Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we're covering ghosts, Ray Rice, community message boards, and more.
Your letters…
Jen:
I met a guy last weekend, and we really hit it off. I find him very sexy, great in bed, and he has an awesome personality, but there is one MAJOR red flag. I've mentioned it to my friends, but they are torn over whether or not this is a deal breaker. He is a 9/11 Truther. Does that make him too crazy to date, or should I let him stick his penis inside me again?
Nah, that's fine. I'd date a 9/11 Truther. At the very least, you'd always have something interesting to talk about. Imagine getting married and having kids, and then going out to dinner and finding yourselves staring at each other in silence, and then thinking to yourself, "Do I even KNOW this person?" The easiest way out of that rut is to have a lively debate over whether or not it was a controlled demolition that led to the fall of Tower One.
It's amazing what you'll accept in people you love. It's different here on the internet, where every opinion is basically a declaration of war. Face to face, people soften. They're warmer and usually more tolerant, particularly when said tolerance has the potential to lead to hot monkey fucking. You accept those flaws and even find them amusing.
Seriously though, that guy's a crackpot.
Damon:
What has to happen at this point for Jeter to get suspended? I feel like he'd have to punch Bud Selig in the face for something like that to even be considered. Is the captain still suspendable?
If he punches a woman out in an elevator while screaming YEAH JEETS and it's on tape, I say yes. Even baseball isn't stupid enough to mishandle that situation now.
But if we're talking about a garden-variety positive drug test, that shit is getting swept under the rug in a heartbeat. Derek Jeter is, essentially, the last mega-famous baseball player. Bonds is gone. McGwire is gone. Clemens is gone. A-Rod is frozen in carbonite somewhere. Like Marchman said here, baseball has done such a good job dumping all over itself that they have destroyed the Q rating of anyone who plays it. So this endless Jeter farewell tour—which grows more insufferable by the day—is their way of milking the cow for all its worth because they have a chronic inability to lionize any new player the way they've lionized Jeter. BRYCE HARPER IS NOT A TRUE STAR or something.
Sam:
I am watching the Auburn-San Jose game right now, and Auburn is winning 58-13 with 10:46 left. If the Denver Broncos showed up and played out the rest of the 4th quarter for San Jose, who would win?
Given how the Broncos played in the second half on Sunday night, I assume Auburn would tack on three more touchdowns.
Seriously though, the Broncos would only have 10-plus minutes to score the seven touchdowns (or six touchdowns and a field goal, or six touchdowns with five successful two-point conversions) needed to complete the comeback. I don't see how that's possible when Auburn can just run the ball on every play and drain one to two minutes off the clock after every Broncos touchdown. Time would run out with the score at 58-48, or something close to that. Even if Auburn is hopelessly outmatched, they're still tangible people. They're still in the Broncos' way. Denver would still have to make some effort to score so many points so quickly.
Rob:
Do you think Roger Goodell secretly plays fantasy football with a fake name? (Example: TheBigRedHammer.) If he does, does he only play in leagues where he's the commissioner, or does he let someone else run the league, and he talks trash to the other players about how terrible a job the current commissioner is and how he could do a way better job?
I bet he plays fantasy football and doesn't make a secret of it. Like, fantasy football accounts for 80 percent of the NFL's popularity. It's a product for him to shill, so of course he's gonna join his office league and name his team GOODELL'S MEN or some equally generic, stupid thing, and then chum around with everyone at the office about how his team did the day before. He has to put on the façade of a fantasy football player for people. "O ho ho, that crazy Tony Romo got me today!" Shit like that. I bet he dropped Ray Rice with pride.
Tony:
Someone hands you an audio recording of everything that was ever said about you in private at girls' slumber parties throughout your middle and high school years. Would you listen to it? What percentage of guys would NOT be absolutely devastated with the results?
I think I would listen. I'm old enough now to find that sort of thing amusing. I also know EXACTLY what would be on those tapes. It wouldn't be any big mystery.
JENNY: That Drew Magary called me again last night.
JULIE: OMG he's disgusting.
JENNY: I know! Ewwwwww!!!!
JULIE: Ewwwww!!!!
["Ew"-ing continues for five more minutes.]
JENNY: What did you tell him?
JULIE: I told him I was sick. God, he's grody to the max.
I don't think any of that would throw me. I've seen my old yearbook photo. I've seen what they were seeing. I can look back on that Drew with a ruthless objectivity. The only way I'd be thrown is if some insanely hot crush said something about me being cute or something. Then I'd die on the spot. You mean Tina and I could have built a life together? SO MANY SLIDING DOORS RIGHT NOW.
Steven:
In the lobby of my building, tenants put up used furniture for sale on a bulletin board. Typically, since the buyers are presumably for other tenants, the items are priced at giveaway levels ($100 for a couch, $75 for a desk, etc.).
Amongst the usual was this posting for a ridiculous triangle-shaped dresser, with an asking price of a whopping $2,800. Regardless of your interest level in "unique" furniture, isn't $2,800 waaay too much to ask for on a community bulletin board? Like you'd really go to another person's apartment and drop $3K? And how much could this stupid dresser have cost when it was brand new if the used price is $2,800? Can you even fit anything in those drawers (despite them being "deep")?
Yeah, that's completely insane. Nothing on a community bulletin board should retail for more than $100. That board is for lost dogs, old couches, rides to the Jersey Shore, and guitar lessons. It's not Sotheby's, for crying out loud. $2,800 isn't an impulse buy.
And that cabinet is stupid. Why would I want a progressively smaller series of cabinets for my shit? And why would I want the sides of those drawers to be slanted? Does the top drawer even open? You can't fit socks in there. Fuck that cabinet. I don't even LIKE deep drawers. Reaching back for a pair of old pants in a deep drawer is hot agony. If I want to feel like an Egyptian pharaoh, I'll do acid, thank you very much. That cabinet is the sort of thing a guy who just got into banking would buy. "It's my first piece!"
I want to burn that cabinet.
Jake:
When will Walmart get the naming rights to a stadium or arena in one of the four major sports leagues? Target already has Target Field and the Target Center in Minneapolis, so when does Walmart sack up and snag one?
Because Walmart is in the business of ruthless weeding out every last possible profit, and that means forgoing the option to pay $500 million on some idiotic 20-year stadium-naming deal. There's already been a study that says naming rights to stadiums have no impact on profitability. Whatever money you make from increased visibility doesn't begin to match all the money you just forked over to the Double J. It's baffling that any company still does this, which is why the smart ones—Walmart, Apple, Amazon—don't bother. Why buy a stadium name when you can buy a governor? And for a tenth of the price?
Cam:
What is the least amount on square inches you need to determine that a woman is attractive, and where is this area? Is four square inches of breast better than four square inches of smile? I just saw a women texting in her car and only saw the top third of her head, but found her very attractive.
I'm not sure you need ANY square area. You can see the woman's shadow, and it'll turn you into a panting dog. Or you can hear her voice from across the room. Who is that? She sounds hot as shit! Any small swatch of naughty bits will obviously do the trick (porn cameras seem to be covering four square inches of private parts at all times), but a hard-up guy doesn't even need that. You see an eyebrow, and you fill in the blanks from there. Oh man, I bet she has great calves. There doesn't have to be one set thing that does it for you. It can be something completely random depending on your mood and the person you're looking at. Like when a lady crosses her legs and you see that little crease running down the outside of her leg and OOPS GOTTA RUN TO THE BATHROOM NOW.
Adam:
I'm always amazed at how much housework I can accomplish in the 10 minutes before my wife gets home. She could have been gone for four days, during which time I had a raging party, made no effort to clean up in any way, and certainly completed none of the tasks that were expected of me, but when I figure she's getting close, I can get an entire house to a level of respectability in no time at all. Where does the time before your wife gets home rank on the scale of productivity?
I get the kids involved now, too. I learned this from my old man. When my mom was on the way home, my dad would always be like, "Oh shit! We gotta clean up or your mother will be PISSED." And then he'd make us clean all the Cheeto dust off the couches and kick out the stray dogs and burn all the dishes. That's how I roll now. It's all loosey-goosey until the wife 10 minutes away from the house. Once that call comes in, PANIC MODE. It's like the cleanup at the end of Risky Business. It's amazing how quickly you can do things when you actually decide to do them. I will bitch about doing the dishes for HOURS. But once I settle in, it takes four minutes. I am not a productive human.
Jake:
What would be the most entertaining object/weapons to see two people fight to the death with? Assume that the death match takes place in your standard UFC octagon, and it only ends when someone dies. We've come up with chainsaws, butter knives, and high-heeled shoes. Your thoughts?
What about cats? I'd watch a literal catfight. Otherwise, I would want the combatants to wield objects that would increase their ability to move and kill, and to not use objects that would encumber them. Like, broadswords are cool as shit. But then you watch two guys trying to swing them and then they get tired really quick, it's all just one big letdown, you know? I would go with a good steak knife. Ever grip a steak knife real hard? Man, it feels great. I can just picture myself fending off cat burglars and deftly slashing off a few noses.
And what about the Green Goblin's hoverboard? Can they use those? I would watch a flying death match complete with pumpkin bombs that sem to inflict no damage whatsoever to human flesh. Give them hoverboards and scimitars, because scimitars are like regular swords, only curvy.
By the way, as a card-carrying immature person, I am endlessly fascinated by weaponry. If I ever have to slog through a natural history museum, the first place I go is the armory to look at all the armor and flails and what not. When I was a kid, my brother and I would play Dungeons & Dragons (you scorn does not affect me), and one of the guidebooks had a whole gallery of medieval weapons you could slay orcs and dragons with: halberds and lances and bastard swords and all kinds of crazy shit. I used to stare at those guides for hours. So if you told me I could watch a flying mace fight, I'd probably tune in for at least three minutes.
HALFTIME!
Adam:
Between Ray Rice and Donald Sterling, who will be hated more? And who should be hated more?
Must we rank our hate objectively? IS HATE NOT ART? I would argue that Donald Sterling has a longer, more storied history of ruining lives and being a terrible person. So it's a question of quantity (Sterling's lifetime) versus quality (three despicable minutes of Ray Rice's life caught on tape). Who you hate more is based on your own hating tastes. As a connoisseur of all things hate, I prefer the cathartic eruption of hate that comes from seeing Sterling finally get what was coming to him (plus $2 billion, which kinda ruins it), given that he has spent his entire life proving to be a remorseless shitbag.
Plus, the Ray Rice hate radiates out from his hateful deed. I almost hate the Ravens more than Rice himself, because they blindly gave him the Park Slope mommy treatment and made him out to be a little fucking angel when they already knew he had knocked a woman out cold. The hate spreads from there, to the league office and Goodell, over to the media stooges like Peter King trying to tsk-tsk the whole affair while keeping their sources happy at all costs. Yesterday on Twitter was just one like one giant hate wave aimed at league headquarters. It hit a lot of people.
So calibrate your hate accordingly. Personally speaking, I always hate the guy who has more money.
Rob:
Is there a larger drop-off between how something smells and how it tastes than vanilla extract?
Paprika. Paprika smells like dog food. I've made rubs and shit with paprika, and thought to myself, "Well, this can't possibly end up tasting good." And then, PRESTO! I am in flavor country.
Also, fish sauce makes all Asian food taste good, but smells like … well … fish. It ain't the most heavenly smell out there.
Della:
So last night me and three other people went to a ballgame. I bought the tickets online earlier. I get picked up by my party and am expecting to get paid back for the tickets so I have cash to spend in the park. But one guy pulls out a cellophane bag with a little nug of weed in it and says, "Can I just give you this?" He says it's worth more than the ticket (which was just over $15). I wasn't so sure about that, but again, I just wanted cash so I could use it in the park. I'm an avid smoker, but I didn't need the bud at the moment, so I asked if he could just give me the money. He wasn't happy about me denying his offer of weed instead of cash. Was I in the wrong?
No, man. Fuck that guy. If someone owes you money, they owe you MONEY. Not weed. Not Camel Cash. Not a free foot rub. Money. If you offer me weed instead, you have spent my money for me, and that is horseshit. I will be the one to decide if that money is going to weed or not, not you. This isn't a Turkish bazaar. There's no haggling to be done. If you owe someone money for something, you give them money. Or you ask if you can pay them in weed and give them the option. Stupid weed guy. Free weed isn't THAT special.
Keith:
Now that Ray Rice has rightfully been cut and is no longer making money, it got me thinking—who do you think is the most dropped player in a single day in fantasy football history? Obviously someone from the early '90s until now …someone good enough to be owned by enough teams to be dropped by them … I say either Vick or Rice (today).
I dunno, I think the record gets tied every year when a big-name player goes down with a season-ending injury, like when Jamaal Charles tore up his knee. Once that happens, a universal dropkakke goes into full effect. This means that fantasy players care more about your ability to play than your moral fiber, which sounds about right. I know I'm a sociopath when it comes to that game. If Charles Manson had 100 yards one week against Cleveland, I'd run to pick him up off waivers.
Chad:
Would "Ray Rice's Elevator Pitch" be the most insensitive fantasy football team name ever?
That's well played.
By the way, I once worked at a place that trained employees on giving an elevator pitch. They even asked us to compose a written elevator pitch to be our email signature. I passive-aggressively ignored the request all the way up until the day I quit. I WIN.
Carl:
Has Deadspin considered organizing/sponsoring a boycott of NFL Week 2 in response to the travesty that is the Ray Rice situation?
No. Fan protests never work, and I would never stop watching the NFL anyway. Obviously, I think Roger Goodell is a wad of shit and should get his ass canned, but if you protested every big institution for doing big institution things, you wouldn't be able to do much of anything. I think you can love football while resenting the men in charge of it, just as people love America but bitch about Congress daily. I don't think any sort of mass NFL protest would get anywhere, and I'm too selfish to make any sort of dramatic stand. Except to boo the Ravens. That's an easy gesture that I'm more than happy to partake in! GO TO FUCKING HELL, RAVENS.
Aaron:
Is there anything better than finding a game you can play with your kids that requires minimal effort on your behalf, but runs them into the ground? I am not a fat or lazy man, but I have a one-year-old and a three-year-old, and it is exhausting. So anything we can play where I do nothing and they get tired out is like stumbling onto the Holy Grail. The current game: Get one of those bubble wands that you wave around that produces like 100 bubbles at a time. Hand your kid a toy tennis racket. Make bubbles and have the kid run around swatting at them. God bless the bubbles industry.
That's a good idea, and I'm gonna go ahead and do that right now. Then I'll cackle with delight, until the kids get sick of it within an hour, and I gotta rack my brain to find some new shit to do. God, it's exhausting. I try to find any activity where I can lay down and be the ref or the audience or the judge. My kid likes doing gymnastics, so I will lie down and just hold up a score anytime she does a flip or something. But even THAT gets tiring. I'm exhausted after dishing out six perfect 10s.
Adults aren't meant to play with children for very long. That's the truth. It's not my job to consistently entertain my kids, but my kids never accept that. You're supposed to have kids play on their own, but the problem is that most people now don't have the space to let that happen. How many times have you heard some old asshole be like, "Well, my mom and dad just kicked me out of the house and didn't let us back in until 5 p.m."? Well, that's fucking great. I'm glad you grew up on the set of The Sound of Music. But if you let the kid out of the house now, you'll be arrested. Or oncoming traffic will run the kid over. Unless you live on a pecan farm, there's nowhere to let them roam free. Thus, they're constantly stuck nearby, expecting you to always humor them even though it's tiring as hell.
This is a serious problem. My kids don't know how to be bored. Childhood is boring as shit, and kids need to figure out how to keep themselves occupied with invented games and crafts and all that. Instead, confined to a tight space, they're usually only happy if they're in front of a screen or if I'm buying them something. This is how shitty people are made and I'm doing all I can to avoid it, but good Lord is it work. I can only push this swing so many times.
You get TWO emails of the week this week. Are you emotionally prepared for such things? You are not. Here we go.
Alex:
At my job they hired a new girl; she's pretty cute, and we start talking, which leads to drinks after work and then a few dates. After a couple of makeout sessions, we finally do the deed one fateful night. After making the sex, we are both lying in bed, and she tells me to just spend the night. My weekend job was a few blocks away from her place, so I thought sure, why not.
She goes into the bathroom to clean off, and I'm lying in bed when she walks in, smiles, and then walks over and turns a mirror she had against the wall so the mirror side is facing the wall, then walks over and puts a blanket over another mirror, acting like everything was normal. I immediately was creeped out and asked her if she was going to kill me and didn't want to see the reflection of the carnage.
She laughs and says, "No, sorry, I should explain. I see ghosts and spirits, so I have to cover the mirrors when I go to sleep." I played it cool, but didn't sleep a second that night. This got me thinking: What's the craziest thing someone's admitted to someone right after sex? Seeing ghosts has to be in the top 10 right?
I like that she treated it so casually. "Just making sure I don't see dead people in the mirror here NBD. Oh, do you not have THE GIFT? Sorry to hear that." Like that's just been part of her routine since birth. I would have just spent the rest of the night asking her about ghosts. And having sex, too. But also: ghosts.
Here's your other email of the week…
Adam:
A few years ago, in my senior year of college, I was hanging out drinking with my roommate one night. Out of nowhere, he decides to tell me he has been drinking a glass of milk each night before bed, and he's noticed it is making his dick bigger. He says that even his girlfriend had noticed and said he had gotten bigger. I was in too much shock to ask what the fuck he was talking about, and just nodded and said cool. About a week goes by, I begin to notice that every night there is an empty glass that had previously contained milk sitting in the kitchen.
So while drinking the following weekend with another friend, I tell him about the milk. We then decide to Google (on his computer, mine was broken) "does milk make your dick bigger" and "milk penis enlargement," among other things, because he couldn't have come up with this on his own. No results. Early next morning, he wakes me up by yelling, "Why the fuck did you guys Google 'penis enlargement' and milk stuff?" Hungover, I just say I thought it'd be funny, and roll back over. We have never spoken of this again.
I've told a few friends about this, and we all want to know: Where the fuck could he have come up with this idea? How does a 22-year-old believe milk is making your dick bigger? I mean, if that was true, clearly every guy would be walking around constantly chugging milk, right?
He's lying. That's my guess. Every night, your roommate needs his hot baba before he goes to sleep, but he doesn't want you thinking he's still some needy little child who needs his milk before bed, so he concocts this elaborate excuse that it makes his cock big, because that's way more manly. But secretly, he still a little boy, still clinging to the innocent rituals of his childhood: a simpler time, a happier time. You should tuck him in and give him a blankie.
Drew Magary writes for Deadspin. He's also a correspondent for GQ. Follow him on Twitter @drewmagary and email him at [email protected]. You can also order Drew's book, Someone Could Get Hurt, through his homepage.
Image by Jim Cooke.