Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we're covering Dwight Howard, breastfarts, porn athleticism, and more.
Given all the controversy Redditors generated last week by hosting a rapist confessional thread, I began to wonder: What would happen if you confessed a phony murder on Reddit? What if got you an anonymous account and then wrote a very long-winded chronicle of the time when you were 18 and stumbled across a remote farming village in Maine, and how you decided to sneak into this one old lady's house and bludgeon her to death with a shovel? JUST BECAUSE YOU COULD. Then you played up the ensuing guilt, how you think about that poor woman's face every night before going to bed, and wondering if you deserve to burn in Hell forever, especially since you killed her grandson on my way out of the house.
I was curious to see if other Redditors would be like, "Aw, man! You think that's bad? LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE TIME I SLAUGHTERED A WHOLE VILLAGE OF BOLIVIAN CHILDREN." And then other people would chime in and be like, "While I think you're evil for what you did, I RESPECT the Hell out of you for being able to come forward." So I Gchatted our managing editor Tom Scocca...
ME: Hey, we should post a phony murder confession on Reddit!
SCOCCA: Eep.
(SILENCE)
And just to be clear: I have never actually murdered anyone. BUT FINGERS CROSSED!
Your letters:
Daniel:
The Olympic Opening Ceremonies are a huge pile of shit. The next time the US get an Olympics, they need to scrap an opening ceremony and just have a rematch of the Super Bowl while the athletes walk in. Suck on that world!
I watched the opening ceremony on Friday night, and even though I knew in advance that it would suck—even though I had been explicitly told that Mary Poppins and Voldemort would somehow be included TOGETHER—I was still amazed at how putrid it was. It was a fucking British minstrel show. They may as well have had Mike Myers choreograph the thing. It was as if Danny Boyle went down the list of every tired British stereotype he could find and was like OH YEAH, GRASS! THROW THAT IN THERE!
And there's no point to it. The opening ceremony isn't an award show. There's no functional purpose to it. It's a halftime show without the actual gameplay featured on the front or back end. It's just three hours of SHIT.
And NBC only served to make it worse. Every Olympics, they trot out Matt Lauer to explain every little bit of the ceremony to you like you're a fucking moron. "And there's the British flag. Known by many as the UNION JACK!" Yes, thank you for that, Matt. Thanks for giving your audience absolutely NO credit and turning this whole thing into a fifth grade social studies report. It's like NBC scouted Ohio for the dumbest person in America and then was like, "THIS PERSON. We'll cater our entire broadcast to this one fucking idiot who needs everything explained to him." Then they had Meredith Viera asking stupid questions like, "Hey Matt, just WHY do they have double decker buses in England?" We all have Wikipedia now, lady.
When Lauer wasn't busy talking down to everyone, he was selling you the thing like he was a vacuum salesman. When James Bond and the Queen jumped out of that airplane (SPOILER: That wasn't really the Queen!), Lauer put on his best phony face and said, "Are you kidding me?!" As if he wanted you to legitimately believe that was the Queen of England parachuting into the goddamn stadium. What beefhead buys that? What fucking moron watches that and is like ZOMG! THAT WAS REAL! There was something so grossly disingenuous about the whole thing that I felt like the actual sporting element of the Olympics was ruined. Fuck you, NBC. You're awful.
If I were in charge of the Olympic ceremonies, I would force all the athletes to RUN out into the middle of the stadium and then begin competing against one another immediately while Queens of the Stone Age played in the background.
Duck:
Hypothetical: tomorrow morning major news outlets across the globe confirm that multiple research groups have confirmed the air conditioning is what causes cancer, nothing else, just air conditioning. Now assuming that there's no viable air conditioning alternative available in your lifetime (a fan with a block of ice?), what do you do? Personally I'd let my kids sweat it out without AC as long as they lived with me, conscience clear, while installing a gigantic window unit in my bedroom.
But how often do you hang out in your bedroom? You couldn't just live there. Apart from making Hamilton Nolan the happiest little Fascist alive, a link between air conditioning and cancer would probably cause liberal mayors such as Mike Bloomberg to outlaw the sale and use of air conditioners. In turn, this would cause mass uproar among Tea Party tardbillies, who would demand the GUBMINT stay out their business. This could be the final straw that finally leads to open Civil War. Cityfolk would wage war against country folk. Gays would wage war against Evangelical chicken salesmen. Red states would invade blue states. The entire United States would collapse upon itself and become a sodden patchwork of poorly run city-states and unclaimed territories.
Meanwhile, I will have retreated to the relatively friendly temperatures of coastal Western Canada. I wouldn't need much air con, which is good because I'd probably kick the shit out of my thermostat for displaying Celsius temperatures at all times.
Mike:
This was in Eden Prairie, MN. There was also a "Licensed Terrorist Hunter" bumper sticker. I wonder if he wears sleeves...
That's just the kind of reassuring message I want from my EMT. I have to think PUSSY WAGON was also painted on the side.
Chase:
A few years ago, my dad was visiting me in Boston and we were doing the tourist thing. We stopped by the "Ether Dome" at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1846, this was the surgical room where sedation was first used during an operation. Here, I made the blanket statement, which I'm apt to do, "This is the most important site in the world. I mean, this was more important than flight!"
This past week, my girlfriend and I were touristing up the Outer Banks and stopped by the Wright Brothers Memorial. I threw out the hypothetical, "Which is more important? Surgical sedation or flight?" She instantly answers,"Flight." I had to hold back my fiery shout of "WHAT THE HELL???" Now I'm not saying she's necessarily wrong, but this is a serious hypothetical. Don't you think it deserves a little more thought?
Well, think about how important flight has been to the advancement of human civilization. A recent report by the FAA says that, in 2009 alone, civil aviation "supported over 10 million jobs, contributed $1.3 trillion in total economic activity and accounted for 5.2 percent of total U.S. Gross Domestic Product." That's just one year in the history of flight. Without manned flight, it's possible that we never fight in World War I or World War II, which would have saved many lives but perhaps also would have kept the United States from becoming the global hegemonic power it now is (We're still powerful, right? URRRRRR).
Think about the role flight has played in shaping the world social order as well. The fact that you can cross the entire Atlantic Ocean in six to seven hours makes something like, I don't know, the Olympics much more possible. Countries meeting countries. Races meeting races. People of all different kinds coming together and creating new communities and make superhot pan-racial babies. That's all been accelerated thanks to manned flight.
Whereas surgical anesthetic is an innovation that has a far more personal impact. Medicine can still be practiced without anesthesia. It's just that it would happen to be the worst fucking thing on Earth to endure. Even worse than a four-hour flight to Denver. But would it have the global impact of manned flight? No way. In the grand scheme of things, flight is far more important.
HOWEVER, if I were forced to choose between grounding all flights forever or facing the rest of my life without anesthetic with three back surgeries to my name, you all motherfuckers better get used to long car trips.
Andy:
If people farted out of their nipples, would women's boobs still be sexy?
Yes. We all find women's asses to be sexy, and those extrude out farts and turds on a regular basis. No reason for that to affect your enjoyment of mammaries. I could even see a whole new population of breast-fart fetishists emerge out of this, guys who feed their lady bowl after bowl of chili and then go motorboatin' for days afterward, taking in all those breasty toots. I LOVE YOU, STINKYTITS.
JS:
How different would the world be if there was an alcoholic drink that tasted exactly like water? I, for one, would love this. There would be no more of the burning feeling in your throat after a shot. This could also set up for some awesome pranks, like getting your friend piss drunk before a college exam.
It would prove a fatal innovation for many. One of the reasons that alcohol can be hard to get down is because that's your body telling you THIS WILL FUCKING KILL YOU. If booze tasted like water, overconsumption would prove far too easy, particularly for new drinkers. Remember that one chick you went to school with who had a Zima and was like THIS TASTES LIKE CANDY!, and then was dead of alcohol poisoning two hours later? That would happen all the time.
Also, being able to tolerate the burn lets people know you aren't a pussy. That's what a shot is really for. It's someone handing you a drink and saying PROVE TO ME YOU AREN'T A GASH. And everyone falls for it.
Jordan:
This weekend, I went tubing on the Otter Tail River with my brother. After drinking many beers while floating alongside drunk rural Minnesotans who look like extras on the Sons of Anarchy set, I began to feel a slight itch inside my ass crack. Thinking it was the tag in my swimming trunks, I adjusted, scratched, and went about my business. Upon returning to our lake cabin, my brother asks me if I'm on my period, pointing to a large blood stain on the back of my shorts. Horrified, I rush into the bathroom, drop trou, spread my cheeks, and discover a crime scene of blood and bite marks around my asshole. After jumping into the shower and feeling around, I discover FIVE (5!) of these small, slimy creatures that I can only assume are leeches. This has to be the second-most unwanted thing to have in your butt, right?
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
By the way, I can't be the only person who watched Stand By Me as a child and lived in constant fear of leeches for a decade afterward. And I grew up in Minnesota. There are lakes everywhere. Lakes are basically leech farms. I'd sit in a lake for ten minutes, remember that leeches exist, and then go screaming out of the water.
HALFTIME!
Jake:
Some new renters moved in across the street who are awesome. We both have young kids who play together, they have beer pong parties every Saturday night etc. However, before they moved in we were informed by someone that the previous owner of the house had killed himself in the garage. Our new neighbors have made no mention that they are aware of this fact. Do we have an obligation to tell them?
Hell no. That's a realtor's job. Do you know how rare it is to stumble upon a decent couple to hang out with? It's like winning the goddamn lottery. There's no need to jeopardize that by being the dick who ruins their house for them. If anything, play up the nicer aspects of the home so that they'll be encouraged to buy it outright. "Wow! These are sturdy window frames! You don't see that in many houses these days! PLEASE NEVER LEAVE US."
It's amazing how much more enjoyable parenting is when you're getting drunk with other parents. Alone with your kids, parenting is a grueling death march. But head over to someone else's house to get loaded while all twelve neighborhood kids play Wii in the basement? HEAVEN. That's what having kids is really all about.
By the way, my wife had a playdate the other day and all the moms at the playdate shared a big pitcher of sangria. No woman in recorded history has ever turned down sangria. WINE WITH FRUIT? THAT IS THE MOST APPEALING THING I, AS A WOMAN, HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED. Take a woman to any restaurant that has sangria and they'll shit a brick when they see it listed on the menu. OOOOOH, LET'S GET SANGRIA! Double the pantshitting if it's white sangria. Women love themselves the sangria.
Jordan L.:
For no apparent reason, two of my friends and I decided to have a peeing contest. We drank as many half-gallon iced teas as we could (over a few hours so there was no risk of water intoxication), and held it in for the allotted amount of time. However, when we all revealed how much we produced with our one trip to the bathroom, we were surprised/disappointed to see an overwhelming tie. To this day we debate whether the human body has a limit on how much it'll release at once, or if it were just a sign to stop betting for the night.
But look at the range in hues! Astounding. It's like I'm looking at a paint sample book.
Kevin:
You are driving down the road and your windows and doors are locked and you can't roll down the windows or unlock the doors. Suppose you had to simultaneously shit and vomit, but once you choose one, the other goes away. You have to choose one...there is no avoiding it. Which do you choose? Most of my friends chose to shit themselves because they say the mess is more contained.
It's not a bad argument to make. The problem is that, if you've ever shit yourself, you know that the smell CANNOT be contained. There's that brief moment when the shit is in your pants and you can't smell it and you think, "Okay, maybe if I don't move, the smell won't be able to break free." But then it ESCAPES, and begins to colonize the air, and you know that the longer you sit there, the worse it will become. With the vomit, you can aim into the passenger seat. And while there's still a strong likelihood that some residual vomit will get on you and the gearshift, you'd still be able to avoid direct contact with most of the vomit. If the car ride lasted another, say, three hours, you're choosing between smelling a turd that's coating your backside, or smelling a puddle of vomit that's adjacent to you and drying up the longer it sits. You have to choose the vomit. Shit doesn't dry. It stays moist forever. Like your sister. HEYOOOOOOOO...
Eric:
What are you supposed to say/do when a co-worker brings their kids around the office? I'm talking little kids, like two years old. They're too little to even ask, "What grade are you in?" I just end up sprouting stupid cliches like, "Oh they're so big" or "That outfit is so cute." Makes me feel like a total jackass. It's extremely difficult to ask a questions about children without giving off a Sandusky-vibe.
Yeah, that's a hard position to be in when you're single and in your twenties and other people's children are stupid and pointless. The best thing to do is just wave hi, play one solitary round of peekaboo, and then turn back to your computer. Turning your back on a child announces to the parent, "I am through with this thing." Any parent who deliberately subjects a single male co-worker to a child (or even worse, leaves that child with them for even a second) is an asshole.
JT:
Which of these do you think carries more long-term health risks: An eight-year career as a starting NFL running back, or an eight-year career as a porn star specializing in anal DPs?
Playing running back for that long means subjecting yourself to long term damage to your brain, knees, shoulders, spine, ribs, ankles, elbows, neck, and feet. That's fairly complete in terms of health risks. A porn star's biggest physical risk, obviously, is HIV. But here is something that will blow your skull: The average HIV patient has a life expectancy (69) that is 14 years longer than the average life expectancy of an NFL player (55). Not only is it safer to be HIV positive than it is to play football, it's MUCH safer.
The other physical risk of performing such extreme pornographic acts is the risk of internal tearing and bleeding, which is obviously problematic. There's also the incredible psychic toll that performing such acts has to take on a person. No one who does that for eight years comes out mentally healthy. I recently read GQ's profile of porn star James Deen and it's one of the worst fucking things I've ever read. Not because it's poorly written. It's written just fine. But some of the shit people are willing to do in the article make me want to gouge my own eyes out. Please remind me to stop reading tasteful magazine articles about repulsive men sodomizing women with meat tenderizers. I really dislike the idea of living in a world where shit like this goes on. It's unbearable to think about. That's why, even knowing everything you and I know about the dangers of playing football, 99.9 percent of the population would rather play running back for eight years. Myself included.
Sam:
Hasn't Dwight Howard now proven himself to be a colossally bigger cocksucker than LeBron? I mean, fuck, right?
You're right. At least LeBron James had the courtesy of A) making a decision and B) holding firm to a decision-making schedule. At this point, I'm not sure if Dwight Howard could even point out Brooklyn on a fucking map. David Stern should bring him to New York, sit him in his office, and have the following conversation with him:
STERN: Okay Dwight, I see you're having a hard time trying to figure out where you would like to play and when you would like to be traded. So what I propose is this: You spend next season playing two games for every team. Then, you finish out the season with whichever team you like best.
DWIGHT: Really? You'd do that for me?
STERN: Not really. I was just fucking with you. NOW YOU SHALL DIE!!!!!!!!
(shoots Howard in the face)
Calvin:
I'm allergic to shellfish, like deadly allergic. I've spent my whole life having my dickhead friends order crab legs at restaurants just to spite me, and watching Martha Stewart whip up delicious shrimp kabobs that I can never eat. Well the other day I was imagining myself as an undercover spy betrayed by his best spyfriend who gave me up to the dirty Russkies. However, instead of swallowing a cyanide capsule, I whip out a lobster roll and commit shellfish seppuku. Can you think of a better/tastier way of taking yourself out?
I cannot. Shellfish seppuku surely beats natto-erotic asphyxiation. HUH? HUH?
/crickets
Whatever.
Merlyn:
Who is the most famous person do you think you've ever shared a toilet seat with? For me and with extensive thought I'd imagine it to be a B-list movie star (Steve Zahn) on a Southwest flight bathroom.
Obviously, it depends on where you live. If you live in Utica and you never leave Utica, your best hope is that you shared a shitter with WUTR anchor Joe Parker, Utica's Most Trusted Name In News! I bet his turds stand up straight. If you live in New York or Los Angeles AND you frequent celebrity-friendly restaurants and bars, then I think you can shoot for the moon. Why NOT assume that Scarlett Johansson gave Sean Penn a blumpkin in the very stall where you're grunting out a Canyon Road burrito? In fact, should you live in New York, I think you should start doing coke off the toilet seats at Elaine's just so you can say you snorted coke off the same toilet seat that hundreds of celebrities have snorted coke off of.
Dan:
If Justin Bieber tweeted someone's name, address, and photo, and then told his followers to hunt down and kill that person, would they do it? People are always talking about how much power he has over his fans. It's not inconceivable to me that he might get drunk one night and decide to test the limits of his power. I mean, he has 24,433,174 followers. ONE of them has to be crazy enough to actually go out and kill someone on his command. What do you think?
That one crazy follower would have to be located within striking distance of Bieber's proposed victim, which would eliminate a good portion of those 24,433,174 followers (Bieber has an enormous international following). There might be a handful of people nearby crazy enough to act on THE BIEBER KILL ORDER, but I think that it would be awfully hard for them to carry it out once it was made public. You'd have police surveillance on the home 24/7. No 13-year-old would possess the savvy and paramilitary know-how to get around that. And the Kill Order would cause many fans to turn on Bieber in disgust, and any would-be killer would be hung up arguing over Twitter with the dissenters, demanding they show more loyalty to Justin. And then they'd stumble on a rerun of Jessie on the Disney Channel and get completely distracted.
William:
Suppose you qualified for the U.S. Open this year and through Kim Jong Il luck/skills you hole in one every single hole for the first round. Since par this year was 70 that would put you at 54 under. Would you be able to make the cut? The cut this year was +9.
It depends on your handicap. For someone like me who regularly shoots in the 100s (or used to, I can't golf anymore), that first round lead would be squandered after just two more rounds. You'd need a handicap of 18 or better if you wanted to stay in contention after your Kim Jong Il round.
Email Of The Week time.
Tim:
I was polishing some silverware yesterday and was imagining that I was a servant polishing silverware for my lord, a la Game of Thrones. I was imagining getting rewarded with a subtle nod of approval from Tyrion and it legitimately made me work harder. When I was finished and the silverware looked great, I was much happier than I probably should have been. I even sent a picture of the finished product to my parents because I didn't know who else to share my sense of accomplishment with. Worse, when I thought about it today, I still felt really good about how nice the silverware looks. I'm only 32 and I don't know how this happened.
I've attached a picture of my work.
That's a fine shine, sir. Nothing to be ashamed of.
For a handy master schedule of every Olympic event, click here.
View the original article here
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.
The second serviceman featured is this Marine, whose identity we do not know. A viewer from England named John Brown alerted me to this, saying NBC's decision was "not only an insult to the British dead, but also an insult to the American casualties of war and their families left behind." If you have any information as to this Marine's identity, please let me know.