John: Good morning Hank, it's Monday, January 8th. Sarah and I are about to drive out of
Asheville, on our way to Birmingham, Alabama. I would like to congratulate you on successfully
completing the Strawberry Hill challenge, except that you didn't complete it! Hank,
as you know, I had surgery on my mouth a few weeks ago. After they sewed my gum back into
my mouth, my mouth tasted like cement and blood and burnt meat. And you know how after
any dental procedure they make you drink that, like, green, gross, minty alcoholy stuff and
then spit? Strawberry Hill tastes exactly like that spit. Project idea: the Brotherhood
2.0 Book Club. I'll read a book you suggest if you read a book I suggest. My first suggestion?
Either "What is the What," by Dave Eggers or "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We
Will be Killed With Our Families," by Philip Gourevitch.
Hank: Hello, John. It's Tuesday, January 9th. I'm in Detroit, Michigan. I'm standing in
the only place in the continental United States where you can look south and see Canada, which
you are doing right now. I'm also standing in front of General Motors headquarters. It's
a very, very big building. I've excepted an invitation from General Motors to visit the
North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan. I was invited to this because
I write for a few environmental blogs and there are some environmental things going
on here. Those are my values. This is not my values. And here we have the weirdest,
prettiest fake waterfall ever and it spells things. So lame. [Girls]: Hi John! Hey John!
See what you're missing? [Hank]: Ehhehehehehehehehehe. As for the Brotherhood 2.0 book club, I'm
really excited that you're giving me opportunities to read so many books about genocide. I love
genocide.
John: Good morning Hank, it's Thur- what? It's Wednesday, January 10th. Boy, I'm out
of it. Hi girls who are being used as objects to sell other objects! Sorry about the patriarchal
oppression. I was inspired by your video blog yesterday to calculate my own carbon footprint,
so, um, I'm gonna go to BP.com and do it. Hank, I produce 16 tons of carbon a year.
That is lower than the United States average of 18.58, but it's still really bad. Sixteen
tons of carbon. I just read on the internet that it only costs six dollars per ton to
get rid of your carbon footprint. Uhh, that means that it's only gonna cost me, like,
I'm not very good at math, hold on, I'm gonna call Daniel. Hey, how's it going? What's sixteen
times six? It's 96. Do you see how fast he did that? He doesn't have a calculator. $96
a year, that's what it would cost to offset my carbon consumption. If I pay Al Gore $96,
I will not have any global warming attached to my name. I think you can pay him directly,
I think you just write him a check, and he just takes care of it. He does, he eats the
carbon. That's exactly right, that's how he does it, he eats the carbon. And then when
he poops it out, it's actually political gold.
Hank: Good afternoon, John. It is Thursday, January 11th. (sneezes twice) So I was just
watching my video from January 9th. I'm paying the price for not being commensurate with
my values. I don't actually remember this tiny chicken but I'm almost positive that
we had an encounter, because this tiny chicken has laid tiny eggs in my head. And the baby
tiny chickens are feeding on my brain. They're eating my brain and their poop is coming out
my nose. I've got a little bit of a problem, and I was hoping that you or maybe one of
our viewers could help me out. I was going to Detroit, right, so I figured I'd have a
bunch of business cards printed up. I used an online service, and I upload my files,
and they sent me a bunch of business cards. I like that. I like, it's like a nice, sturdy
card stock. And on the back, it's supposed to be like this one, which I got printed up
at Kinko's. But this one, on the back, says this. And on the front, says this. What am
I supposed to do with this? John, viewers: What do I do with 100 three inch by one-and-a-half
inch cards that say 'ecogeek' on them? So far my only idea is to tape them all over
my face. (sings) 'I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more.' See, this is — this
is to me not a punishment. I— I don't know. To me, it's not a punishment. We sh— we
need to come up with better punishments, is what I'm saying.
John: Good morning Hank; it's Friday, January 12th. This video blog post is going to consist
entirely of ideas. Misprinted business card utilization ideas: if you had a hole punch,
a lot of patience, and a lot of dental floss, you could make Katherine a dress. Since you
just got married, you can use them to write very terse thank-you notes in very small handwriting.
You could wallpaper every room in your dollhouse. Everybody thinks you have a dollhouse now!
Punishment ideas: I'm just going to pick punishment ideas from things that are currently in our
living room. Several of our books would make excellent punishments. This is The Continuum
History of Apocalypticism. It's eleven-hundred pages long. It's pretty punishing. Don't you
think it would be a good punishment if you had to do your Happy Dance for three minutes
and thirty seconds, but you could only do it at five second clips at a time, so you
had to have a total of 70 dances in 70 different locations? That'd be a pretty good punishment.
Or maybe that should be a project? Maybe we could intersperse our Happy Dances. You do
35, I do 35. That has some appeal for me, any interest?