Hello. This is Dave. I am your Funbag substitute teacher. If you’re sorry I’m not Drew, just know so am I. I promise I’m not trying to replace him. But the Minnesota Vikings, am I right? What’s the deal with barbecuing?!?! Fuck John McCain! Anyway, I do most of my work at Vice Sports and have an independent podcast with ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski called Puck Soup and that feels like enough of an introduction. Here’s something to read while you take a dump today.
John:
Can Tom Brady dunk a basketball? I’ll allow that he probably has at some point been able to dunk, but there’s no way he’s throwing down a dunk today, right? Several of my friends insist that he’s a 6'5" professional athlete, who works out meticulously, so of course he can dunk. I think that he’s too old and too specialized at throwing footballs. Maybe I’m just over-estimating how hard it is to dunk because I’m 5'10" and have never come close to dunking?
There’s no fucking way. Not now. Brady turns 41 in August, is listed at 6-foot-4 and probably hasn’t jumped since the ‘90s. For all the shit I have to hear about how he’s “mobile in the pocket,” he couldn’t extend like four inches to make that catch in the Super Bowl because his feet are made of organic, farm-to-table, all-natural cement. He’s a stiff old man that couldn’t slap an awning outside an apartment building to save his family’s lives.
When Richard Jefferson dunked over Klay Thompson a couple Christmases ago, everyone reacted like he stood up from a wheelchair and ran a four-minute mile. The announcers thought Jefferson dunking was downright hilarious. Jefferson was 36 years old, is listed at 6-foot-7 and has been jumping and dunking his entire life. Brady’s quinoa-powered legs aren’t getting him anywhere near a rim now.
If we’re talking whether Brady has ever dunked a basketball at any point in his life, now you have something to think about. According to his numbers from the NFL Combine, he had a 24.5-inch vertical leap, which leaves him about 1.7 feet short of the rim. That doesn’t take into account his reach and what he’d be able to do with a running start while holding a basketball, but I’ll say Brady has never thrown down a dunk and sleeping in magic pajamas won’t change that.
Chris:
I work in a mid-sized city in healthcare. Hospitals on TV have all kinds of extracurricular sex going on in the building. What workplace environments are having the most at-work sex. I lead off with hospitals because of all the out of the way beds and mop closets, followed by Law Firms, Tech Companies, Insurance conglomerates and Large Call Center.
I originally read this as Chris watching people fuck on closed-circuit TVs for real in his hospital. I was picturing Billy Baldwin in Sliver, a movie nobody reading this had thought about in 15 years. You’re welcome, readers!
Hospital is a good guess, though. Between all the beds and health insurance in this country eating shit, I bet there are a lot of empty rooms perfect for workplace quickies. Then again, all the sick and dying people are probably a mood-killer. Getting a text that reads, “I’m in room 405” isn’t all that hot if you were just wiping away mucus from a 75-year-old man’s ass.
People always fuck in office copy rooms on TV, which makes no sense. That’s a high-traffic area! It’s not logical. I get that people enjoy the gag of the copy machine starting mid-bang so the machine can make copies of an ass, but come on. You need to find an abandoned office or a stock room or a basement, and even then an office fuck is a high-danger proposition.
My final answer is bars. Think about it. Bartenders and wait staff are usually young people. They’re surrounded by booze. After closing time, they have the entire bar to themselves. They can fuck anywhere on the premises without worrying about getting caught. They can bang on the Big Buck Hunter under the erotic glow of a neon Red Dog sign with the faint scent of vomit in the air, the most romantic way two people can make love.
You probably want to avoid doing it on a shuffleboard table because all that salt can’t be good for anyone’s sex parts.
Hamilton:
I was listening to local sports radio in the car today and it was while the Rockies-Padres near-perfect game was still perfect. They were talking about Carlos Gonzalez coming up in the 7th in a 4-0 game, the defense putting a monster shift on him, and whether or not based on the “unwritten rules” it would be legit to bunt in that situation.
In general I feel like that’s basically fair game, and definitely if they put a wild shift on you, but what occurred to me is the best way to go about it would be for the batter to straight up tell the pitcher, right before stepping into the box, that they better get the fuck out of that shift right now or else I may drop one down the line.
It’s psychological warfare on the pitcher and/or manager, basically compelling them to make a decision on the shift during a perfect game, and either way maximizes your possibility of getting a hit in what is still a very winnable game. Where would the downside be in this?
(I understand that by the unwritten rules that a player who is not already “established” would get shit on forever for this move, but I feel like Carlos Gonzalez or a veteran on his level would be well within his unwritten rights to go about it this way).
If you are down four runs in the seventh inning of a game with no time limit, you are well within your rights to bunt for a hit. Baseball players are the biggest fucking babies. Every sport has unwritten rules but I swear we learn about three new ones in baseball every year. We are four years away from a 15-minute brawl because someone didn’t wear a seat belt in the bullpen car.
Would I be in favor of Carlos Gonzalez screaming his intentions to bunt at Jordan Lyles as he steps to the plate, whether he meant it or not? You bet. Do whatever you want short of violence. Step to the plate, ask for time, and then stare down the pitcher while furiously scratching your balls. Drop your bat and sexily bend over with your ass facing the pitcher. Stroke the bat between your legs with your belt around your neck. Create a memory for the fans.
But what happens if the Padres come out of the shift and Gonzalez lines a base hit through the right side? No way he makes it out of that stadium alive. He would get whacked like Pesci in Goodfellas. “Hey, right through these doors, the media wants to talk to you about your single,” then bam, Trevor Hoffman is there to put two behind the ear and roll him up in plastic.
Take your unwritten rules, write them down and shove them up your ass.
Ren:
I work in a large office building in Manhattan. As is the case in many large office buildings in Manhattan, and around the world, there are multiple suites on the floor with a shared bathroom. The bathroom suite was a serene, quiet retreat until we got a new neighbor.
Sparing you the details, the two urinals by mid-day have small but not inconsequential pools of pee splatter on the floor in front of the lip that’s supposed to catch all the drips.
I’m not squeamish by any means, but it’s flat out disgusting in there, both in the smell and the fact that walking around NYC is gross enough without having to endure the same sensation in my office bathroom that you get in some of the lesser-used corners of Penn Station or Times Square.
What is the most effective, splatter-free strategy to pee in a urinal?
This is an excellent question because nobody is ever really taught how to pee at a urinal. You are trained in the ways of a toilet as a kid but nobody has a urinal in their home, so it’s a whole bunch of trial and error in public settings. How close do I stand? How close is too close? How did all these boogers get on the wall?
First of all, height matters. The dynamics of peeing into a urinal when you’re 6-foot-3 are much different than when you’re 5-foot-4. Your release point and angles must be considered. The other consideration is your stream. Are you the hose from UHF or a baby elephant with a runny nose? You need to be honest about how close or far you need to stand based on how much urine pressure you’re providing, but closer is always better.
Take into account that no matter how powerful or weak your stream, you need to be close enough and/or aim high enough to avoid those first droplets hitting the floor. Then once you’re at maximum pressure, aim for the middle wall of the urinal. If you’re peeing into the cake, you will create an unwelcome splash. Your piss is a 3-0 pitch you want to groove down the middle.
Then as your pee is dissipating, shuffle closer so you get the last drops into the urinal instead of on the floor. Most floor piss comes from people too proud to admit they’re out of gas and need to adjust.
Since you can’t bring this up to co-workers without immediately being fired—“Hey, Bob, excellent stream of piss you have there, but have you considered aiming a touch higher?”—try hanging a sign in the bathroom that will both shame and educate. A PG drawing of someone using the urinal properly like one of those subway ads that show how to properly ride the train. “If you pee something, say something.”
If this doesn’t work, take solace in the fact summer is just around the corner and all of Manhattan will smell like hot piss for three months anyway.
Mario:
If the Warriors had to play through the entire playoffs as an 8 seed, how much of an impact do you think it would it have on their chance to win the title? Since post-lottery draft order is based on record and not how well a team does in the playoffs, would it be worth tanking to the 8 seed in order to a get a pick that’s potentially 12-15 picks higher if winning the title was still realistic?
Surgical tanking. I love it. I’m very much on #TeamTanking so the idea of an elite team tanking is wonderful. “Congratulations to the Houston Rockets on a wonderful season and the best record in basketball. Your reward is losing in five games in the first round to a motivated Golden State Warriors team.”
This is a great idea in theory but it could never work because this type of tanking requires the players to intentionally shit the bed 30 times per season while true tanking is done by the front office. A general manager can leave a coach with a bare-bones roster that will win 22 games but Steve Kerr can’t go to Steph Curry and Kevin Durant and tell them, “How do you feel about not playing 25 games in the regular season? Would you consider trying to shoot for 0-for-40 from the field in about 20 games?”
I hope, however, that Adam Silver read your question and fainted in his office.
Brandon:
The other day I was taking a carton of eggs out of the fridge and nearly dropped the damn thing. It turns out my wife has been taking eggs all from one end, throwing the carton off balance (I was not expecting half the carton to be feather-light). I prefer to take eggs from opposite ends each time in order to keep the carton well-balanced. Which one of us is the crazy one?
Let’s see, who is the crazy one between the wife removing eggs from one side of a carton, and the husband so upset about the weight distribution of approximately 18 ounces of eggs and his inability to feel the weight as he picks up the carton that he wrote a letter to a website to complain about this while also mentioning he has a special system for taking eggs out of a carton?
This is a tough one. I’ll need to get back to you on this.
HALFTIME!
Brooks:
Will there ever be the option to watch sports without the announcers? It’s my least favorite part of watching almost any game. I could keep the color commentator narrating what exactly is happening in the play, but the wild speculation and jock opinions between plays makes me never want to watch sports on TV again. My favorite football watching last year was when the announcer mics stopped working for five minutes and it was just crowd noise. I for one would appreciate the ability to choose what audio inputs accompany the visuals.
I can’t find any evidence of this, but I remember MSG Network (or perhaps SportsChannel) airing a hockey game without announcers like 20 years ago. It was just ambient noise in the arena and it was outstanding. It did not last because god forbid hockey fans ever embrace anything new (video review is good, you assholes), but it needs to come back as long as NBC is airing NHL games.
No announcers should be an option on every broadcast for malcontents like myself. I do not need to hear Pierre McGuire. I know people love Tony Romo but listening to an excited puppy guess plays for three hours isn’t my thing. I wish I didn’t have to listen to a humorless Jon Gruden talk about spiders and bananas. As someone that watches Rutgers football and gets the world’s 64th best announcing crew every week, I’d like the option of only hearing crowd noise during the game.
If you think about it, announcerless games are long overdue. It’s TV. It’s 2018. I can see everything an announcer is seeing but more clearly because I’m watching my high-definition TV. There’s a score box on every broadcast. There are graphics that I don’t need read to me. Any sideline report can be conveyed by a graphic. I don’t need 15-second coach interviews. Announcers are necessary on the radio but television broadcasts have advanced so far that they are mostly unnecessary.
NBC actually did an announcerless NFL game in 1980. The ratings went up but it was widely considered a failure for reasons I don’t understand. Sounds like Big Broadcaster got to the networks and forced us into 38 more years of shitty announcing when people sent a clear message during a meaningless Jets-Dolphins game that they’d just like some fucking silence for a couple hours.
Announcerless games should be an option right next to closed captioning and different languages. I bet it would be more popular than anyone realizes.
Brandon:
I share an office building with a couple of city departments. We do not have a proper kitchen area. One man goes into the men’s bathroom and peels eggs at the sink, rinses the peeled eggs, then scoops the shells out and puts them in the garbage. Sometimes there is a shell fragment or piece of egg stuck in the drain. Sometimes there is the smell of boiled eggs. I have a theory his coworkers have banished him and he is relegated to the last remaining area in the building to peel his eggs. Is it ok to peel food in the bathroom? Should I say anything?
The fact that you lack a kitchen area makes this OK. I hear what you’re saying about the smell of boiled eggs but I’ll allow it. He’s not microwaving seafood. If the choice is between peeling eggs at one’s desk or doing it over the sink in the bathroom, I’d say he’s being a respectful co-worker.
Nobody should ever brush their teeth at work. Did you read that earlier question about the piss-covered bathroom? Do you know how many people have taken a shit in an office bathroom by 1 o’clock? That’s a whole lot of poo particles in the air while you stand there with your mouth open. Just something to think about the next time you’re focused on dental hygiene while Kevin from accounting is absolutely annihilating the middle stall on the strength of three large coffees that morning.
Brett:
I recently flew from LA to New York on a redeye for work. I was boarding the airplane and sat down in my assigned window seat. The person next to me comes in and sits down in the middle seat. After five minutes or so, boarding is obviously finished, and no one has sat in the aisle seat. Obviously, I expect the person next to me to move over. The flight attendants seal the doors and we pull away from the jetbridge, and I keep waiting for the person to move over into the aisle seat.
I wait, and wait, and wait, and the person doesn’t move over. I figure that maybe the guy is just waiting to move over until we’re in the air.
He fucking doesn’t! I finally turn to ask him, and the asshole is asleep. He sleeps the entire flight in the middle seat with an empty aisle seat next to him.
Meanwhile, I spend the entire flight FUMING. I was so annoyed by this that couldn’t sleep, and it ruined my entire work trip because I lost a night of sleep.
This person is probably a serial killer, right?
You are probably correct but I’d like to throw some theories out there for why this person wouldn’t have slid over to the aisle seat.
- Passengers these days seem more likely to get the shit kicked out of them for no reason so maybe he didn’t want to open the door to a beating. Can’t begrudge anyone for wanting to play it safe.
- Maybe the person in the aisle seat across from him smelled bad. Maybe he knew this from standing next to him at the gate or got a whiff after boarding and didn’t want six hours of that in his nostrils.
- Maybe he meant to slide over but fell asleep immediately.
- Was he tall? If so, I’d bet anything he prefers the middle seat for an overnight flight. I’m 6-foot-3 and like 95 percent legs and let me tell you, there is no pain like the pain of the drink cart cracking you in the knee while you’re dead asleep. So I’d give strong consideration to a middle seat over an aisle BUT I’d definitely tell you my reasons.
- Actually, I’m taking the aisle seat. That guy was definitely a serial killer.
E-mail of the week!
Anonymous:
OK. I reactivated a burner account for this question because the admission and question are too embarrassing to associate with my real self.
So I have a reasonably stressful job. I’m not a cop or a firefighter or a EoD tech or a combat Marine, but there’s pressure to succeed.
Once in a while, I need to escape and take a breather so I head to a stall in our restroom (Preferably the handicapped one so I can stretch my legs a bit). I, inevitably, find myself pulling out my phone and heading over to a salacious site where people engage in sexual activities for the titillation and masturbatory pleasure of the public. And I jerk it.
Are my actions A. Wrong, B. Indicative of some moral failing on my part, or C. More common than I think?
Note: I ALWAYS clean up after myself and, to my knowledge, hide all evidence of my crime against humanity.
Stop jerking off in Burger King, Kevin.