I had to go get my watch fixed the other day, and the watch fixing place that I go to is one of those old school clockmaker shops that looks like it's run by a serial killer. There are old clocks all over the place and random magazine clippings tacked to the wall, with all kinds of strange tools scattered about that are used to either fix clocks or take out a teenager's gall bladder in the basement. So I walk into the shop and there's no one at the counter. There is, however, a fucking PARROT sitting right on the counter. A live parrot, with the beak and everything. And it's completely uncaged. A wild bird, with sharp claws and a hugeass beak, just hanging out.
Now I'm freaking out, because I have no idea if this bird is going to fly up and start feasting on my eyes at any moment. Then it starts talking to me, like I'm Mr. Roper from Three's Company or something, and I have no clue what to say. It was the most painfully awkward six seconds of my life until the watch guy finally emerged from the back and took my watch to be fixed. He didn't even acknowledge the parrot was there. This was all perfectly normal to him. I think that's a breach of protocol. Not everyone is as comfortable around dangerous talking birds as you, dickface. Aren't there rules about uncaged birds in public businesses? What if it took a shit on me? I WANT ANSWERS.
Now, before I get to the funbag, a quick announcement: I'm gonna be writing more for Deadspin and Gawker in the coming months. But there's not gonna be a set schedule for it or anything. The best way to keep up is either to check the Twitter feed, or check back here every so often. You never know when I'll decide to offend 99 percent of the Gawker commenters with some offhand remark about trannies. To your letters:
Kevin:
Are you going to let your son play organized football? We have a debate going on in our office since late fall about this topic. There are fathers of all ages with children ranging from kindergarten age to high schoolers. Most of the older kids play football and their fathers are adamant it was a "character building" experience that made them tougher and taught them teamwork. Most of the Dads with younger sons point to the recent medical reports that show small but constant blows to the head are as damaging as one big blow that results in a concussion. To them it doesn't make sense to expose their boys to almost certain brain damage now that we have better medical data and understand the damage being done. Other sports also build character, instill toughness, etc. but don't involve getting your brain turned to mush.
I would never encourage my kid to play football. That whole "character-building" angle is a huge load of shit. People who have played football aren't suddenly imbued with more character that people who haven't. Look at me. I was a football benchwarmer for 10 years. Do I look like a man of high moral standing to you? Any rational person knows that plenty of football players are DICKS, who think that playing football made them men of superior character, when in fact it has clearly distorted their egos and made them far worse. The whole notion of "character building" is a flimsy argument when thrown up against the piles and piles of medical data that suggest that football will murder your fucking head. Discarding all that evidence and being like, "Yes, but it'll make him a MAN!" is idiotic. No sane American parent would encourage their child to play football.
They have a youth football league in the D.C. area and some of the kids that play start from ages as young as seven and eight, which blows my mind. There's no point to tackle football at that age. No kid is better prepared to play ninth-grade football if they played in fifth grade. Everyone in ninth grade is still trying to figure out who the hell to block.
Even if you used every advanced piece of safety equipment and you taught your kids to never lead with their head, they'd still go out there and put their heads down. NFL players have a hard time helping themselves when it comes to putting themselves in harm's way. And those are grown men. Kids, who are far stupider, are gonna happily discard those precautions for a chance to look all tough for daddy. And there's no guarantee your kid's pee-wee coach is gonna be a normal, logical person who wants the kids to be safe. Chances are, he's gonna be a FUCKHEAD, some macho dipshit who makes first graders run the Oklahoma Drill because he couldn't get a job coaching the d-line at the regional high school. Most youth coaches are morons at best and demented pederasts at worst. Kids that age should be playing flag football, and then moving onto tackle football in high school if they feel like it.
If my kid wanted to play football and was hellbent on playing and was old enough to make his own decisions, then maybe I'd be all right with him playing. You wanna go out there knowing all you know about this sport and what it does to people? Fine. Natural consequences, kid. But to actively want my kid to play football? No fucking way. It's Competitive Ballooning for Drew Junior!
Jason:
I know that you shouldn't steal other people's food from the work fridge, but there needs to be a statute of limitations on how long you can keep stuff in the freezer. Somebody in my office has had a Costco-sized box of microwave beef burritos in there for at least six months, with no sign that it's ever been touched. It taunts me every time I open up the freezer to put my crappy Lean Cuisine in there. I'm not sure the original owner of the burritos even works here anymore. I should be able to stake my claim to those burritos now, right?
I agree. The fridge stuff is one thing. It's perishable, and usually we're talking about an item that's meant to feed just one person for one day. But when some dickface goes and buys a bulk item and then monopolizes the freezer for half a year with it, I think you're entitled to dig in. The problem with some work fridges and freezers is sometimes, your work (if it's cool) will purchase communal food and beverage items. For example, let's say you walk into an office and there are thirty Cokes in the fridge. I think it's probably safe to assume that those Cokes were purchased for everyone, right? If some moron in accounting bought a thirty pack and thought he could just keep that shit there and hog it all for himself, well that's bullshit. Same with frozen burritos. You're deliberating creating confusion as to what's communal food and what is not, and you're taking up more than your fair share of real estate. I say break it open and go to town. Especially after that long. You get a one week holding period on shit in the work freezer. If you leave it there any longer, I'm just gonna assume you changed your mind and don't want those Hot Pockets. YOINK.
We had a communal fridge at my old office and every week, my bosses would go to the Harris Teeter to stock it with drinks and cold cuts and all kinds of delicious things. My bosses were good people. The problem is that we would then consume the entirety of the fridge's contents in a single day, and NEVER leave anything for the rest of the week. I didn't want someone else getting to the ham before me, so I'd go to town. It wasn't healthy.
Also, as a public service announcement: Please, people, NEVER buy Lean Cuisine. Ever. When I was a little fat kid in seventh grade we used to eat Lean Cuisine for dinner and I still have nightmares of my mom boiling linguini and clam sauce in a plastic bag, then dumping it onto a plate for me to eat. It looked like stomach worms. It's not worth it. Make the drive to get take out for lunch, or bring a sandwich. Lean Cuisine will kill your spirit, if not your body.
Kyle:
I will use a toothbrush until it is a soiled, unsightly HAZMAT situation. But I wonder how many times really rich people use toothbrushes? Like do you think the Koch Brother's assistants open a new one for them every day?
I doubt it, because they're probably too busy having their assistants plant pipe bombs in the offices of various liberal lobbying interests. Anyway, I think rich folks like that have an attentive cadre of house servants who make sure that the toilet paper is fully stocked and that toothbrushes are changed every few months or so. It would be a kick to be able to use a new toothbrush every day, though. Feeling those virgin bristles caress your gumline... SO FRESH. Plus, you could really beat the hell out of that new toothbrush if you knew you were throwing it out two minutes later. I'd chomp down on the fucker and mangle it until it looked like it had gotten in a fight with a cat.
But I don't think people like Bill Gates do that. Unless, maybe... What if there were a secret, rich-person dental varnish that cost $12,000,000 and protected your teeth in such a way that you NEVER had to brush or floss? If I had a billion dollars, I'd think strongly about springing for that. To not have to brush or floss every day? PINCH ME I'M DREAMING. If someone walked by and offered me that today, I'd definitely pay, like, three hundred bucks for it.
I knew someone who worked for Goldman Sachs (the evil vampire squid) and his rich person vice was never wearing the same pair of socks twice. No lie. He'd buy a fresh pack of socks every week, then throw those fuckers out after he was done with them. I found that to be obscene. Rich people are horrible.
Will:
A friend of mine spent a year in rural China teaching English to Chinese kids. He had no prior experience with Chinese or teaching, so I imagine it kinda sucked. But I do know there was at least one interesting part because apparently in China, or at least the area he was in, they use the word "nigga" as a verbal crutch the way that we use the words "um" or "like." Since he was teaching kids a new language they used it a lot, resulting in his kids saying things like: "My name nigga nigga is Ken. Nigga, I am nigga nigga from China. My nigga Dad, nigga nigga is a nigga farmer." I don't think these kids should come to America anytime soon.
Jesus, that's nowhere near as cute as the English class scene in Good Morning Vietnam. "I'm waiting to die!"
Mike:
My friend and I are making a bet. I'm going to eat a dozen taco bell tacos. What's a fair amount of time for this challenge?
Forty minutes. But no bathroom breaks. And every taco must have at least five packets of Fire Sauce squirted onto it, just to increase the degree of difficulty. And to see the look on your face when you take a shit two hours later.
HALFTIME!
Johnny:
You're elected president. Being a normal male and notwithstanding your smoking hot First Lady who'll put out for you all over the White House, there are times when you'll need to jerk it, such as when she's fundraising/on the rag/at a diplomatic soiree. The question is, what do you jerk it to? Can you trust whatever top secet computer the Secret Service provides? You have to suspect that some creep at the NSA or FBI or CIA would record all your Pornhub cock and ball domination and squirting requests and use the info to blackmail you. Do you ask your trusted Secret Service guys to go out and buy Sasha Grey DVDs? No. So what do you use? Are JFK's old Playboys and Jimmy Carter's Hustlers stashed somewhere in the Oval Office? Is there a Strategic Presidential Porn Reserve?
I remember when Obama took office, they had to take away his Blackberry because the President can't use any kind of civilian communication device, which means he almost certainly has to use computers and phones issued by the Federal Government that have been made secure to the point of overkill - firewalls, parental blocks, etc. I bet Obama can't even go on The Superficial without a big Presidential seal popping up on his screen and declaring that he does not have access to that website. I think it would be AWESOME if there was a leftover pile of Presidential fap material that was carefully preserved in some kind of high-tech vault: old porn, photos of mistresses in the nude, confiscated CIA tapes of Frank Sinatra banging waitresses, etc. What a goldmine. If this cache doesn't exist, then I don't want to be an American.
I think the President, should he need help, would almost certainly have a couple of trusted friends/aides who would manage to keep things discreet and arrange for the delivery of DVDs/live strippers/magazines or whatever else he needed to get through the night, with an intern to finish off on.
By the way, have you heard about this book from one of JFK's former mistresses?
She says Kennedy once asked her to "take care of" his aide Dave Powers, who had served as the go-between facilitating the affair; she performed oral sex on Powers while Kennedy watched. The president later apologized to both of them.
On another occasion, she wrote, he asked her to do the same for his brother Teddy. She refused.
That is so fucking gross. Imagine hanging out with the President when a drunken Teddy walks in all fat and ruddy, with sweat hanging off his dick, and the Prez is like, "I uhhh er uhh would like you to-ah blow Teddy ovah they-ahhh!" This woman deserves reparations.
Rob:
As a society, we really trust hand soap, don't we?
/wipes ass
/washes hands with soap and water
/puts in contacts
What kills me is when I walk into a bathroom somewhere and there are instructions to wash your hands for the employees of the joint to follow. I always laugh and think that only a retard would need instructions on hand-washing, but it turns out that I follow NONE of the instructions properly. You're supposed to keep your hands under the sink for, like, two minutes, which I NEVER do. If my hands got wet for two seconds, they're clean. That's my thinking. And you're supposed to wash the back of your hands and lather all the way down to your wrists. Unless I'm about to go transplant a live heart, there's no way I'm ever doing that. I may as well take a full bath in the sink if I'm washing that far.
Sometimes, I'll do a quick wash after taking a dump and I'll be eating a burger later and I'll think, "I wonder if I'm eating my own dung." But the thought quickly passes. Burgers taste good.
Andy:
Today in Austin I saw a Bentley with a "Don't Redistribute My Wealth, Redistribute My work Ethic" bumper sticker. Man, fuck that guy.
Indeed.
JR:
This afternoon I went to the restroom at work to drop a deuce and a guy walked into the stall next to mine and began doing his business. He finished up (I heard the standard plops, the toilet paper being unrolled and torn, etc.) and then I could tell he started to stand up. No big deal. Next thing I know, however, it sounds like the dude is peeing into the toilet from the standard stand-up position. So, it seems like he took a dump, then stood up to pee on it. What the hell is that about? Is this person not capable of peeing while taking a crap? Did he hold back the pee just so he could piss on his log afterward? It was odd. Oh, and then he just walked out. There was no washing of the hands.
If he was fat, it could be that his big fat thighs constricted the flow of urine out of him from a seated position, and that a standing position left the passageway clearer to do his business. Take it from someone who has been overweight: I know the feeling. Sometimes, you get into a public stall and you can't spread your legs as wide as you would like, which means that your peepee is buried underneath mounds of thigh fat, making the idea of peeing while sitting down unpalatable.
Even now, though I lost a good deal of weight, I'll sometimes cap off a growler with a quick stand-and-pee. I have no clue why. There's some leftover urine tucked away in there that refuses to come out until I'm up off the seat. My body makes no sense.
Brian:
As an old school video game nerd, I have often wondered what video game would be the most fun to morph myself into. I'm talking about actually entering the video game world as a character in the game and it acting as my reality.
Would I want to be some fatso wop plumber in Mario? Taking magic mushrooms and flying around w/ a raccoon tail or riding a dinosaur make things more appealing. Blowing shit up non stop in Contra would be pretty sweet. Spread gun, FUCK YES! Also, I would use the Konami code to ensure I'd survive the dangers of the video game world. On the other hand, completing spectacular high flying dunks in NBA Jam would appease my lack of actual athletic talent.
What game would you want to morph into?
Assuming I can't pick Leisure Suit Larry, I'd be hard pressed to turn down a chance to drive a real Mario Kart, taking every shortcut in Wario Stadium to crush my enemies. Also, I'd be driving that Kart while stoned, which would be incredible fun.
I'd also be pretty jazzed to be reincarnated as Link from "Ocarina Of Time". You get to ride around on horses, play songs that alter time, get into swordfights with giant dragons, and all kinds of fantastical stuff. Also, even though I played that game all the way through back in 1999, I've forgotten a lot of it. This would help refresh my memory. So long as I was allowed to use a cheat book. If I were stuck as Link trying to break into some castle without the right hint, I'd kill myself. Honorable mention to "Castle Wolfenstein" (killing Nazis!) and "Starfox" (I'm in space!)*.
* - I'd never pick GTA in real life because real life me doesn't actually enjoy killing prostitutes and stealing drug money. That's far better off remaining a virtual experience.
DW:
What are the chances that a man, married or not, has actually had sex more times than masturbating?
"One hundred percent."
-Mark Wahlberg
Scott:
I found out today a coworker's newborn son was having surgery. I inquired as to what kind of surgery. Apparently, his son was born without a rectal opening. Curious, I looked it up and found this. Prior to the surgery, I believe doctors made a hole in the side of the boy's body for the intestine to release waste. WHOA!
OH SWEET MERCIFUL JESUS! Boy, should I have not clicked on that link. WARNING: Link contains many diagrams of the ol' stinkeye. They even have a picture of a butthole-less baby, which is WRONG and probably gets lots of play in the Jailbait section of Reddit. Anyway, here is some of the text:
Another name for imperforate anus is "anorectal anomaly."
GREAT band name.
Occasionally infants are not diagnosed until several months of age.
How can you not SEE a missing butthole?! That's gotta be the most negligent parent on Earth. "Oh hey, my son appears to not have an asshole. Oh well (tapes diaper back up)." Terrifying. I'd never want to be born without an asshole. It's not worth being rape-proof.
Jeff:
The funhouse scene in Revenge of the Nerds, where Lewis Skolnick tongue-bangs Betty Childs has always bothered me. It's goddamn rape! Skolnick tricked Childs by wearing Stan Gable's mask. She thought she was banging her boyfriend Gable! Just because she ended up enjoying it and falling in love with the Tri-Lamb doesn't mean it's not rape.
I recently went to an engagement party where, because I am a complete fuckin' weirdo, I brought this rape scene up and took an impromptu poll about whether it was indeed rape. About 1/3 of the people thought it was rape, 1/3 thought it wasn't rape, and another 1/3 just gave me odd looks and walked away. Where do you stand? Is Lewis Skolnick a rapist?
It is awfully rapey. In fact, that entire movie is rooted in creepy behavior. The nerds break into a sorority and hide in the shower (CRIME). They plant surveillance cameras in that sorority (CRIME). And they hand out naked images taken from that footage at the Greek Carnival (CRIME!).
It's a measure of how different things were in the 80's when that kind of behavior was considered playful and humorous. I watched that movie a million times as a kid—to the point of memorizing pretty much all of the dialogue—and I often found myself hoping that one day I'd have the chance to trick a cheerleader into letting me go down on her, then pass around nude photos of her underneath whipped cream pies (shouldn't Betty have been mad about that?). IT MADE A MONSTER OUT OF ME.
Wes:
Sleep paralysis sucks balls. The last time it happened to me went like this:
My door was open and I looked at my clock and it was just after 4 am. I went to roll over and couldn't, so knowing what had happened to me because I'm so familiar with it I just tried closing my eyes and falling asleep, which I probably did. But I opened my eyes back up (possibly dreaming, still not sure) and since you can't move you get one range of vision, and it appeared that someone was standing over me right next to my bed. I could see half my room, my open door, and what appeared to be a shoulder and long hair. I immediately closed my eyes again and started to hear the mumblings of a young girl, which became loud, violent and clear when she shouted to ask me what I was doing in the house. This went on for what seemed like a few minutes, with the mumbling and the shouting. The other thing of sleep paralysis is that you can't speak, because your muscles are fucking locked up, so all I could do was attempt to scream. Then it felt as tho someone was in the bed laying on my left side, which of course I cannot see because I'm fucking paralyzed. It was then that I started answering her with my thoughts, telling her that I rented the room, asking her what happened to her and why she was doing this to me. That's the last thing I remember. Then I woke back up and it was about 430 am. I got up, sat in my bed and thought about what had happened, chalked it up to sleep paralysis, closed my door and went to bed.
That is one of the more vivid and horrifying episodes I've ever had. I can still recall one that happened to be while I was in HS where I was certain someone was in my house and coming to get me, but I couldn't move. Sleep paralysis is a very terrible thing that I wish on only my worst enemies and people from Britain.
Noted.