Your letters:
Paul:
Bed naps or couch naps?
As someone who possesses Ultimate Dad Napping powers, I can tell you that this is strictly a situational question. The couch/recliner nap is strictly a casual, even unintended thing. You get comfortable, the football game you’re watching turns dull, and suddenly you’re out. That happens, and it’s quite lovely.
Bed naps, on the other hand, are for planned naps. It’s for when you really mean business and NEED that nap in order to function. Like, if you’re sick, you gotta do a bed nap. Or if you were up late last night and know you have a big night out tonight and you REALLY gotta conserve energy, you do the bed nap. I know a lot of people who can’t do bed naps because they’ll just go lights out at 2 p.m. and wake up at 4 a.m., but I don’t have that problem. I take to the bed when I know I HAVE to sleep because I’ve got a RAGING PARTY to go rage at. And if I can’t fall asleep, then I feel like a total failure. That’s when I delude myself into thinking “Well at least I rested!” even though that’s a limp substitute for the real deal. I dread hitting the wall at 9:30 p.m. because I couldn’t get my sleep on. It is truly our greatest tragedy.
Also, I have three kids, so if you really need to fall asleep at nap time at my house, you kinda have to go upstairs regardless. There is too much screaming and general racket on the main floor to guarantee a properly executed nap. I am a deep napper but I have still been woken up by kids crying, fighting, setting off very loud toys, breaking things, screaming BOO! at me to wake me up, pulling the blanket off of me, and outright hitting me in the balls. That’s on me for assuming I could get a moment’s peace with them around. I should always know better. When you need sleep to be assured, pull the curtains and hit the bed.
Scott:
Bears play the Browns on Christmas. I have season tickets for the Bears and obviously not too many people care about this game (Stubhub showing tickets going for just $20). What could make you want to spend your time to watch this game in person? I’m thinking if both coaches agreed not to punt the entire game I’d actually attend this game.
You just saw an otherwise moribund Bills/Colts game turn into a snow orgy on Sunday. It was awesome. I bet the NFL is already considering buying up all the snowmaking machines and deliberately snowing down every field from here on out. It can’t possibly hurt the product.
Because the football game isn’t always the reason you go to the football game, you know? It can’t be, otherwise you’d rarely have a good time, especially if you root for some shitass team like the Bears or Browns. That’s why modern stadiums and arenas have so many additional bells and whistles to draw people in. They know damn well the game isn’t enough. Hence, t-shirt cannons and ball pits and Jerryworld art installations. They will do anything to get you to make a day of it, because they know a game featuring T.J. Yates won’t be enough.
I know I prefer watching NFL games at home, but I’ve certainly had myself a good time at otherwise forgettable sporting events because of the company I kept. Sometimes just having something to do, and having a place to go get loaded with friends and overspend on shitty concession food…that’s enough to justify motivating me and going to watch DeShone Kizer faceplant in overtime. So I don’t think I’d need that much to prod me into going to Bears-Browns. If you told me that tickets were free, and that someone would babysit my kid (again, for free), and there was gonna be a tailgate spread with dipped Portillo’s sandwiches laid out before it, I think I’d make my way over to Soldier Field to see if the Bears gift Cleveland their only win of the year.
By the way, no matter how the Browns end their season, it’ll be under wholly appropriate circumstances. If they fail to go 0-16 for the second straight year, that would be VERY Cleveland of them. But if they DO go 0-16, no one will really care because they’d end up having to share that distinction with another team that did it first anyway…and that would also be VERY Cleveland of them. All current scenarios for the Browns end in maximum Clevelandage.
Eric:
As a QOTSA fanboy how does one reconcile their great music with the behavior of lead singer Josh Homme? This past weekend he kicked a photographer in the face and cut himself on stage with a knife. Why does everyone turn out to be a giant asshole or pedophile nowadays?
The Homme thing is really bad because if you watch the video, it’s clear he kicked that photographer in the face on purpose. And I saw fanboys be like, “all he did was kick a camera,” which is horseshit because, obviously, kicking a camera INTO someone’s head hurts even worse than if you kicked up them in the face straight up. It wasn’t an accident. Homme once booted Nick Olivieri out of that band for beating women, and he named his band Queens of the Stone Age specifically to thumb his nose at aggro dipshits. Now he’s getting coked up out of his skull and punting heads and blading himself on stage? It’s all shitty. I don’t expect famous people to be paragons of morality, but fuck, man. Don’t kick people in the goddamn head.
None of this is terribly surprising. I mean, I still listen to Mötley Crüe when I know that Vince Neil killed a guy. I’ll watch pretty much any old James Woods movie even though James Woods is the world’s worst person. And I listen to Phil Spector’s Christmas album every Christmas. I’m not gonna get into a whole thinkpiece about separating art from the artist because you’ve read all those before. I’ll just say that everyone is allowed to have a little high court of their own mind—a self-styled Roger Goodell punishment generator—wherein they get to decide if they can patronize the work of a monster, or if they just can’t bring themselves to do it. And, of course, how much you love their work factors in, along with how bad their offense was, and how many other people contributed to the work, and how sorry your rock star hero was for what he did (Homme’s first apology was so lousy he had to do a second one). That choice is yours, and I think it’s okay to have complicated, unresolved feelings about all of it.
But Woody Allen should have his fucking typewriter taken away from him. That I’m certain of.
Ryan:
How great would it be if one million years after the last human dies, aliens came to Earth and the only remaining evidence of human existence was a perfectly preserved porn video?
Oh it’ll absolutely be something like that. History tends to be arbitrary in what does and what does not get immortalized forever. Remember: the entire American continent is named after unremarkable but conniving explorer who was better at getting his name slapped on stuff (remind you of anyone?) than he was at actual exploring.
It is exceedingly difficult to decide what elements of a civilization are worth preserving even as you LIVE in that civilization, so what chance do anthropologists late to the scene have? Like, for all we know, The Odyssey was the shittiest oral tradition in all of Ancient Greece. People back then may have ripped on it like it was a Justice League movie while higher quality oral tales like The Dragonwitch were lost to history forevermore. And have you ever seen some of the ancient spearheads on display at your local natural history museum? Honestly, a lot of them aren’t very impressive. Your local curator might have just stumbled upon the handiwork of Grog, the Paleolithic Era’s absolute worst spearsmith. They have no way of knowing if that was an ELITE spearhead.
So yes, when aliens stumble upon the ruins of mankind and sift through our bones, they’re probably gonna treasure the stupidest, least consequential thing possible. It’s gonna be, like, a direct mail flyer for boner pills that gets put on display in a museum over on Zyboxx 12. History is deeply unfair.
David:
At least once a week, I am jarred out of a perfectly peaceful shit by any one of my coworkers all-but-slamming their stall doors open or closed in the stall next to me. This makes me absolutely livid. Who does that?
Well, is it a sticky door? Because you and I know those doors can be fickle. Sometimes you need to use a bit of English to close it all the way and get it locked so no one breaks in on you tweeting from the can. Sometimes you HAVE to slam it, and that’s all right. There are times when I’ve encountered a crooked door and had to kind of lift it in order to get it closed all the way. It’s a real party when you’ve got a load ticking away in your large intestine.
But yes, I’m also sure you have to work with any number of office cowboys who treat that stall like a saloon door just because they can. Work is stressful, and where can you take that anger out? Can you stab someone? No. Can you throw your printer out a plate glass window? No. Can you piss on your CEO’s lunch? No. No, all you can do is go HAM on that poor stall door and slam it shut, and then have it bounce back and smack you flush in the nose. That’s how a REAL MAN works out his issues.
Billy:
I’ve noticed, especially on the Deadcast, when you and Marchman or a guest host are talking, you guys sometimes refer to a blog post as a blog. Like, “I wrote a blog about XYZ.” I work with some older academics, and they’ve always used blog in this way. I had never heard it used like that before I worked here. At first it was a pet peeve of mine, but I’ve gradually just accepted it, and I’m not about to be a sanctimonious prick about it in any case. I realize language evolves, and I’m cool with that. But, all that said, what gives? Is it blog or blog post?
It’s a blog post and not a blog, but people here started arguing about it ages ago, which caused everyone to start calling posts “blogs” ironically, which eventually bled into them doing it unironically. [Ed. note: Scocca says it’s fine.] I had this problem with cuck a few months ago before realizing I realized I needed a cuck intervention. Then I dropped it from my repertoire.
These days, it’s very very easy to slip into the language of the internet. “This owns so hard,” “[Borat voice] MAH WIFE,” “Oh wow here comes the large adult garbage son,” etc. You could spend all day talking in memes, like some online Chauncey Gardener who learns English strictly from Dat Boi gags. And it’s fun! Everyone likes getting in on the joke train, especially in 2017 when we’re all desperate for a laugh. But it’s always good to step back for a second and correct yourself to make sure you still sound like you, because otherwise you’ll just end up being assimilated into the Internet entirely and posting blogs that sound like everyone else’s blogs. FUCK AND YES, you will!
HALFTIME!
Mike:
If you were trapped in one restaurant for the rest of your life and could only eat and drink what is on the menu and didn’t get fat from eating it, where would it be?
Mark Davis says PF Chang’s. HEY-OOOOOO!!!
This is hard because food isn’t the only part of the equation here, right? Like, if I’m gonna be stuck in a restaurant forever, it better be comfortable, and it better be spacious, and there better be, like, visible sunlight… preferably a nice large patio à la The Ladybird in Atlanta. I’d probably still go psycho from being on restaurant arrest, but at least I’d be able to go outside.
Foodwise, it’s tempting to pick somewhere fancy like Le Bernardin or any Michelin-starred joint that costs $900 a head every night. But, and I realize this is very bratty to say, but even the fanciest restaurant food gets tiring if you eat it every single night. At some point, I’m gonna be in desperate need of eggs. I’m gonna need a place that has eggs, and steak, and good ramen. Oh, and sushi! Gotta have some sushi, even if it’s crap sushi. Is there a place that can do all that? Please don’t say the Cheesecake Factory. It’s the Cheesecake Factory, isn’t it? Fuck. Hell is me standing in a Cheesecake Factory lobby, waiting for my little buzzer thing to go off.
I can’t do it. I’m picking Franklin Barbecue. Kill me with brisket.
Austin:
Would NFL coaches punt as frequently as they do if all instances or forms of the term “punt” were replaced with the term “surrender?” As in: “4th down, and the Bears will surrender.” “Marquette King has established himself as one of if not the best surrenderers in the league”
I know most coaches are terrified of not looking MANLY, so while I know this sounds silly, I feel like it might make a difference.
But you will never stop coaches like Jim Caldwell from punting inside the 40, even if you forced them to wear a literal dunce cap for the offense. Also, language takes on a life of its own, so most fans would regard “surrender” strictly in its new football context if you ever got them to change the term. The word would have a whole different flavor of cowardice to it.
Also, whatever shame comes with “surrendering” a possession would be secondary to the shame that drives coaches to punt to begin with, namely that they don’t wanna get blown out. It really is a strange phenomenon, where coaches don’t want to look bad for botching a fourth down or a long field goal, so they do something that makes them looks even WORSE and often gives them a greater chance of losing. And they do it all the time! They never, ever learn. It’s astonishing. There should be a team of league officials on the sideline actively preventing shitty punt calls. Like, they just straight up go to Steve Spagnuolo and are like, “Sorry, you can’t do that. Pick something else.” I’d pay good money (a quarter!) to see that.
Steve:
What do you think is the average life of a pack of Tic Tacs? In my house, I’d say less than 13 minutes. Once the kids discover them they are gone almost instantly. But my grandma probably has a pack in her purse from 1996. So that may skew the average a bit. I’d say it has to be less than a week. More people eat them all in mere hours over the grannies hoarding packs in their purses to hand out to kids at church. Right?
Here’s a fun fact: Americans spent over $200 million last year on Tic Tacs alone. That is astounding to me. Tic Tacs are the Tab of breath mints, and yet they persist, leading the FRESHENER SPACE by a healthy margin. I have to believe, as you infer, that this is because most people treat Tic Tacs like candy instead of a breath mint, which is why they sell them in candy flavors like orange and fruity rainbow and shit. They even sell candy cane Tic Tacs for Christmas. I brought home a box and my five-year-old went cross-eyed in ecstasy. My guess is that the average box of Tic Tacs lasts a couple days and then is either finished off or lost forever in the bowels of a handbag.
By the way, the Tic Tac box really does say that the serving size is ONE Tic Tac. The gall of these people.
Jake:
Whatever happened to that great old fashioned tradition of tearing down goalposts to celebrate a win. Has the advent of new post technology ruined this moment of collegiate triumph?
Yeah, some schools have made it harder to tear them down, like Florida State when they installed H-style goal posts (with two supports). But they’ve also beefed up security and cracked down hard on anyone who attempts to storm the field, much less tear down the posts. Auburn was fined a whopping $250k for kids flooding the field after the Iron Bowl, and you can bet there’s a crusty old dean threatening kids if they even so much as look at the goal posts. I’m also equally sure there are any number of frat bros who take those threats as a personal challenge and are like LET’S JUST DO IT AND BE LEGENDS before seeing a rent-a-cop with an assault rifle guarding the post, and then chickening out. It’s a process.
Noah:
I know a lot of athletes sign autographs with a signature that includes their number. Do you think any athletes who have a number/ animal included in their signature are signing their mortgage or passport with this signature?
No. In fact, I think a lot of athletes are probably advised to have a SECOND signature for legal documents, so that I can’t just take their autograph and use it to forge documents in their name. I would totally do this, too. Pete Rose has no idea that I signed him up for that nudist colony. Won’t HE be surprised!
Terry:
I prefer to eat sandwiches that have toasted bread slices. The texture really helps make the sandwich a great meal. However, since I have started toasting my own slices of bread for sandwich making, I’ve noticed that my toasted slices are sharp as hell. It’s sometimes painful to bite through the goddamn concrete slabs holding my sandwich innards. How do I remedy this? Less toasting time? What’s the point of toasting bread if you don’t make it delightfully crunchy? How do these sandwich shops across the land toast bread to perfection. I’m perplexed.
Yeah you’re overtoasting your toast. Just set it lower so that the edges brown and the surface gets a little dried out but not rock hard. Also, use better bread. If you’re toasting some shitty Sara Lee bread, it’s probably not gonna have the TEXTURAL PROFILES of some fancy sourdough loaf that costs $4 in the bakery section at Safeway. (FACT: grocery store bakeries get better every year.) With thicker slices, you get a little crunch, but you also get the spongy goodness inside too.
Also, use condiments. I hate mayo, but the reason people use it is to keep a sandwich from drying out. You can do that with mustard, dressing, or even butter. That should all prevent you from any kind of toast-related hard palate injury. I wish you good luck on your future sandwich-building endeavors.
Jack:
I have a question about swearing at work. What are the top jobs where cursing is totally ok? I feel like pro sports, politics (behind the scenes), and writers are top pics. I’m a speech therapist who’s only worked in schools and clinics so the idea of cursing at work is so alien to me. Some of my current coworkers will say “shit” sometimes just amongst staff and I’m so weirded out by it. I swear I’m not a prude, I curse all the time outside of work. What jobs are the most curse-friendly?
You mean, apart from this one? I assume that it’s any job where there are no children and very few, if any, women around. So that means construction, coaching, and certain branches of the military. If you’re gonna support our troops, do it for their liberal and creative use of profanity. I know that’s why I would want to be a drill sergeant. I would channel my inner R. Lee Ermey every chance I got. YOU LITTLE MAGGOTFUCKERS BETTER DROP AND GIVE ME 90 OR ELSE I WILL PERSONALLY FACEFUCK YOU WITH YOUR OWN BALLBAG! Good stuff.
Profanity tends to enhance the clubby vibe of any profession, which is how you end up with some oil rig crew cursing like mafia henchmen to pass the time while performing dangerous acts of hard labor. If I worked on an oil rig, I would immediately affect a New York accent and get right to work on my ball-busting. “Ey, this fuckin’ guy! You see this fuckin’ guy weldin’ that fuckin’ pipe? What a fuckin’ asshole!” That’s all music to my ears.
By the way, I used to be a table runner and restaurant kitchens are just about the swearingest places on Earth. And it’s become pretty clear lately that that sort of open bawdiness tends to lead to darker behavior. It also serves to chase away employees who would rather not be called ASSWIPE every time they gotta fire on Table 16. Thus, everyone could probably stand to be a bit more genteel, myself included.
(sees bad Gregg Easterbrook take)
OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT?!
Nicholas:
When I was in university two of my buddies challenged each other to see who could live on a diet of Kraft Dinner and ONLY that for the longest period of time. They were each permitted one topping to use to break the monotony as they saw fit (it had to be a sauce or seasoning, not another food like bacon). I think one went with Frank’s Red Hot sauce, and the other with standard black pepper. I believe the first person caved around day five. My question is how long do you think you could last doing that and what would your topping be?
Well, seeing as how I dip into my kid’s shells and cheese pretty much every night, I think I could hack it for at least a few days. My topping would be an entire ribeye steak. Is that within the rules?
Email of the week!
Matthew:
I go to flush my morning shit and the toilet ends up getting clogged. The toilet has a tendency to run a little bit and no water seemed to be exiting the bowl. I quickly removed the tank cover and tried to make sure the stopper was sealing, but the water kept rising in the toilet. So, I am standing there, bare-assed, with nothing but hope, even though I know what’s about to happen.
The water level rises ever so slowly leaving me with thoughts of cleaning up the poop water that’s about to cascade onto the floor. And it does, of course. I grab my towel and put it on the floor. I loudly yell about 10 words, 9 of them curses. My wife is about 10 feet away, through the wall, lounging in bed. She clearly hears everything but doesn’t know what exactly happened.
I tell her and she thinks I overreacted. I tell her this is a very appropriate reaction.
Who is right?
You are.