebble ice?

Pebble ice, I mean, there's a specific machine that makes it.

I associate it personally with a particular restaurant called Pie and Burger in Pasadena, California.

All right.

Wonderful restaurant.

I love both of those things.

But it is a type of ice that can only be made by a huge industrial machine.

There are now home pebble ice machines, but they are still pretty large and cost a couple thousand dollars, I think.

And it is

it is

it's small and generally round, pebble-ish.

It's also less dense, but uniformly less dense.

So it can be crunched easily and comfortably

and is,

yeah, I mean, it's sort of like, it's sort of like the perfect crushed ice.

Well, I think that that you have made a profound and necessary case for a different kind of ice that you are absolutely right suits different drinks and different people differently.

So again, I have to rule on Andrew's side here, which is he's making ice to his taste and Martine's making ice to her taste.

And there are many different tastes of ice, and I think that that's important.

You know, when I was growing up, I lived next door to

my good friend Peter Rosenmeier,

whose father was Danish by birth, and brought with him into the house many European

traditions, or that I ascribed to being European, just because they were

very strange.

One of them, I know, was the European tradition that he carried with him from his family in Denmark.

The

candlesticks that have a balance on the bottom, so that, or I should, yeah, candlesticks with that had a balance on the bottom so that you could put them on the bough of a Christmas tree and light the tree with real candles, which is an amazing thing to see

in real life, to see an actual tree inside a house lit with real candles that are balancing because it has a counterweight at the bottom of the candlesticks.

Just an amazing thing to see

possible death so near you.

Really gave Christmas an interesting cast to it.

And then they also had a thing, and maybe this wasn't a European thing, but

maybe it's just old-fashioned or whatever, but they had an ice tray that had no,

what would you call them?

They had no cube forms in them.

Do you know what I mean?

It was just a tray.

that you would fill up the size of an ice tray, you would fill it up with water, freeze it, you bring it out, It's this big, long tray full of ice.

And then they had

a kitchen implement, which was a heavy weight on the end of a flexible

piece of metal.

So you could just whack it.

And you would whack that ice with that heavy metal.

And it was an incredibly satisfying thing to do.

And just smash up the ice in the tray into a variety.

of sizes because it was irregular every time.

So you would get some big chunks of ice and then you would get little slivers and pebbles of ice as well.

It's not the job of this podcast to find compromises, but that might be a compromise because it has ice in it for every member of the family.

That's amazing.

It's an amazing thing.

And you know what?

I saw one of those implements.

It's like a long, flexible piece of metal with a big, heavy

sort of semi-sphere at the end.

And you literally like do a whipping motion.

And I saw one in an antique store in Vermont and it was way overpriced and I didn't get it and I regret it.

Your neighbor's dad, who was from Denmark?

Yes.

Did he look like a handsome sea captain, like every single person I saw the entire time I was in Denmark?

He really did.

Yes, per Rosenmeier, Peter's dad, passed away a couple years ago, or a year ago.

Very sad, but I loved him.

All the Rosenmeiers are loved by me.

Here's something from Stephen.

My wife and I agree that we want to name our as-yet-unborn son Elliot.

He's due this month.

We both love the name, but we can't agree on how best to spell it.

I prefer the spelling of Elliot with two T's, in the same style as my favorite musician, Elliot Smith.

Our last name is Scott, so our son's first and last names would both end with two T's.

I listened to Elliot Smith quite a bit in our first year of marriage and appreciate his lyricism.

His music boosts me up, though I realize it does the opposite for many people.

My wife, on the other hand, comes from a bit of a superstitious family and doesn't want our son's name spelled the same way as Elliot Smith.

She says he lived a tragic life and thinks it would be bad luck.

She prefers the more common spelling of Elliot with a single T from her native England.

Judge Hodgman, please issue a ruling.

Elliot with one T or two.

First of all, for a bit of context, Jesse, can you explain for our listeners who may not know who Elliot Smith is, why

it has some tragic overtones to that name?

Yes.

I'm getting dangerously into

territory where other white people know a lot more about the subject than I do.

Well, that's not me, so that's why I punted it to you.

Okay, good.

I mean, in future, if you're going to punt those kind of things to me, could you just focus on Tony, Tony, Tony?

Elliot Smith, he is a singer-songwriter.

Here's what I know.

A beloved singer-songwriter.

We were so in sync just then.

Yes, a beloved singer-songwriter who wrote beautiful, emotional, sometimes heart-rending songs,

did not like to

enjoy performing live,

and eventually, I believe, died by his own hand.

That is my understanding as well.

So that is a very tragic life, and I appreciate that there's a tragic association with that particular spelling of the name, but it is a very common spelling of the name.

It is not the, well, it's hard to say what the original spelling of the name is.

The first printed spelling of the name recognizably as Elliot dates back to the 13th century, and that was E-L-I-O-T, single L, single T, which makes sense because extra L's and T's are the things that get added over the course of history.

For the most part, it is associated with the Clan Elliot of Scotland.

It may have derived from the Elliott River, which is E-double-L-I-O-T, or maybe some version of Elijah, we don't really know.

But

all variations of spelling of Elliot are equal in the eyes of our Dreadlord Cthulhu.

And indeed,

the variations are so long-seated that there's an old rhyme that I discovered using the internet

that dates back to some time, and I don't know when, but this is how it goes.

And it sort of describes the different Elliots.

The double L and single T descent from Minto and will flee, whoever they are.

The double T and single L mark the old race in staubs that dwell.

The single L and single T, the Elliots of St.

Germans be, but double T and double L,

who they are, no one can tell.

So the double L and double T is the most mysterious of them all, and for that reason, I kind of like it myself.

So here is the solution that I propose, nay, that I rule.

Name

Elliot

E-L-I-O-D-T, but not after Elliot Smith.

Name him after Elliot Kalin, the famous podcaster.

One of the hosts of my rival podcast, Flophouse, and one of the sweetest and most decent people that I know.

His goodness

and intelligence shall erase the tragic history, and your son can have the name that you want him to have without the association that makes your wife nervous.

Here's something from Caitlin.

My husband, Mark, and I are dog owners.

During a recent trip to the dog park, there was a disagreement between a couple of owners.

One party lost a frisbee to another dog, who tore it up.

My husband feels that people should not bring anything of value or anything they want to remain intact to a dog park.

I disagree, citing basic respect of personal ownership and society.

I believe that it's a dog owner's responsibility to maintain a minimum amount of control over their pet.

This includes but is not limited to basic wrangling by calling come or by physically removing your dog from dangerous situations.

All dog owners should have compassion for each other, but my basic rule will allow dog owners to safely have a fun adventure with their pups at the dog park.

Judge Hodgman, what do you say?

Well, I am not a dog owner.

Do you feel comfortable with the term dog owner, Jesse, or do you prefer something like

human companion to a dog?

Judge Hodgman, I'm gonna answer your question with a question.

Okay.

And that is this: No.

Who?

What?

Who rescued who?

Muh.

I'm fine with dog owner.

I love my dogs very much, but they're not people.

Who rescued who?

Muh.

Yeah.

Okay, so dog owners.

It seems to me, I don't understand where Mark is coming from in this one, because

the problem is that one party lost a frisbee

to another dog and that dog tore it up and the husband feels

he says that people shouldn't bring anything of value.

I guess you could construe that a frisbee has a certain monetary value.

But he's basically saying, tough luck to the person who owns the frisbee, who brought the frisbee.

Do I read this correctly?

Yeah, that it's their own fault for bringing it to a dog park where,

you know, sort of

it's sort of like that

movie.

What's that movie called?

Where there's all laws are off?

The purge.

It's sort of like The Purge.

He sees Dog Park as a purple piece.

I wish it had been called All Laws Are Off.

He sees the dog park as the purge, as pure chaos.

I'm sure he would feel the same way if he dropped his wallet or a book that he was reading and a dog came over and chewed up his copy of.

What's the book this guy's reading in the story, Jesse?

The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman?

Sure.

Yeah, I think that makes sense.

Let me tell you a little story about where I'm coming from, Mark.

Many years ago, I'd venture to say, let's say 18 years ago, when I was in my 20s and did not, and I was, and I was

writing video game reviews for a magazine and working in book publishing.

And I did not,

it may surprise you to learn, I did not have a lot of money from those endeavors.

And we, my then-girlfriend and I, were invited to someone's house in the country for the weekend, a writer that I knew and admired and still to.

And

I had just purchased a pair of prescription sunglasses, which I had never owned in my life.

I had never owned prescription sunglasses in my life.

And I had never spent so much money on a pair of glasses in my life.

I don't know what I was thinking buying these things.

I couldn't afford it.

And these sunglasses were not merely sunglasses,

but they were polarized super lenses that made the whole world look

like a cross between night vision and

Game of Thronesland.

I mean, everything looked incredible.

I would just walk around staring at things through these sunglasses because everything came into such sharp relief into this weird sepia tone.

It was an amazing thing.

And I remember the weekend before I had driven up into the country to go to some writers' conference or something.

And I was driving along the Taconic State Parkway, very sunny spring day, wearing these sunglasses.

And I turned, all I had, I didn't have any music in.

I just turned on the AM station.

It was playing some incredibly hypnotic Indian sitar music.

And I just stared out at the countryside of the Hudson River Valley.

And

I went into a trance of delight that I've been trying to recapture ever since.

We get to our friend's house in the country, and guess what she's got?

A new dog.

Cute little rescued dog.

Guess what I do

that night?

Leave my glasses somewhere where a dog can get them.

Guess what happened?

Dog gets them, chews them to pieces.

Like there's some kind of

gosh dern frisbee or something.

The next morning,

my friend who owns this dog says,

My dog chewed up your sunglasses.

And I said, Uh-huh.

And she said, I'm really sorry.

And I said,

that's okay.

But you know what, Jesse?

It was not okay.

And it never was okay.

Not even 18 years later, okay.

If your dog chews up someone's sunglasses, you offer to pay for the sunglasses.

And if they say, no, that's okay, you insist.

You shove money in their hands because this animal,

this animal that is in your charge, ruined something of value that belongs to someone else.

And that is why I say to you,

former guest bailiff Elizabeth Gilbert,

I need $200.

Judge Hodgman, I don't mean to put too fine of a point on this.

Yeah.

But former guest host Elizabeth Gilbert gave a thoughtful and generous contribution in the Mac Fund drive.

So maybe we can call it even.

Not good enough.

It was a big debate between my wife and I for a long time because she didn't, I mean, and bear in mind, today,

I have no doubt that Elizabeth Gilbert would have said, oh my, I'm so sorry.

Let me get those for you.

Let me pay for them.

Let me replace them.

Let me, what can I do?

You know, but I think we were both younger at that time.

And even though she was in a little bit different place in her career than I was, I think even then she, we just didn't know.

We just didn't know that that was the right thing to do.

And, and, and, and, and maybe she was worried that it was, they were going to be really expensive.

And

anyway, now we know better.

And take the benefit of my wisdom, Mark.

Pay for that man's frisbee that your dog chewed up.

I know what happened.

Do it.

It's $7 or whatever.

Be a good person.

Judge Hodgman, was this whole question just an elaborate secret buzz marketing ploy to plug the upcoming second season of Elizabeth Gilbert's new MaxFun podcast Magic Lessons?

It was not, but I am thrilled to be a part of such a secret agenda.

I did not know.

Look for it this summer.

That will be great.

I love Elizabeth Gilbert and I look forward to my $200.

Here's something from John.

I would like to have my significant other Katie refrain from using the phrases these ones and those ones.

Or if not refrain, put a dollar in a jar someplace whenever this is used.

I've searched many grammar web pages.

Oh, geez.

I've searched many grammar web pages, but they all come back with inconclusive results as to whether this is acceptable in English speech.

John, Katie says, look at these ones here, and it makes my internal copy editor cringe.

Please help us with this issue.

Is the issue that he has an internal copy editor?

Yeah, I'm afraid you have a copy editor lodged in some part of your body.

It sounds like a copy editor endectomy is the only option.

Yeah.

And it has a cringing problem.

Much like I have a cramping problem, you have a cringing problem.

I also, curiously, I searched not many grammar web pages, but three a few minutes ago to verify that indeed there's a lot of dispute

as to whether one

usage is more correct than the other.

That is to say, look at these ones or look at these.

Ones is obviously a word.

You say his loved ones all the time.

There's no problem with ones.

So there is really no grammatical error with these ones, but I think that to some people's ears, it sounds

perhaps less educated or a little bit more

redundant because you could simply say, look at these.

So if you really wanted to strunk and white it, you probably, E.B.

White probably would have said, just look at these.

But when I picture Katie saying, look at these ones here, you know what?

I think I hear someone with

a charming regional inflection

and

someone that you are pledged to love.

And I,

since this court stands against pedantry,

I'm going to say, Katie, I think you should break up with this dude.

Yeah, and remember, John and Katie, this is coming from a man who earlier in this very podcast corrected my quotation of a popular bumper sticker on grammatical grounds.

Wait a minute, is that a popular bumper sticker?

Who rescued whom?

Who rescued who, yes.

Oh, it says who rescued who?

Yeah, I don't think it says who rescued whom.

This isn't some fancy Ivy League bumper sticker.

I live in the constant torment of my beloved bailiff, constantly saying, me and Jordan did this and that.

Look, I have other friends, Judge Hodgman.

I know that's not other friends.

You are.

I've missed the point, sir.

You have missed the point.

English is a living language, and

bumper stickers are also a living language.

And I think that

it's important in life to choose your battles.

And this is not one, I think.

These are the ones that don't matter.

Okay, we'll have more Judge John Hodgman when we come back in just a second.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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

Jesse, the reviews are in.

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

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John, you know what I got from Quince?

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Oh.

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It's a stink-rejecting technology, John.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

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 Lawrence.

I'm Caroline Roper.

And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and 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.

Hey, Judge Hodgman, you won't believe what me and Jordan were doing during the break.

Oh.

Okay, here's a case from Brian.

I can't wait.

My fiancé, Justin, and I have an ongoing argument related to the source of my media choices.

I listen to a number of pop culture-related podcasts, which frequently offer TV and movie recommendations.

One, I can only presume that Brian is leaving out the specific names Bullseye with Jesse Thorne and MaximumFund.org's own Pop Rocket because he's worried that he'll be judged for buzz marketing.

But I have no such shame.

Good for you.

I've come to trust these podcasters and find their tastes often align with my own.

You know what?

I'm going to throw in NPR's pop culture happy hour.

That's a great show, too.

That's true, and they're friends of this podcast, I'm glad to say.

Justin says I'm acting like a lemming and thinks I need to develop my own tastes.

He's also accused me of dismissing his recommendations until a podcaster seconds them.

I think one of the main purposes of these podcasts is to steer you toward things you will enjoy.

I also see nothing wrong with becoming more interested after having something recommended by a trusted source besides my partner.

Now, I find myself lying about how I've heard about a piece of culture or pretending not to know about it at all when he brings it up.

Judge, is a podcast an appropriate place to get recommendations?

And should Justin be able to dismiss my idea when I say I heard it recommended on a podcast?

Well, first of all, let me just say that I'm presuming that Brian and Justin are both men.

I'm very excited and pleased

that not only are they getting married, but we live in a society which increasingly that is not a big deal and is legal.

But when you are referring, Brian, to your fiancé, Justin, who is a man,

you spell fiancé F-I-A-N-C-E, full stop.

You put two E's on it, and that's wrong.

And my inner copy editor really cringed, and I didn't listen to the rest of your question.

Now,

I highly recommend, speaking of the pop culture happy hour, a book that has crossed my desk by Glenn Weldon, one of the co-hosts, called The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture.

It is exactly as it sounds: a quote, riveting and entertaining history that chronicles the rises and falls of one of the world's most beloved superheroes.

It's a cultural history of Batman as a character, as a phenomenon, and it's just,

I've just started it, and it's a really terrific read.

And, Brian, I recommend that you read it, and I recommend that you don't listen to Justin, who is a snob.

He's a snob.

You know, the definition,

as we have discussed before, of a hipster, more or less, is someone who

has enthusiasms like a nerd, but uses those enthusiasms to gain,

to cudgel others with their taste and to gain status because you like the wrong thing or you don't know what the right thing is,

or you learned about something the wrong way because you found about it once it became popular or whatever.

Whereas a nerd is someone who also has enthusiasms, but just wants to share the enthusiasms.

And unfortunately, while I look forward to, as I trust you do, your many, many years of happy married bliss, Justin in this case has got to check himself because

learning about culture wherever you can get it is a gift to you.

And if you find something you really love, it does not matter from,

oh, I almost said from whence

you heard it.

But I think the proper way to say that, and I'm not sure, is it doesn't matter whence you heard it, because I think whence means the from is implied.

Hence,

Brian's right, Justin's wrong.

Go buy a book.

Hey, you should listen to Glenn Weldon on the hit public radio program Bullseye with Jesse Thorne.

That's my recommendation.

That's your recommendation?

Yeah.

Glenn Weldon, he's the best.

That book is great.

I've read that whole Batman book, and despite not necessarily being a world champion Batman guy, as Glenn is, I really enjoyed it.

I was thrilled when he got the World Champion Batman Guy trophy.

Yeah, he did.

I know award shows tend to be meaningless popularity contests, but sometimes they get it right.

And World Championship Batman Guy finally got it right this year.

Okay,

here's sort of a broader issue.

So we had a bunch of people write in about our recent adjudication of a case about Magic the Gathering.

This was in episode 249.

So in that dispute, if you don't remember, there was a man who played Magic the Gathering with a good friend of his, and the defendant insisted on buying singles.

The plaintiff was playing using a more random selection of cards.

And basically, the beef there was that the gameplay was imbalanced because one of the players had chosen to

bring his focused money to bear upon the singles.

One guy was going out there and spending his money on all the good, powerful cards, and the other guy was playing the game,

you know, old school.

Just you get what you get and you don't get upset.

Yeah.

The judge ruled that the plaintiff should start a Patreon and attempt to blow his friend out of the water by constructing the very best deck available with other people's money, which he did do.

He did start that Patreon.

Oh,

I didn't see that.

Did it get funded?

Is it too late?

Can I?

Yeah, I think you can contribute something.

All right, as soon as Liz Gilbert gives me 200 bucks, I'm going to just pass it along and pay it forward.

We actually had some suggestions from other Magic of the Gathering players and their loved ones.

So

I'm going to run through a few of those.

By the way.

Yeah, we got a lot of letters on this one.

And

I didn't understand a lot of them, but I was grateful that people came in and added their own wisdom.

Regular listeners to Maximum Fun podcasts will know that I played Magic the Gathering in middle school, but have not done so since.

And the only thing I remember really is that there was a really important card called Sarah Angel.

So I always refer to Sarah Angel to demonstrate that I'm on the Magic the Gathering people's team, but I don't have any other references to go to, so it's always Sarah Angel.

A listener of this show, and Jordan Jesse Goh, who had noticed it on both shows, was kind enough during the Max Fun Drive time to send me a bunch of Sarah Angel cards to collect my autograph on,

which he then used to raise money for Max Fun.

Let's be clear, no one wants that.

So I don't think it was a successful effort,

but

it was appreciated, certainly.

You know what?

It was very

smart thinking.

Okay, so here's something from Hannah.

Hannah's fiancé is a magic enthusiast who has played competitively.

And she said that she would rather watch the Gilmore Girls for the 50th time than play magic.

But she did have a good suggestion.

She said that the friends, by the way, there's no need to watch the Gilmore Girls for the 50th time.

You can watch Crazy X Girlfriend.

That's new.

It's great.

Is that your pop culture recommendation?

That's my pop culture recommendation.

If you're looking for the same satisfactions that you get from that show, go to Crazy X Girlfriend.

Now I can't watch it because I heard about it from a podcast.

Charming, medium stakes, and very funny.

I will check it out.

Okay, so she says this.

She says that the friends should mutually agree on a gameplay format, and she named two.

One is constructed, in which players make their decks ahead of time with whatever cards they can get their hand on, which is the problem that the plaintiff is complaining about.

The other is drafting, where they each open a pack of cards and take turns picking cards from those packs until each has built a suitable deck for play, at which point the two play with these new decks that did not exist prior to the game at hand.

Hmm.

I like that second one because it reminds me of fantasy sports.

And it's fantasy.

Yeah, exactly.

It's literally fantasy.

Is that sort of literally?

Yeah.

Maybe.

What if fantasy sports just meant like your fantasy football team was mostly regular players within a couple minotaurs

i would suddenly become the biggest sports fan

well hannah thank you for those suggestions those are both great and we don't have we didn't get any more correct uh no uh it did not stop there according to this piece of paper in front of me We also heard from Mark.

Mark suggested a different method.

He says, I've used this one in friendly non-tournament play.

It helps even the playing field.

Everyone brings their favorite decks and each player randomly selects one of the decks that was brought.

Essentially, each player has an equal chance of using an overpowered deck during a given match.

Sure.

And that's all there is.

No, no, no.

Oh, Gabe suggested three different methods, including the peasant and backdraft formats.

Please don't describe them.

I shan't.

You can find them all on our website at maximumfun.org.

Is that all the different ways to play?

That's all the different ways.

Magic the Gathering?

That's all the different ways to play Magic the Gathering with your friends.

There are no more ways.

If you disagree, please tweet at Hodgman on Twitter.

Twitter.com slash Hodgman.

Or write me, I guess I've asked for it.

Hodgman at maximumfun.org.

We did get other letters this week, did we not?

We did, but I want to suggest an alternative activity for these guys that I think they might enjoy.

Oh, Minotaur football?

Yeah, Minotaur football.

Have you?

There's a band called Mount Erie, which is in fact a man named Phil Elverum.

And Phil Elvrum is a lovely guy, sort of indie rock luminary, who lives up in, he lives in some weird, one of those weird islands off the coast of Oregon or

Washington State.

Very nice dude.

And he came on Jordan Jesse Go once a couple of years ago, and he described this game that he and his bandmates and crewmates play when they are on tour together.

And he's very much,

he's a very deeply DIY guy, so his tours are very DIY.

They play this game called Wad Lord.

And here's how you play Wadlord.

One player is designated the Wad Lord,

and the Wad Lord puts some of his own money into a handful of money.

Then each of the other players put their money into the handful of money.

The Wad Lord turns and

he shows everybody the outside of the wad of money, and then everyone has to guess how much money is inside the wad.

Whoever guesses how much money is inside the wad

wins the full amount of money in the wad.

Well, is it like Price's right rules closest without going over, or you have to guess the exact amount?

I don't know.

Ask Phil Elverham and

member to play.

Right now, I don't remember why the WAD Lord doesn't have himself an unfair advantage.

But the key strategy in the game, the key strategy here is that the more money you put in, this is what I like about it relative to this magic situation.

The more money you put in, the more control you have over the amount of money that's in the WAD.

So like if you put in $300,

you're the only one who knows that there's more than $300 in there because that $300 is probably buried in this WAD.

Right.

But,

but,

but, but, you're also risking $300 if you put in $300.

This is an insidious game.

Somebody on Reddit is going to clarify the rules of Wildlord, by the way.

Maximumfund.reddit.com so you can remind me how somebody is going to go listen back to the episode of Jordan Jesse Go called Wadlord with Phil Elverum from four years ago or whatever it was and remind me that because it is the most it's the most magical interesting it's the most magical waste of time and money that anyone has ever created other than magic the gathering is there a way to capitalize on wad lord i'm not saying we take this idea from your friend but this is insidious is there a way to make this game into a game that you can then sell to other people Oh, I assumed that what you meant by capitalize on it was like take it to the streets three-card Monty style.

Oh, yeah, no, no, no.

I'm purely a three-card Monty guy.

I'm not going to mix up my games out there on the streets.

Well, you know what I think we need to do?

No.

We make a boxed version, we start it out in Scandinavia, and then we can see if we can license it to the American market.

Jesse, that's why they call you the Wad Lord.

I love it.

Yeah, stick that in your pipeline.

Put some divorced rabbit royalty in there, and we got ourselves a game.

We have one last email from Tim.

He wrote us to say, while I do regularly enjoy your program, I got an unexpected belly laugh from this week's case when I accidentally hit the half speed button on my preferred podcast application.

At half speed, all the participants sound extremely intoxicated, which puts a whole different spin on fake internet court litigation.

Highly recommended.

Thanks, Tim, for writing!

I'm glad that someone finally discovered our alternate podcast, Judge John Hodgman, chopped and screwed.

Drunk Justice.

If you have a case for Judge John Hodgman, go to maximumfund.org slash JJ H O.

If you want to follow us on Twitter, Judge Hodgman is at Hodgman.

I am at Jesse Thorne.

You can also find us on Reddit at maximumfund.reddit.com, where someone is posting the full remembered rules of Wad Lord right this very moment.

You can find our show online at maximumfund.org.

And please send in a review of Judge John Hodgman.

It makes a big difference in our iTunes rankings.

And if you like Judge John Hodgman, why not tell someone you know about how much you like it?

How about that?

And before you go, stay tuned.

Just don't do it on a podcast.

Before you go, set your listening speed to half speed to hear this important secret message for you.

Hi, it's me, John Hodgman.

I'm going to be performing at Margo and Coronet in Los Angeles on June 9th.

My one-man show vacation land.

Tickets are available online.

Go to johnhodgman.com/slash tour.

Our producer is Julia Smith.

Our editor is Mark McConville.

And ho, hey, by the way, let's go.

Max FunCon East tickets are on sale right now at maxfuncon.com.

So if you live on the East Coast and you want to come out, hang out with me and lots of other Max Fun talent and brilliant and amazing people and really nice people, go to maxfuncon.com to buy tickets for Max FunCon East.

Okay, bye.

Check John Hodgen rules.

That is all.

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