Your letters:
Matt:
You ever go on the FEC website and look up political contributions by people at ESPN/on your favorite sports teams? A lot more Democrat than I thought. Mike D'Antoni? Huge liberal. (Still needs to get fired). Chris Berman? Loves giving money to Joe Leiberman (he would). Brian Kenny - 500 dollars to Ralph Nader. (Guess we know who was bringing the weed to Bristol).
Wow, apparently Berman gave over $7,000 to Lieberman. Who gives money to Joe Lieberman? Even Joe Lieberman's family hates Joe Lieberman.
And you know who else gave to Lieberman? JIM NANTZ! It's true. He gave $2,000 to Lieberman's campaign. That's insane. Nantz also gave W. and Fred Thompson over $2,000 each, like the effete country club mouthpiece that he is. Here are some more:
• A Ronald Jaworski of Voorhees, N.J., gave $2,000 to W in 2003
• As did Al Michaels. Duh.
• Brett Favre gave $2,000 to Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor in 2009
• Cris Collinsworth gave $5,000 to the GOP party of Kentucky back in 2004
• A Charles Barkley of Birmingham gave $2,000 to John Edwards back in 2004. Bet he wishes he had that money back so that he could lose it in three seconds at the blackjack table.
• Jay Mariotti gave $500 to the DNC back in 2009. THAT'S WIFE-BEATER MONEY.
Explore for yourself. There's a whole world of subterranean sports/poli inbreeding waiting to be discovered.
Jason:
Really? I doubt it.
As do I. The only thing that car deserves is a key raked across the front quarter panel.
Junior Mint:
In the hypothetical situation I'm about to make up, apples have faces and let out blood-curdling screams when you eat them.
Nothing else about the apple-eating experience changes - in fact, they are 25% more delicious.
Do you continue to eat apples regularly?
I eat NOTHING but apples if that's the case. Scream all you like, Honeycrisp. No one is coming to help you.
MasonVerger:
Do people actually use dental dams? It just seems that if a guy (or girl!) is willing to go H.A.M. on someone's diseased gash, then safe sex wouldn't really be high on their priority list.
Agreed. When I lived in New York, I used to watch The Robin Byrd Show on public access (very quick summary for people unfamiliar: It's public access porn featuring the dregs of the porn world. But still... PORN). And in one episode, Robin (who looked like a midget with David St. Hubbins' hair) demonstrated how to use a dental dam. It was one of those moments that made me not want to watch porn ever again. You have those moments, where you see something horrible and you're like NO MORE. I think I lasted three days without.
Anyway, I think dental dams exist only as something that hookers demand clients use, only to have said client refuse and go down on the hooker anyway.
Chris:
A girl I work with helps her parents make their own salami and sausage at home. She says they have to be careful to not get their fingers caught in whatever horrifying machine grinds pig parts and stuffs it into tubing, and that her cousin lost most of her thumb in a salami-making incident. The thumb-meat had to then be thrown away. One girl claims she would have kept the salami as a trophy of sorts, but I stand firm with the thought that if I lost a digit while crushing some spicy pork byproduct, I would eat EVERY SINGLE BIT of the meat that contained my finger. Not necessarily out of cannibalism, but out of sentimental value. Why throw away delicious sausage just because it has a little bit of myself in it?
First of all: You should hit on and then marry that girl. If I were that girl, that would be the first thing I'd list in my OKCupid profile: MY PARENTS MAKE CURED MEATS AND HAVE A CONTINUOUS STOCK.
Now, as to the thumb sausage: Would it really be edible? If you got your thumb caught in the meat grinder, then that means the resulting sausage would likely contain shards of bone and pieces of thumbnail. If we were just talking about blood and muscle and skin, then I think it would make sense to chow down. MMMM DELICIOUS. But the bone and nail would almost certainly ruin the flavor profiles. Very gritty. Would clash with the fennel seed. You wouldn't be TRANSFORMING the ingredient.
Bill:
If you had to chose.... would you rather have your dick or your balls chopped off? This is question is inspired by and ex-girlfriend who I am afraid might be vengeful.
Well now I'm dying to know what it is you did. Anyway, opt for losing the balls. What good are your balls without your penis? With your penis, you can still urinate without pain and receive daily testosterone injections to give you a chubby. You'll be halfway functional. Hell, if my balls were chopped off I'd be 900% more productive than I currently am now. But no penis? That's real trouble. Your piss would spray EVERYWHERE. You want that penis attached.
Ky:
I drive past this place every day on the way to work. Nice try, Aryan Brotherhood...
"And this is our manager, Mister Bitler. He'll have all your final solutions to your uniform 'problem'."
Chris:
Have you ever been forced to sever ties with friends because of their obnoxious children? We have some friends, not great ones mind you, that I purposefully avoid because their oldest child is a complete turd. I don't necessarily blame the parents, mind you, but I don't even want to acknowledge the little shitstain when I see him. As a result, we look for excuses to not go over their house anymore and think twice before inviting them to ours. The worst part is that the parents seem totally oblivious to just how annoying their kid is, so direct confrontation is out of the question.
It's never come to that for me personally, but I can see it happening. There are bad kids out there. Sometimes, I see little turd kids at the playground and become extremely paranoid that they'll shove my kid off of the rock climbing wall to their death. Hanging out with a rotten kid will destroy your will to live. You exhaust so much energy making sure the kid isn't doing anything evil that you become feral, wolf-like. You spend all your time thinking about how AWFUL the kid is, and what shitty parents he must have, that you can barely pull away and begin thinking like a normal person. And you can't say SHIT to other parents, unless you want a pair of brass knuckles to the face. Parents get REAL over that shit. It's horrible. Anyway, someone you like will probably have a lousy kid at some point, and you will strain every muscle trying not to blurt out how awful the kid is. My advice: Never hang out with other people.
Clark:
As a corporate cockroach, I've slowly worked my way up the ladder to the point that I have to manage people. This sucks ass. I miss the days when I could simply wile away on my computer, headphones on, world tuned out, talking shit about management over Skype or Gchat with fellow lemmings.
I've had plenty of bosses in my time and I had issues with everyone of them. Now the shoe's on the other foot. Deep down, despite my best efforts, I know that I'm a douchebag to all those below me. I'm convinced you can't be a cool boss. Either you're trying too hard to be a "cool" boss and everyone knows it or you're the pathetic boss that takes himself and the company bottom line too seriously while everyone else doesn't give a shit. It's a no win situation either way and it's horrible.
But that's why they pay you more to be the boss, because being the boss eats a gallon of ass. I was a boss once. I worked as an Account Exec at this ad firm and they decided to hire an Assistant Account Exec to work under me. This girl was in her early twenties and barely spoke English. And it was my job to give her shit to do. At first, I thought this would be great because I could just push any tedious work I had onto her and be done with it. But being a boss doesn't work that way. You have to explain things to the people working under you. You have train them. You have to actually sit down and spend quality time with them (GUHHHHHHHH) so that you are both on the same page. And that's horrible.
I was terrible at it. I never gave this poor woman anything to do because it was easier to just do it myself and then spend the rest of my day fapping to shit I downloaded off of Limewire. Any time she came into my office to ask a question, I was like ,"Uhhhh... I don't know. I gotta make a phone call." I was aggressively determined to not do anything at work, and having an underling only got in the way of that goal. So you lackeys out there, take note: Never be a boss. Stay right where you are and never advance an inch. Or else people will actually have expectations for you, and that sucks. Or even worse, your underling will think of stuff to do on his/her own and outshine you. I would NEVER let that happen.
Jake:
What's the worst kids' toys to step on barefoot? Toy cars, wooden blocks, and Legos can all be excruciating, but I think I have to go with a standard marble. Just a hard, focused knot right in the arch of your foot. My kids got a marble run for Christmas - one of those toys where they drop the marbles in and watch them travel down a bunch of chutes and ramps. It's surprisingly entertaining, but every time I step barefoot on a marble I want to smash that toy and smash it good.
My children own a large number of small toy school buses that you can get at any toy store for $8 or less. These aren't Hot Wheels-sized. They're a little bit bigger, big enough to cause MASS DEVASTATION if you happen to step on one. I hate stepping on Legos, because of their sinister corners. And I hate stepping on Duplo blocks even more, because they're like Legos, only bigger and horribler. But at least Legos aren't mobile. At least Legos don't offer the threat of a wheeled toy that can slip underneath your feet and cause you to end up win an ER with sixty metal rods in your spine. Fuck those buses. FUCK THEM.
HALFTIME!
CJ:
I have a daughter about to turn 5 and for the past several months she is finally comfortable with getting up out of bed in the mornings and after naps instead of screaming bloody murder for her mother or I to go get her. While this has obvious benefits (we have a younger son) it also gives her the opportunity to freak me out at least once a week (unintentionally on her part) because all of the sudden I'll look up and she is just standing in the doorway or right next to me, obviously still half-asleep, seemingly staring off in the distance. Is it weird that my kid can scare me that much or have I just seen too many horror movies with freaky small girls, Poltergeist, The Exorcist?
A lot of it is Hollywood's fault, because movie studios are incapable of making a horror movie that doesn't gave a ghost child in it. DURRR WHAT WOULD MAKE THIS MOVIE REAL SCURRY? GHOST KID! I believe that Hollywood producers put ghost kids in every horror movie because they're so completely terrified by their own children. Children demand love and attention and selflessness, and those concepts are fundamentally horrifying to people who live in Los Angeles. That's why they hire one Mexican nanny for EACH child.
Anyway yes, kids are great at scaring the shit out of their parents. Every morning, I hear my kid's footsteps outside my bedroom, and I always think to myself, "THIS is the day that it will be a bloodthirsty axe murderer making those footsteps, and not my kid." Hasn't happened yet, but that day is coming.
There was a thunderstorm the other night, and I got out of bed to go take a leak. And every time I take a leak late at night with lightning outside, I'm always afraid that the flash of lightning will reveal a ghost child out in the yard, or a bloodthirsty axe murderer smiling outside my window. Every time. OMG THERE WAS SOMETHING OUTSIDE!!!
Anyway, I think that there should be a ban on all scary children in movies. There have been scary children in The Exorcist, The Omen, The Shining, The Ring, The Sixth Sense, The Devil's Backbone, The Others, The Woman in Black, Mrs. Doubtfire (the daughter was such a bitch!), and millions more. It's DEAD. It's worn out. It's the laziest fucking thing ever. NO MORE. Switch to ghost cats or something.
Josh:
I love my daughter more than life itself, but hot damn if these fucking OB visits for kid #2 aren't making me seriously question whether to get it clipped before we get preggers a third time. Not the cost of another kid, or college tuition, or needing a bigger house and car. But the 30 minute OB appointments that takes 3 hours. I'm going to probably have to take vacation time from work because it is now officially a half day. My fully charged iPhone is dying. The heartbeat is a great payoff, but I always forget how interminable the wait is. A 10:15 appointment is actually for noon, if we are lucky. I'd expect this from a hospital in Cuba, but what good is capitalism, really?
I know. I don't know when it became acceptable for doctor's offices to make you wait a fucking hour for an appointment you scheduled for a PRECISE time. That's bullshit. If you make a reservation at a restaurant and they're an hour late, you tell that restaurant to go fucking die, right? And yet, doctors are routinely allowed to get away with MURDER when it comes to truancy. I go to the pediatrician with my kid and it's basically a guaranteed two hours door-to-door. MINIMUM. This system is rotten to the core, I tell you!
This is how I'm gonna die: I'm gonna get some kind of brain tumor, it's gonna really hurt, but I'm gonna forgo going to the brain doctor because I know it'll mean a two-hour wait. Then I'll seize up and choke to death on my own tongue. And it will all be AMERICA'S FAULT. Doctors are the worst.
Also, no doctor's office should be allowed to make you wait half an hour, bring you back for blood tests, and then bring you BACK OUT to wait some more. That's grounds for arson. Once I'm back there, I STAY back there. You don't make me wait twice.
Dave:
Let's say you and your friend are going to a party, and he gives you a ride. When you get back to the car to go home, there's a parking ticket sitting on the windshield. Is it wrong for the driver to ask you to pay for part of the ticket?
YES. You drive, you assume all liabilities for tickets and DUI legal fees. Everyone else in the car is an innocent bystander. Also, that's YOUR coke in the trunk, not theirs. Any driver who demands you help pay for his ticket is a piece of shit.
Andy:
Drove by this gem on the way to the grocery store for lunch. Thought I'd never see it again, since we were going opposite directions. Rest assured I thanked my lucky stars when I found it parked at the neighboring bank.
Vagina is for lovers, don't you know.
Victoria:
Do you think we will ever get to a point in sports where white people become extinct? i.e. sports will become all black because white people can't keep up? And if in fact this happens, how long do you think it will take? 20, 30, 40 years?
The Wall Street Journal has noted that the proportion of black players in the NFL has been on the increase, but it'll NEVER get to the point where there are literally no white players in the sport. There are too many scrappy little non-glory boy Welker-types to let that happen. The better bet for something like this to occur is the NBA. The NFL was 66% black in 2009. The NBA was 76% black. So perhaps that "market share" will increase as time goes on. But again, I doubt that it will ever result in a league that has no white players. For one thing, some whites are talented athletes. It's true! Also, if you look at the income demographics, it's clear that white players, in general, have better access to expensive training facilities and good coaching, allowing them to keep up with naturally talented players who may lack similar advantages. Little Johnny Whiteboy is more likely to have some rich asshole dad who spends hundreds of thousands enrolling him at an IMG academy in Florida, and that will always ensure that he has a place in the NBA as the 12th man on the Heat bench.
Kate:
What do you think would happen if terrorists bombed the Super Bowl? The world would just end, right? America would just nuke everyone and everything and that would be that?
I think that's probably what would happen. Frankly, I wouldn't mind it. I'm sick of sitting here, waiting for all our current global conflicts to come to their inevitable breaking point. Israel vs. Palestine. Us vs. Iran. Republicans vs. Democrats. Whitlock vs. Sanity. I think we all know where this headed: a fiery orgy of senseless violence that leaves no survivors. Let's just end the suspense and get it over with. I'm ready to move on with my death.
PJ:
If you were to suddenly drop into Medieval Times (not the restaurant) and you somehow managed to transport five things with you (much like the zombie scenario in Home Depot from a few months ago), what would they be? Computers would be pretty useless, so I'm thinking three various science books, a gun, and a crate full of a fuck-ton of ammo. If you had advance warning and were just doing a time traveling mission, you'd have time to learn what was in the books, but I'm lazy and I wouldn't study and probably have to bring the books anyway. Your thoughts?
You'd need the gun, the ammo, a knife and flint, (watching Bear Grylls for years has convinced me that all I need to survive in any scenario is a knife and a flint and those cool pants he wears), plus a horse. Horses were worth, like, eighty pounds of gold back then. I think. Or maybe a water purification device.
But those are all really boring choices. You want something fun and awesome that makes you look all futurey, so I guess a motorcycle, an RPG launcher, a Darth Vader costume, a plastic light saber that lights up, and a gallon tub of Double Bubble. All the serfs will have their skulls BLOWN. And then they'll burn you for being a witch.
Patrick:
Thought you might enjoy this.
You never stop learning to fap. That's what I say!
Greg:
When I was 16, I worked in a grocery store, and we had a guy who'd come in, grab some meat, and then place it in a hard to find spot. We'd only start smelling it a couple of days later. One time, he evidently climbed a set of shelves and dropped an entire pot roast in between two sets of shelves, making it a royal pain in the ass to find and clean up.
On the plus side, I felt like a cynical, hardened detective that summer, hot on the trail of a serial killer. "He'll be back. He can't stop."
Jesus, that's a dick move. That man needs to be sent to Shutter Island. NOT COOL.
One time, my brother and a friend took a tuna fish sandwich, slipped into another friend's dorm room, and hid it under his bed. They did this right before Christmas vacation, so the sandwich sat there for two weeks. When the guy came back, he opened the door and immediately threw up. They had to clear the room and send in a professional a cleaning service. My brother was never caught. TUNA FISH BANDIT STILL AT LARGE.
Couple of GREAT MOMENTS IN BAT KILLING HISTORY for you.
Balls State Explorer:
I worked in Yellowstone Park one summer season, piloting a tour boat on a short loop around Lake Yellowstone. Because of a rowdy reputation the Marina workers enjoyed (which we lived down to nightly), our housing was separate from everyone else in the Lake Area. On nights when everyone was drunk and bored, the redneck contingent would break out their fly fishing gear and cast into the sky. Amazingly, they caught a significant number of bats, and would howl and cackle like crazy men when they smashed them under their hiking boots, removed the hooks, and would continue the bat carnage. I was an urban, East Coast hippie, and was fascinated by this more than I was appalled.
Bat fishing! Now there's a sport I'd watch on TV.
Richard:
A few years ago I was driving home at night after playing hoops with the guys when my wife called me frantically. It seems there was a bat in the house terrorizing her by swooping around and flying and doing other similar bat things in our bedroom. She had closed the door and trapped it in there, waiting for me to get home. When I get home, I assess the situation – turns out that some workers had been at the house that day and patched up a hole in our roof, which then probably blocked off the entry/exit to the attic where it had been living above our bedroom. So it found some way of escape from the attic and stumbled into the bedroom below. I sneak into the bedroom as quiet as can be, hoping not to get attacked by death from above, and open up the window in hopes that it would fly out. As I am doing this, I get buzzed by the bat like he's Maverick doing a fly-by in Top Gun – I was absolutely freaked out by how quiet that damn bat was when it almost cropped my hair. I manage to escape certain death and leave the bedroom, closing the door behind me. We wait a good bit and I reenter the bedroom and can't find him anywhere, so I'm hoping he escaped. Wrong. As I am on my hands and knees looking under the bed, I look over to my other side and THERE HE IS ON THE FUCKING FLOOR NOT TWO FEET FROM MY FACE. It's face looked like a rat, and I recall seeing snarling pointy teeth (which probably weren't there, in all honesty, but in my mind they were hideous). I retreat once again from the bedroom, but return a few minutes later with a pool net that my neighbor let me borrow. I head back in, and the bat is still on the floor, so I smash it with the hard part of the net as hard as I can, then scoop it up and drop it out in the window onto the concrete patio 15 feet below. It lands with an audible splat and just lays there, obviously dead. I leave the bedroom to tell my wife about my conquest and when we return to look out the window, the bat is gone. It reminded me of that scene at the end of Halloween when Michael Myers disappears from the Detective after crashing through the window. It could be waiting out there for its revenge to this day, for all I know…