Why fly to Japan and back in a day? 

Anyone else get the feeling that once Tom finishes his continual run of Monday videos next year that he'll have the time to be Sam's teammate on a season of Jet Lag?

Of course it’d be Ben who suggests getting drunk.

In 1985, my dad flew from Sydney to Honolulu, had lunch and flew back 😮 His US green card would expire if he didn't set foot on US soil at least once every 12 months. Since all of our green cards were linked to his, it would have made moving the family to the US a few months later quite a bit more challenging 🤔😂

Douglas Adams was quoted as saying "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go past." On the original Hitch Hikers Guide radio series, he was writing scenes and taking them down to the cast while they were in the studio recording the episode.

Well, the "much relieved" part and the fact it was a trip to Japan made me think that he was just really committed to using one of those high-tech Japanese toilets at least once.

Just a note from an audio engineer incase Sam and Adam happens to see this: Adam, you are speaking into the wrong end of the mic, you are supposed to talk into the front, where the logo is. Sam: that mic is designed to not have proximity effect (the addition of low frequencies when you talk close to it) which means, you can speak way closer to it, meaning you don't have to keep the gain that high, so the resulting sound would be less echoey

I always envision what I think the guests look like in my head when I listen to an episode, then I watch the highlights and I’m never right.

The 'only phone and laptop' part of the clue had me thinking that maybe it had something to do with the international dateline and what date showed on his devices when he performed some action. I was thinking that he needed something he did to be timestamped with the previous day's date, but then I realized that crossing the dateline going west would move him forward one calendar day.

Perfect question for this cast xD Well done from the production crew to coordinate that

My first idea was that he had made some kind of commitment to visit every country in the world before a certain date, then realised he had missed Japan with only two days left on the deadline, but couldn't spend longer there because he had to work the day after. Then I remembered a charity event that university students used to do, where it was a contest to get as far away from the starting point as possible in 24 hours starting with no money. There were legends of students who had made it to other countries by blagging plane tickets or getting a company to sponsor them. I don't remember what the event was called.

Tom not knowing something is always a surprise - especially when I had to study that very subject matter in high school haha

I'd assumed it was to comply with a poorly-worded deadline that didn't specify time zone, but which was trivially doable from the airport (email or fax a document - so it's timestamped locally - before midnight on such and such a date). So you get off the plane, connect to cell service, hit 'send', and go straight to the departure lounge. Until I realised you'd be a day *ahead* in Tokyo.

Yes!!!!! This crossover is everything

Tom, with one of your 26 weeks left of the weekly videos, you should visit Walden Pond. Edit: now that I have thought about it some more, this should be your final video in the ten year streak. It would be fitting to go to Walden to take some time off.

I get a warm feeling anytime I hear fellow Americans praise Taskmaster.

Dear Adam Chase regarding sound quality; The Blue Yeti is a front facing microphone, and in your environment you should be talking to the Blue logo at the front of the microphone. This will mean that your voice will be picked up properly rather than mostly the reflection from your room. I hope you read this and can improve your sound quality for future recordings! :)

Adam might actually be the best guest you guys have had on lol. He's so funny and really thinks about it the right way

And here my first thought was some sort of immigration check-in - "If you don't set foot in Japan for five years, you lose your citizenship!", something like that.

well, i looked up Peter's books and I think it's fair to say the ACTUAL reason was a massive PR stunt/purely advertising, given that either that book or his next one was titled "Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain" and he also wrote, a decade earlier, "Can We Do That!: Outrageous PR Stunts That Work"

i love these guys' personalities, i thought it was just a bit when they were doing it on jet lag but it's just them, amazing

This is my question! Cool to hear the bloke from HAI answer it

This is by far my favorite episode yet! Sam, Ben and Adam make for great contestants and funny moments.

Even jet-lag the game wasn’t crazy enough to do this!

0:38 in I'm gonna guess he had a relative living in that area, and had somehow or other been given the impression that relative was in very serious danger of being dead, dying soon, or something similar. Guy books an emergency flight, finds out on arriving it was either mistaken identity or something similar, is very relieved, and goes back home to tend to business that was otherwise being put off but no longer can because there's no longer an emergency.

I have a friend of a friend who is head of lounges for an airline. Flying half way around the world to check a lounge and going straight back again is a standard thing for him.

If anyone was wondering what the 'personality trait' was, Peter Shankman has severe ADHD. So he's even more sensitive to outside stimuli and distractions from the vast majority of us, which might have made the flight worth it.

I am very disappointed in myself for not getting this one; having taken the train to London 3 times in the last year for the exact same reason. (The internet doesn't distract me too much, even if the train wifi occasionally works; but I need a space where I can't start pacing around the room while I'm thinking)

Gosh, that guy must have loved 2020. Also, Walden is *not* well known in the UK, sadly. And it was Massachusetts, not Maine

Amazing episode!

5:25 I love how it’s BEN who mentions the guy getting drunk

Walden Pond, is in Concord, MA. It's now a public swimming area, and currently is having a bit of an environmental crisis due to being subject to a century of excess human urine (because everyone swims when they pee, whether they admit to it or not)

The collab I never knew I needed.

Adam making fun of Tom for not knowing about the great American authors is even funnier now that Adam is officially part of American literary cannon

Suitable question for wendover production and jet lag

I suspected that one (which is rare for me on lateral). I had a history teacher in high school who always booked really expensive high speed train tickets to travel through all of Germany and then back, just so she had an environment free of distraction to grade our exams.

*up in Concord, Mass. I just drove past it this evening. Lovely pond and greenery, apparently Emerson owned the entire estate and let Thoreau conduct his experiment there.

6:00 lol that's what I was thinking from the start, time to get work done

I love the jet lag crew!

Rarely do I click so fast - what a great episode!

I did a mileage run once. California to London, spent about a day and a half there, and flew back. I didn't actually need to go to London-Atlanta would have been far enough. But the cost of the ticket to London, plus not having to rent a car, made the trip significantly cheaper.

My thought was that this was one of those situations where a part to repair a machine needs to get to that machine as fast as possible. "I need a seat on the very next flight to x location" "That will be $1,500" "Yes and it leaves in 40 minutes hurry up printing it pls"

I thought quite a good possibility was that he bought the tickets as a cheap way to see the aurora borealis, as a lot of flights in and out of Japan fly very close to the north pole and, if it's dark and the right time of year, give you an opportunity to see something most people spend thousands of dollars to go and see anyway. And I wondered if the relief therefore came with ticking something off his bucket list...

Man if this show was full episodes on video I would be watching all the time. Might have to go listen just for the jet lag boys

My first guess was something about meeting a partners family but could only do it at a specific time... My second guess was some bizarre fear or phobia of February 29th so flew out and landed on the 28th, and then returned passing the international date line and lands on the 1st March.

Henry David Thoreau lived in a cabin in Concord, Mass(home of the old north bridge) and wrote on walden pond.

I live near Walden Pond! It's in Massachusetts, not Maine. And wasn't Tom looking for video ideas for the last 26 episodes? :) Alas, I feel like Walden pond fails the "and" test, though.

I did NYC to Singapore then turned around and went straight back to NYC. A lot more than 24 hours non-stop flying.

I can't believe it but I got this one right almost instantly. Not kidding.

I was convinced it was going to turn out that this guy could only poop on planes and I cant believe none of them guessed that.

Wow... Tom managed to get Erling Haaland on the show.

Love Sam Ben abd Adam!!!

6:53 That "voluntarily" reminded me of the story behind my country's national anthem: In 1853, there was a competition to write an anthem for Mexico. Francisco González Bocanegra, a talented poet, wasn't really interested in it, but his fiancée Pili thought he was good enough to win. However, he kept on refusing to participate. Pili started getting displeased, so much that she took matters into her own hands. Pili filled a room in her parents' house with pictures depicting several events of Mexico's history, then lured González Bocanegra into it, and locked him. She then told him he would only be let out of it until he had produced an entry for the competition. Four hours later, he slipped a ten-verse, one-chorus poem. Once Pili and her father read it, they let him out and entered the poem to the competition... which González Bocanegra won by unanimous vote.

Awww i was thinking he had to travel to yesterday over the international date line to do something he forgot to do in "time", but it really doesn't work like that as deadlines are tied to location and time zone.

The biggest surprise in this video is Tom's knowledge hole on Walden given the breadth and depth of his knowledge in general

There are curriers that do this for you, if you need something urgent they fly someone to get it, usually not even exiting the airport

got this right at the start, knew it would be a deadline work task lmaoo

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." -- Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

"Lateral" popped up in my recommendations. Immediate subscribe... I can imagine the dude, sitting in his $5000 cabin, telling to himself "There. I'll just watch one episode of Dexter, then I start my work."

I guessed pretty quick as my Dad told me this story recently. Interesting story

The way Tom Said "much relieved" and "completion of the Task" instantly made me think of the mile high club

I've just realised I knew this answer because he wrote it in the book of his that I read. Now that makes sense.

I've had to do a last minute mileage run luckily only needed a short trip, so I flew from Maryland to Ohio and back in the same day. Damn, Adam breaking out a deep cut from high school English Lit.

WOW! I NEVER thought I'd see Tom Scott HUMILIATED on his own podcast! Good show lol

It’s funny, watching this, and knowing the answer, because I read it in a book already

But... What was the manuscript FOR?!😅 We need to know!

I flew from Europe to Japan on a mileage run a few years ago. Stayed a few hours and flew back...

Hope this brings more viewers to JLTG

Writing this at the start of the video, i believe it has something to do with time zones and kind of going back in time to get the time to finish a task before it’s deadline

That was pretty nuts. But not as nuts as Tom not knowing Walden.

Since you'll presumably be having more time on your hands soon Tom, by all means put Thoreau on your reading list. It's not a big investment in time, basically just a journal and an essay or two. Philosophy both personal and sociopolitical, one of the foundations of American thought. Standard fare in high school literature and/or civics classes.

I was just on a 16 flight that had wifi the whole time, so times have changed

Yeah, Thoreau went to Walden Pond to be all on his own. Except for his mother who did his laundry and brought him home cooked meals because he was about a 20 minute walk from his parents' house. Puh-leeze.

One could fly to the “far east” (preferably Kiribati) to experience their birthday from the stroke of midnight and at some point fly to Hawaii (the far West) for something like 46-47 hrs.

Anddd they were just in Japan filming their latest season

Between “he can only do a certain thing on a flight” and “much relieved”, I was wondering if it had to do with using the lavatory

My guess was a visa expiring on that day. He had to prove being outside the USA, "more than a day"/"before the visa ran out", so he could get a new visa once he returned home.

I was thinking he was trying to avoid his birthday by crossing the international date line at just the right times

Ok Tom has to be in the next season of jet lag

I mean...got it within 30 seconds. Surprised it took them ages.

Since it was 2015, the book Shankman was working on must have been "Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans", since it came out that year.

I would love to see this made into a game you can buy, because i would play this

The funny thing is that this video is about tokyo, japan and currently they’re uploading videos about capture the flag across japan, what’s even funnier is episode 2 just popped up on my recommended

Before watching beyond 30 seconds or reading the comments, here are my guesses: picking up an organ for transplant My other thought was a mileage run to maintain airline loyalty status, but typically you'd look for a flight that has a better value in terms of cost:distance

I always watch the videos at 1,75x speed and when I watched outro at normal speed I first thought they had a new song or smth

I'm humoured by the attitude that Tom is expected to know about American literature. Like Tom, I'd never heard of "Walden" before seeing this. It's not widely known in the UK.

Very surprised that Tom has not heard of Walden.

and here I thought it was a case of I want this document done by Friday. its Saturday now when I got this document done but if I take this flight its will be Friday where I land (so I sent them in thoes I be in time). and then return kind of deal.

i was thinking maybe something about time zone , like in New York today is 12/08/2023 , some how 10 hours later the plane landed in that country , in that local time the day is 11/08/2023 something like that , by the way is possible..? is can happen if the plane fast enough , if can be done , so technically is time travel right..?

I like how they never ended up actually explaining what Jet Lag: The Game is

I thought he wanted to go "back in time" so he traveled to another time zone far away or something

I tried this once to work on school work. It worked great up until the invention of in seat entertainment. Now, I spend 14 hours, sleeping and watching movies. For some reason, I still take my laptop though.

4:14 real ones know that taskmaster mn is the real taskmaster USA and that it was INCREDIBLE

I’d prefer a cabin in the woods

as a Taskmaster fan, I'm surprised that they brought that up out of the blue 😹😹

Nick Robinson : “Is that a challenge?”

My dad took a day trip to Vegas one December to keep his delta diamond status

Wait, I can't recall that Ben and Adam flew from NY to LA and back Was this an earlier season? Or did they already film next season?

I'm surprised at Tom not knowing about Walden

Make him participate in JetLag!!!!!

Couldn't remember when this happened, but expecting the answer in the line of someone hating the idea of celebrating their birthday, so by crossing the International Date Line, they would of effectively celebrate that date at little as possible