While dining on chicken (prepared by my boyfriend) I asked for ketchup. After an argument, a small hostage situation, and some googling, I discovered that the vast majority of the world (indeed ALL OF my friends and family I hold dear) believe me to be a monster for this. Never have I been so accosted for a hot food take than when I suggested that ketchup pairs well with chicken. So the questions I pose to you and all your food wisdom are these: is it wrong to eat chicken with ketchup? Additionally is there any meat other than hamburger that is acceptable to be paired with ketchup?
Dry! Never wet. When I was a kid, I would lick my pinky and jam it up my nose to see how far I could get it, maybe even touch my brain. I just tried it again now and made it to the second knuckle. NOT BAD. But for booger excavation, a wet finger is useless. I want my boogers to be as dry and crusty and crusty as possible, for better flickability. Also, they're just easier to catch with a dry finger. If I go in with my pinky (just realized I always use my pinky for nose-picking) all covered in water or spit, that will immediately compromise the integrity of any booger I'm trying to fish out of there. I don't wanna reach a gold nugget—even if the booger itself is wet—and make it slicker and harder to snag. Would you climb Everest while soaked in Vaseline? Adam, you would not. You need proper footing.Mike:Picking boogers. Going in with wet finger or a dry finger: Who you got?
Yes. You would literally die if they used you out on the field, but your mere presence out there would be something offenses or defenses would have to account for. I know that referees are already out there on the field while both teams are playing, but refs are paid to get the fuck out of the way. You, on the other hand, would be paid to get IN the way. It would be all you could do out there, but it's still something.Let's say a team like the Buccaneers was granted permission to play a 12th man during NFL games to get the franchise back on their feet, provided that the 12th player was someone with extraordinarily low athleticism — someone like you or me! Do you think said NFL franchise would go for it?
Why indeed. In fact, Ian, I'm gonna do you one better and tell you to MAKE croutons. That's right. Make the fuckers. [disingenuous Bon Appetit voice] It's so easy!!! Actually it's a complete pain in the ass, but let's make some anyway. Here's what you'll need:A loaf of stale bread (presumably you have some leftover from your quarantine bread making phase, before the charm wore off)I'm visiting my mother-in-law, and she asked if I was hungry and put out some croutons to snack on. I thought it was weird, but you know what? They're pretty good. I could snack on these. I get that you're supposed to put them in a salad, but why limit yourself?
Mine is napping in my recliner with my mouth open. I did not intend for this to be my default pose, but one thing led to another which led to me napping with impunity around this house. I do not drive with my arm around the back of the passenger seat. If 80s movies taught me anything, it's that you use that move only when you're hitting on your date at a drive-in movie. My right arm is on the console (Kia) or the armrest (minivan) the whole time. Armrests are so, so important to me. They're vital to me on airplanes, and at rest, and in cars. My wife does not care for armrests and will flip the armrests up in the minivan and leave them there. This genuinely irritates me, because I am a giant baby. What am I gonna do with these arms, lady? Let them just hang down, like I'm some sort of wild ape? Unacceptable. My arms need a home.When I drive, I tend to place my left arm on the door, and my right on the back of the passenger seat. I do the same thing watching TV on the couch at home. My wife says this is my go-to "dad position." Does every dad have a go-to position?
This question calls for one of those clearly fabricated map graphics that says everyone in Arizona calls the ice cream man the Frostback. I have never heard the terms you just mentioned and I have no idea how they originated. I think people in certain anodyne areas of the country have their own weird lingo for shit because, a) It's the only way they can say Omaha has something different about it than other terrible places, and b) they're fucking bored. So if you're hanging out in Cedar Rapids and you're out of meth? PRESTO. You start calling the ice cream man the Pushpopper. Whole new twist.By the way, I saw my first ice cream out in the wild since quarantine began. Two of them drove by a Black Lives Matter rally my family went to. I respected the hustle. I did NOT get my kids ice cream.Brady:I was recently talking to some friends about the guys (felons) who drive around trucks and sell ice cream. I assumed everyone knew these as "ice cream men," but one person replied that they were known as "Ding Ding Men" in Omaha, and another from Ohio insisted on "Jingle Jerks." What is going on?
I've noticed lately that the internet and its citizens feel the need to create very hard lines on things such as the Mayo vs Miracle Whip or Coke and Pepsi debate to the point that you can only be on one side. I think both are fine. Who cares? Is this just a sign of the Trumpian times we live in? Or is it a symptom of a larger corporate conspiracy in which companies are producing T-1000 style brand bots that are programmed to hunt and kill any dissenters?
It's disheartening when on a call I'm like, "Hey Stephen A, I think this." And he goes, "Yeah me too." I'm like, "Damn. I thought he wouldn't." So we got to dig more to find where the disagreement is. That's the work.
HALFTIME!
No. If Trump cowered in the face of looking ridiculous, he would have never run for President to begin with. He's an inherently embarrassing specimen to behold, regardless of whether or not he's got a pile of taffeta scraps sitting on his head or not. Also, reality is of no consequence to the man. I think the last four years have proved that, no? Motherfucker stared at an eclipse. He has no interest in reality. It bores him. So if Melania shaved his head in the middle of the night, he'd be ECSTATIC to deny it and then blame it on an invisible elephant running around the White House. Then he'd embrace this Photoshop and pretend he's a submarine captain.Bobby:If someone shaved off Trump's hair while he was sleeping, would he quit the next day?
Lots of new cars now come with camera-type devices that can read street signs. So, in theory, they should be able to read license plates too. What if cars had an "idiot driver in front of me" button, and when you press it, it sends a notification via your phone to a state DMV database. Get reported a certain number of times—it's got to be a lot, because you know I would be reporting my friends for shits & giggles—then you have to go for remedial drivers' ed or something. Think of habitual left-lane interstate drivers, or senile grandpas, or Francesa listeners, or teens texting & driving. This could absolutely make our roadways safer and more efficient.
They do, yeah. I haven't seen my best friend in eight months. We don't even live in the same city anymore. That's just how shit goes. In your teens, you and your friends see each other every fucking day. That ends once someone gets a girlfriend, and then the space between hangouts grows larger and larger. The average bro, and I was very much an average bro back in the day, treats this is a massive tragedy. "Bros before hoes," etc. Then you accept that things are different, but you also come to realize that those long times between don't lessen friendship. My best friend is still very much my best friend. When I see my man, it's a fucking celebration. I couldn't be happier when I lay eyes on the fella. Then I go back home and dick around for another eight months till the next visit.I'm 40 and will refer to someone I used to hang out with a lot as a good friend or best friend, but I haven't actually seen or talked to the person in 3 months. There's no reason for this other than I just don't have time and making time is way too much work. But who has time at 40? The definition and requirements for friendship change with age, right?
Of course that person weighs less. That's science, amigo. Farts are made of gas and gas has weight. Carry a full propane tank around if you don't believe me. When you fart, you're not swapping out that gas weight for a pound of lead. It's gone from your body, and thus you weigh a microfraction less than you did before. In fact, you could fart yourself thin right now. Take it from a guy who uses fiber supplements. My weight is level—even in quarantine!—because I'm shitting out enough gas every day to fill a goddamn zeppelin. My methods are ironclad.Ben:A person is standing on an extremely accurate and precise scale. They fart. Does that person now weigh more or less than before they farted? Please help settle a decade-long debate I'm trapped in with my brother-in-law.
I enjoy watching sports with my nine-year-old son. It's a great bonding experience. But he just has the absolute worse takes on every aspect of the game and talks nonstop. It's like sitting next to Skip Bayless nightly. Should I be destroying his ideas to teach him proper sports watching behavior or just let him talk and respond, "Sure, uh huh, yep"?
Is it every girl I've ever slept with? Or strictly serious ex-girlfriends? Because I only had one serious girlfriend before I met my wife and that relationship ended… poorly. It would be EXTREMELY fucking awkward for her to show up in my house unannounced. Unbearable, even. I'd genuinely rather that every girl I ever hooked up with be there with her. Then at least the hostility would be diffused among many women instead of concentrated in just one. I could serve all of them mushroom puffs. It'd be like a baby shower, only worse.Eddie:You walk into your house from back from food shopping, and your wife and kids are not to be seen. What you do see is all of your ex-girlfriends, drinking tea with stern looks on their faces. What do you do?
Oh it's 100%. Even the Evangelical Stepford Wives in that lot bang the personal trainer. Every football coach in the world is a sucker. They're all like, "See here now, I told Sharon that football will always be my priority, and she said me Jimbo, if that's what yew want, I'll always be bah yer side." Meanwhile the pizza guy is making time with Sharon while Jimbo is breaking down tape at 3am. These women aren't stupid.Email of the week!Byron:What's the worst time or place to let loose with a terribly inappropriate "Fuck!"? I know that mine was in the intermission of The Lion King on Broadway five years ago. I had been getting my Hotmail account (I know, who had Hotmail even then) hacked on a routine basis. My full email list would get lots of fun emailed links to porn, dick pills etc, you get the idea. I found out the first time because my mom called me and asked me why I had sent her the link to some hardcore porn site (lovely conversation to have with your mother BTW). So, I reset the password, the security questions, the whole nine yards.Fast forward a week, same thing happens. This time I reset the password, add two-factor authentication, and also send an email to my whole contact list to open nothing coming from me until further notice.A week later, I am in NYC visiting my buddy and his wife. We decide last minute to catch a show and end up at a matinee of The Lion King on a Saturday. We are surrounded by families with kids in every direction. Intermission rolls around and I, like the phone addicted 28-year-old that I am, get it out to plug back in. I have a text from my brother-in-law that I have been hacked again. I am pissed. Do I hold this in? No, I do not. I said something to the effect of "Fuck this shit, fucking Microsoft piece of shit email FUCKKKKK". The death stares from all the parents around me are insane and fair. There are an easy 50 kids that probably heard that last FUCKKKKK. My buddy yells at me "Byron!!!" in his best disappointed dad voice. The guy behind me talks about going to security to throw me out. I apologize profusely but also told him he should if he feels like it, I know I screwed up. I ended up not getting kicked out but probably deserved it, I felt so embarrassed for the second act. Not surprisingly I ended up canceling that email account: something that sounds simple but actually ended up taking six months. Microsoft is the best.I dropped an F-bomb playing Yahtzee with my father-in-law the first time I ever went to the beach with him. He wasn't having it.I was watching the last season of Hard Knocks on HBO and Jon Gruden made a reference to not seeing his wife in two weeks. That got me to thinking- with this whole macho culture of coaches working 18 hours a day—what do you think the percentage of wives who have or are currently cheating on these guys? Gotta be at least 50%, right?