I don't think I'm alone in having a love-hate relationship with donuts. In a perfect world, I would be able to eat all the donuts I like. In this one, I have to wrestle with the fact that donuts are among the worst things I could ever ingest, somewhere between baby back ribs and C-4. A box of donuts in a conference room is a deadly siren that will seduce you and then leave you fat and dead. It's not fair. I should be able to eat donuts freely without turning into a panel from a Cathy comic. When I walk into a donut shop, all I want to do is leap behind the counter and grab everything on the racks. And yet, I can usually choose only one. Which one? WHICH, I ASK YOU? Reader Andrew knows what I'm talking about:

Andrew:

Tuesday was my last day at my internship, so my manager got a box on donuts as a nice little send off. It was a variety box of donuts and I obviously had first overall pick in the donut draft and picked the only Jelly.

Other donuts included red velvet (disgusting) three plain, blue berry, two chocolate frosted, strawberry frosted, glazed, marble, and the vanilla frosted shown. My other coworkers picked, talked around desk for five minutes, thanked me for my job, and went back to work.

There were four donuts left: the glazed, two plain, and the vanilla frosted, I took the glazed donut for my second donut because well fuck everyone it's my last day.

Then in a stunning turn of events, the two plain donuts were taken before the Vanilla frosted. I looked at each person who took the plain donut like they were fucking crazy. The vanilla donut was still there when I left at 4 o'clock. Such a bizarre ending. What would be your picks in the donut draft, and would you condemn those who left the vanilla frosted to death? I sure would.

I have to think the plain donut eaters were people who liked dunking their donuts into their coffee or something. That's the only decent explanation, and even then it's inexcusable because a frosted donut beats a coffee-soaked donut any day of the week. Or maybe two people took the plain donuts under the reasoning that a plain donut would be healthier than a normal, frosted donut. That's a fat person's logic. I assure you that I've used similar logic to justify numerous poor eating decisions.

Anyway, there's no way to rank donuts without starting a bench-clearing brawl, especially since the quality of donut types varies depending upon which store you go to. Some people like Krispy Kreme better than Dunkin' Donuts. But other people like Dunkin' because OW-AH FACKIN' DONUTS AHHH BETTAH THAN YOUR-AH FACKIN' DONUTS. Anyway, this is my best stab at donut rankings (setting aside matters of caloric intake), Please note that I'm not gonna include any of the crazy boutique flavors available at hipster donut shops. I'm just going with the standard offerings, so don't bitch about Maple Fried Chicken Strawberry not being on here:

1. Jelly. Preferably glazed.
2. Chocolate frosted. Again, preferably glazed as well. All donuts should be glazed before having other thing done to them.
3. Glazed. You should be able to order extra glaze. I like glaze.
4. Apple fritter. Especially if it has that apple-pie shit in the middle. When I was in dipshit prep school, one of the seniors ran a "grill" in the dorm basement that sold chips, candy, and soda. He would buy extra apple fritters at the store because he knew I would buy them all because I was a big, fat kid.
5. Cruller. So pretty!
6. Maple Long John. For people who prefer their donuts in raft form.
7. Boston cream. OW-AH CREAM IS BETTAH THAN YOUR-AH CREAM!
8. Vanilla frosted (or any fruit flavor). It's like a glazed donut, only frosted! One frosted glazed donut for me with extra icing, please.
9. Chocolate or vanilla sour-cream donut. When you put these in the microwave you can actually see the layer of fat on the outer edge of the cake. That's important.
10. Frosted with sprinkles. Kids always ask for this one because kids are dumb.
11. Crumb. I'd like a donut that is ALL crumb.
12. Cinnamon. Pointless.
13. Toasted coconut. Stupid.
14. Powdered sugar. I don't get powdered sugar donuts at all. You're basically ordering a mess. "I'd like white dust all over my body and the floor, please. Mmmmm ... this donut sure tastes dry!"
15. Pumpkin. Isn't it bad enough that it's invaded beer?
16. Lemon. For the people who eat all your discarded lemon Starbursts.
17. Red velvet. Which should taste way better than it actually does. Without cream-cheese frosting, red velvet cake is nothing.
18. Plain. Norv Turner's favorite!

Feel free to start a donut flame war in comments. Let's all be fat and angry together.

The Grammys are usually more entertaining than the Oscars. They're shorter. People aren't afraid to dress poorly. There are fewer tradesman awards that no one gives a shit about. There are few, if any, montages. The music is better. And people don't spend months and months analyzing the choice of host (for the second straight year, it's LL Cool J hosting the ceremony, because fuck it). So hopefully, that means you'll be getting a little bit more for your live-blogging dollar this evening.

Your performances tonight include Travis Barker, Chuck D, LL Cool J, Tom Morello, and DJ Z-Trip (wait, what?); Dierks Bentley and Miranda Lambert (tardbilly music people); The Black Keys (nice!); Kelly Clarkson; Fun. (the period alone makes me hate them); Kelly Clarkson; Elton John and Ed Sheeran "performing together live for the first time" (I do not know who Ed Sheeran is); Alicia Keys and Maroon 5; Justin Timberlake; Frank Ocean; Taylor Swift (you guys!); Carrie Underwood; Jack White (although you can only listen to his performance through a Victrola, I'm told); Rihanna, Bruno Mars, and Sting (will Sting be presenting Bruno with a summons for ripping off The Police for "Locked Out of Heaven"?); and plenty more. Join me, won't you? Football's over, so it ain't like you have anything better to do. I may be running a touch late due to family issues. Those kids don't chloroform themselves, alas. Refresh the page for updates and play along down in the discussion.

7:59pm: CBS's website is currently streaming in footage of John Norris interviewing Gotye. Poor Gotye is forced to hold his own microphone. Whenever a famous person actually has to hold their own mic during an interview, they look like they've been handed a rod of pure uranium.

8:09pm: And we begin with a handicapped carny shooting fire out of what appears to be Depression-Era recumbent bike and saying... things. That all leads to Taylor Swift dressed as Tom Petty in the "Don't Come Around Here No More" video. The chorus is clearly lip-synched. But the "like, EVER"s are pure live Taylor.

8:13pm: Taylor dropped a "I'm busy opening up the Grammys" right in the middle of that assy song of hers. She looks REAL pleased with herself. No more phony humble Taylor Swift. You get the Evil Prom Queen Taylor this evening. I feel awful for the carny she dumped. I bet she dated him as a prank.

8:16pm: LL is wearing the same hat from last year. He also just called Taylor Swift "T-Swizzle". They need to make sure a famous singer dies right before the ceremony EVERY year. Really helps the telecast.

8:18pm: Here's Elton John with Random British Troubadour. I think it may be the guy who got turned down for the lead role in Once. Goddamn, British people have terrible skin. It's like I'm looking at a pair of salamanders.

8:20pm: J-Lo sees your leg and raises you a hip, Angelina.

8:21pm: Seriously, I can see a labia. It's been spray-tanned.

8:23pm: Adele is charming as ever in winning her 9,000th Grammy. Someone should have told her not to leave the house wearing a Pottery Barn chaise, though.

8:24pm: The fun. guy is wearing meggings. The wife says this band sounds like "fast Coldplay," which is damning to both parties.

8:26pm: The fun. guitarist was dressed just like Poindexter during the Nerd Rap in Revenge of the Nerds. No Booger Presley on the mean guitar, though. Fun. closes out their set being rained on, and yet Adele fails to do us all a favor and set fire to it.

8:32pm: Miranda Lambert is coming. She's the lady I always see in People magazine wearing cowboys boots at her own wedding and being like ME AND BLAKE WE JUST STAY HOME AND RASSLE ALL NIGHT CAUSE WE'RE COUNTRY.

8:33pm: John Mayer is wearing a royal blue velvet suit. He looks like the world's worst magician. Bonnie Raitt is his co-presenter. He fucked her, but he's not gonna talk about it. He learned his lesson.

8:34pm: Miranda Lambert is singing now into a pink vibrator and I swear to you, this is exactly what it would look like if Brooke Hogan had a singing career.

8:36pm: Dierks Bentley (horrible child name alert) comes out dressed like a guy in a Chevy ad. Seriously, this performance is lifeless. At least the guys in fun. actually bothered to move. Someone must have nailed Lambert to the goddamn stage.

8:39pm: LL is back, dressed like Murph from Murph & the Magictones. He's introducing Miguel and Whiz Khalifa. Whiz's outfit reminds me of Barry Pepper's money quote in 25th Hour. "Did anyone tell you that you look like an optical fucking illusion?"

8:44pm: Carrie Underwood won something. She gave praise to the Lord a lot, which means she probably stabbed two people ten years ago and is trying to make up for it. We're at the break now, which means every hip hop artist is now free to head to the shitter to fap to Miranda Lambert's thighs. That gal had just the right amount of thickness in the britches for Whiz Khalifa. I bet guys ask her to put them in leglocks a lot.

8:50pm: Faith Hill is coming out, and I barely recognize her in actual live motion. I'm used to seeing her at 4x speed so that I can get to the goddamn game already.

8:52pm: Your Song of the Year is "We Are Young." Meggings is overjoyed. Taylor Swift overclaps. ALWAYS ABOUT YOU, ISN'T IT? YOU EVIL CARNY HAG.

8:53pm: Jay-Z has a brandy snifter. Important.

8:55pm: You know, dressing like a rock star doesn't make you one, Johnny Depp. I bet he buys all his fingerscarves at the same place Russell Brand does.

8:56pm: Mumford & Sons (aka Bluegrass Dave Matthews Band) are here to strum a few banjos and provide the soundtrack to your niece's first-ever fingerblasting.

8:59pm: And there's Taylor Swift trying to sing over the head Mumford guy. She's also raising her hands way high because she wants TO STEAL YOU ALL AND FEED HER DEMON SOUL WITH YOUR HEARTS.

9:01pm Apologies for the new entries showing up at the bottom of the post instead of the top. I did that way by accident and now I'm too lazy to switch it all up. To make it up to you, I give you Natalie Portman doing sexy things in a perfume ad. Totally my idea.

9:03pm: At long last, Chi McBride is back on network TV! He'll always be the chief from Undercover Brother to me. "It's a great day for black people of all races!"

9:05pm: Brownie batter donut? I'm listening. Also, Chevron has a farmer in their ad. Lotta farmer dicksucking in the ad game these days.

9:06pm: Jay-Z takes a congratulatory high five from a colleague after Beyonce takes the stage. "I'M FUCKING HER! NICE!"

9:07pm: Justin Timberlake gets his own sepia filter for his live set. He also gets a cameo from Jay-Z. I'm not sure America's vaginas can take much more. We're gonna have to build some kind of protective cotton maxipad dyke.

9:10pm: No old timey radio microphone for JT's retro performance? You gotta have the old timey mic for this kind of thing. Otherwise I won't feel like I'm in the middle of a scene from The Aviator.

9:12pm: Kelly Rowland could eat dinner off of Nas's head.

9:13pm: Frank Ocean gets a standing O for his first Grammy win. Who the fuck stationed Kathy Griffin behind him? How did she even get a ticket? Ocean won over Chris Brown, who is in attendance tonight. I hope he beats Brown to death with his trophy and then pisses in his eye.

9:19pm: JT is in the new Bud Light Platinum ad. No farmers though. GET WITH IT, PLATINUM.

9:20pm: Dave Grohl came out with the goth chick from NCIS. No word on if she drinks Bud Goth, though I'm certain her studio contract encourages it.

9:23pm: It's Maroon 5! It's like fun., minus the rain!

9:25pm: Alicia Keys is pulling a Sheila E. by drumming standing up. All we need is for Magic Johnson to start interviewing celebrities.

9:27pm: And the SwiftCam heats up again to show Taylor LEAPING to her feet to applaud Alicia Keys. Taylor started that standing O, y'all! It's on tape!

9:30pm: Nicole Kidman is terrifying to behold. Someone sent me a link this weekend of World War I-era plastic surgery done on a man who had his jaw shot off. She looks like that. DO NOT GOOGLE WAR WORLD I PLASTIC SURGERY.

9:31pm: Kelly Clarkson takes ten years to get up to the stage. This isn't a goddamn receiving line, lady.

9:36pm: "Is TO the new BO?" Well now, that cheap shot at Terrell Owens came out of nowhere. Although, to be fair, TO is still a piece of shit.

9:37pm: HONDA HOVERBIKE FOOTAGE DON'T TEASE ME LIKE THAT YOU BASTARDS MAKE IT NOW.

9:39pm: Rihanna is here rocking mighty hair extensions. Her backdrop looks like the set of "Medea". I fully expect her to murder two children at the end of the song. Chris Brown drove her to it.

9:40pm: Who is this Mickey Echo person? He looks like a dipshit.

9:42pm: Ne-Yo, dressed like a saxophone player, presents a Grammy to Jay-Z and a bunch of other people including Frank Ocean. Jay lets the other people talk because Jay-Z clearly doesn't give a shit about any of this because he could buy the Grammys tomorrow if he wanted to. When Jay starts talking, the wrap-it-up music STOPS. That's how powerful Jay-Z is. He can cut off the cut-off music. I wonder how many men he's had killed.

9:45pm: AARP ad. CBS knows its money demographic, for certain.

9:49pm: Kat Dennings' massive breasts are here to introduce the Black Keys, who are playing with the bear man from True Grit..

9:53pm: Kelly Clarkson is singing songs by dead people. TAYLOR SWIFT SAYS THAT IS A FINE IDEA, INDEED (rubs her hands in a sinister fashion).

9:58pm: You might wonder why Taylor is wearing a white dress tonight. It's because she'll be marrying herself at the end of the show. I think this might finally be the one, you guys! Someone with a beard won a pointless country award.

10:07pm: Jay-Z still clutching that brandy snifter. It's like a prosthesis at this point.

10:08pm: Sting takes the stage with Bruno Mars. Poor move, Bruno. Sting will take your song and demand you play a slowed-down Chilean sea shanty version of it live.

10:09pm: And here comes Rihanna and her underboob tattoo onto the stage for a Bob Marley tribute. Every time they cut to Chris Brown in the audience while Rihanna's singing, a puppy dies.

10:12pm: It's always awkward to see other musicians and industry execs in the audience politely dance along to the performances. They're never ALL THE WAY into it. You're not gonna catch someone starting a mosh pit and overturning Jay-Z's brandy snifter. People would be dealt with if that ever happened.

10:14pm: I was really hoping for a P!nk-free evening, and then Target had to go and ruin it. YOU GOTTA GET UP AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY AND TRY...

10:18pm: LL Cool J: "You know what the best thing about tonight is? The introductions to our performances can be performances!" That's not a selling point, man. People have lives to lead, you know.

10:20pm: Holy shit, the Lumineers look like a Michael Stipe wardrobe retrospective.

10:22pm: And here's famed albino Jack White making everyone lay weird instruments and forcing his entire band to play within two inches of the piano to achieve the exact kind of 1952 Sun Records rockabilly sound he's going for. This is why I listen to the Black Keys.

10:24pm: Okay, the man does know his way around a guitar. He leaves the stage a smoldering ruin after KILLCRUSHING his set. Still, I wanna know why he bleaches his skin.

10:27pm: Katy Perry's cleavage is devastating. All dresses should have that big cleavage hole. It works wonders.

10:28pm: And fun. wins another award. OH HEY THERE'S LENA DUNHAM! Thank God she's finally getting some exposure. I feel like she's really been under the radar lately. Her tattoo looks like a spilled Slush Puppy.

10:34pm: Hunter Hayes is performing. I have no idea. He looks like a failed "The Voice" contestant. There's shit written all over his piano. He's here to introduce Christian puck bunnybot Carrie Underwood.

10:37pm: I think the lighting crew just drew ovaries on Carrie's dress.

10:38pm And now Carrie's entire lower body is a screen. There are rose petals falling from her vagina. I AM CONCERNED FOR HER.

10:39pm: AND NOW THERE ARE BUTTERFLIES COMING OUT OF IT. SHIELD YOURSELF FROM CARRIE'S CURSED VULVA CAVE!

10:41pm Prince is here! Someone get that man a brandy snifter.

10:42pm: Prince is dressed in an avant garde hoodie, like he's about to go train to box a mime. He gives Gotye the Record of the Year Grammy in the most "No fucks left to give" voice humanly possible. Clearly, it's between him and Jay-Z for the "you're lucky I bothered to show up" title.

10:43pm: And Gotye is compelled to spend his entire acceptance speech groveling before Prince. He should just hand Prince the trophy and take a cane to the backside.

10:44pm: Taylor Swift gives Gotye her best, "Awww, so nice to see a nerd finally get a pity trophy" look. Later on, she will rake her nails across his face and laugh for days.

10:48pm: I'm still terrified for Carrie Underwood's reproductive organs. She could end up giving birth to a dragon one day.

10:52pm: JT and Ryan Seacrest are here to salute music teachers. All six of them. Appreciate them now before they're forced to accept a shitty retirement package from the county due to yet another round of school budget cuts.

10:54pm: Time for the montage of dead musicians. No applause-o-meter, which means Donna Summer won't get the official win.

10:56pm: No, wait! There IS audible applause. And Ad Rock MCA just broke it. Even Levon Helm can't overcome him in the anchor slot. Only your weird uncle likes The Band.

10:59pm: Now Zac Brown is playing "The Weight" in front of what appears to be that "God made a farmer" ad from the Super Bowl. Told you farmers were hot. Before the song, Elton John also came on and briefly mentioned Newtown. This is a lot to process all in one sitting.

11:00pm: Mumford & Sons also take the stage, along with T-Bone Burnett, who looks like James Cameron if James Cameron were dead. This is Mumford's second time on stage tonight. I have to think that Taylor Swift is eye-murdering them and Rihanna right now for getting extra performance spots. She ain't taking that shit lying down.

11:03pm: If they're gonna spend this much time paying tribute to Levon Helm, does that mean Jack White will come back on stage to play "Sabotage"? I would watch that.

11:07pm Turns out "Rules of Engagement" was NOT cancelled ten years ago.

11:12pm: And here's Frank Ocean to make the Internet happy. His lower body has ALSO been turned into a projection screen. Let's hope that butterflies don't come streaming out of his ballsack.

11:16pm: Adele is here to give the Album of the Year Grammy to Mumford & Sons. AND HEAD MUMFORD GUY OWES A QUARTER TO THE CBS SWEAR JAR.

11:20pm: No one's been forced to play in the parking lot yet like Foo Fighters had to last year, but I'm betting this thing involving the Blink-182 guy coming up is as sure a bet for it as anything.

11:22pm: If you're concerned about running time, please note that if this were the Oscars, we'd still have nine awards left to go right now, including Best Animated Short.

11:25pm: I was wrong. Apparently, LL Cool J is gonna get to close out the show. Watch as they cram a twelve-song medley into a frantic final three minutes!

11:27pm: Did you know Tom Morello went to Harvard? He's the Ryan Fitzpatrick of hard rock.

11:28pm: And that's it. LL and Chuck D got cut off by, like, a Delta ad. Way to go out in a blaze of glory, Grammys. Have a good night everyone.

Here in the 21st century, there is a growing sentiment that the Washington Redskins should finally adopt a less offensive team name. DC mayor Vincent Gray wants the name changed. Longtime DC newsman and real-life Sugar Bear Jim Vance wants the name changed. And Mike Florio wants RGIII to want the name changed.

All this hasn't stopped the Redskins (and at least one player) from attempting to awkwardly justify the nickname in every way possible. And today, they posted on their official team website a breathtakingly tone-deaf excuse that basically amounts to, "Hey, high schools do it, too!":

Redskins.com found that there are almost as many schools using the name Redskins as Cowboys, as only 75 schools use the name Cowboys, and interestingly just 19 use the name Giants.

Read that again. That sentence was almost certainly composed by a seventh grader. Anyway, this remarkable new evidence makes it clear that if we're gonna change an NFL team's name, it should be to the Giants! High school teens think the name Redskins is way more cool and extreme.

It's worth noting, too, that Dan Snyder has aggressively targeted people who have used the Redskins name without consent in the past. It's actually something of a miracle that he didn't attempt to sue these poor schools into oblivion before using them as human PR shields.

Coshocton High School is located in east central Ohio which has a rich Native American history. (AD George) Hemming said "the name represents to us competition and pride."

In eastern Ohio, the name Redskins was adopted by Indian Creek High School in 1993.
Principal Steve Cowser said... the name shows their "pride for the Native Americans and how they lived."

It will shock you to learn that neither Cowser nor Hemming are of Native American descent. You'll notice that both men use the word "pride" as an empty platitude when attempting to spin the unspinnable. "We're really proud of these people we know nothing about!" NFL commissioner Roger Goodell also barfed up a similar talking point when publicly defending the name, using his patented lifeless delivery:

"I think Dan Snyder and the organization have made it very clear that they are proud of that name and that heritage, and I think the fans are, too."

In this case, pride means virtually nothing. A team could be nicknamed the Buttchuggers and people associated with it would still be "proud" of them, whatever the hell that means. The Eagles are a proud franchise. The Giants are a proud franchise. Pride is the single most abundant commodity in the sporting universe. It has about as much value as a Canadian penny. Furthermore, you can clumsily justify virtually any long-standing practice just by saying the words "pride" and "heritage," as if the history of having a remarkably offensive team name somehow renders it inoffensive, which is logic for stupid people.

Of course, none of this really has anything to do with pride. The reason Dan Snyder and Roger Goodell are both loathe to change the name "Redskins" is because the Washington Redskins brand is worth over a billion dollars, and changing the team name would have a (likely temporary) negative impact on the franchise's brand equity. There are firms that manage the monetary value of a brand's name and they have almost certainly told Snyder that changing the team name would decrease the value of his investment by X percent. You only change the name when there's a real brand crisis (RG3's knee? HORSEMEAT), and right now the financial impact from people bitching about the name is minimal compared to the possible backlash from old-time fans who are so "proud" of cheering for the Redskins.

Never mind that this is purely hypothetical brand value, and that Snyder would continue minting cash as the owner of the Washington Pigskins. He'd still be able to charge a zillion dollars for parking, and no sane Skins fan would decide to root against RG3 simply because the team name was different. But that theoretical (and again, likely temporary) dip in brand value is enough to make Snyder and Goodell complete pussies who use words like "pride" to stonewall when it comes to doing the right thing. Consider, for example, the dogshit ending to the Redskins' press release:

These schools' athletes have a deep connection, just as the Washington Redskins alumni, and many high school student-athletes have pride in calling themselves Redskins.

So there you have it. Think the name is offensive? PRIDE AND CONNECTIONS AND WE'RE NEVER CHANGING THE NAME SO GO FUCK YOURSELF.

(h/t KOGOD)

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we're covering elderly couple sex positions, soundproof pants, the end of movies, and more.

Your letters:

Jesse:

I'm at a 'tumble and cheer' thing and all the kids have their names on the wall. Here are the 'good' ones:

Cambree
Karli
Baylee
Jaslynn
Maccie
Balei
Addison
Izzabelle
Kasey
Jadyn
Abigayle
Kinley
Kinsley
Ryleigh
Kyler
Dravyn
Jacelyn
Jacelynn
Kolie
Khloe (2)
Caryss
Blayse
Karsyn
Jaylynn
Kennadi
Brooklyn
Rylynn

I may have missed a few because there were so many horrible ones they just blended together into one big clusterfuck of terrible.

Well, this email has to be from Utah. Jesus, that is a damning list. The only way Izzabelle is an appropriate name is if your last name is Stradlin. And Maccie! I hope she has a sister named Jayceepynny.

I'd also like to single out Kyler for supreme awfulness. They just took Tyler and switched in a K. That's such a white trash move. Expect a future riddled with Kamuels, Kessicas, and Katthews. There's no stopping these terrible baby namers. They are getting worse at an exponential rate. Look at how badly abused the letter Y is up there. Rylynn uses no vowels at all! I'm waiting for Utah parents to seize upon the W as the next replacement vowel. If you don't think there's a Jwcwlwnn in our future, you are dead wrong. Eventually, all American baby names will resemble some kind of old Welsh dialect.

/waits for a commenter to tell me I'm a dick because Kyler is actually a common Hindu name

Jesse:

What would have happened if Ted Ginn broke loose on the game ending safety punt and Flacco actually ran onto the onto the field, and successfully tackled Ginn, at say the Ravens' 20-yard line? What would the refs have done? What about the aftermath after the game?

In that situation, I do believe the refs have the discretion to award San Francisco a touchdown on the play anyway (although Flacco, who was clearly half-joking when you listen to the audio, apparently did not know this). Given how poor the reffing was in the Super Bowl, it's no guarantee that Jerome "The Booger" Boger would have had the sack to make the right call, especially given that, if Flacco really did run out and tackle Ginn on the return, mass chaos would ensue. People would swarm the field. Niners players would attack Flacco for pulling such a bush league play. Jim Harbaugh would burst into flames. The refs would huddle up for 20 endless minutes with everyone at the stadium screaming at them to make one decision or another. Ultimately, someone from the League would stick a gun in Boger's belly and tell him to award the TD to San Francisco. Then Boger would formally announce the call over the PA system, everyone would go batshit, and CBS would lose its main audio feed. I really wish this had happened. There were about 50 different cool ways that game could have ended and none of them occurred.

I also think Flacco would end up among the most vilified players in NFL history. He would almost certainly be fined a massive amount, and perhaps suspended for the first game of the 2013 season. Paparazzi would hound him for weeks and weeks after the infamous play went down. He would retreat into an emotional shell, barely speaking to anyone and never daring to say anything that would make waves. Which means he'd pretty much be the same person he is now.

Bill:

What if it became standard that all pants would be soundproof? We all know some farts you can't let out because you just know they'll have some serious volume. But once that's eliminated, you think we would be walking around in a permanent confusing "who done it" stinkfest?

Jesus, soundproof pants. I'd pay, like, at least $20 for that, which is WAY past my usual budget at Old Navy.

Obviously a percentage of farts are already silent, in which case your fartdar usually fingers the perpetrator by locating the smell of the fart cloud and pinpointing the person closest to it. So I don't think much would change in society at large because so many people are already hesitant to audibly fart in public.

On a side note, I would love to see the worldwide market share for silent farts. Is it half of all farts? Is it more than half? I'd also like to know all my cumulative fart stats when I die. I have to think that your personal silent fart percentage goes down after you've been married because you no longer give a shit. I fart so freely around my house, you'd half expect a turd to drop out of my boxers once a day.

Bronwyn:

A woman I know from the train works at a financial services and insurance firm, and she told me about the corporate Christmas gifts they got this year. The Giants sent a nice bottle of wine, with the label autographed by Eli Manning, and two Tiffany crystal wine glasses. But the Jets sent a bottle of liquid hand soap, with a Jets logo on it. She said it wasn't even fancy hand soap, it looked like the same stuff they use in the restrooms at the stadium.

Jesus, that's the saddest thing ever. Did the soap at least have a foam dispenser? I like it when my soap comes pre-lathered.

By the way, I'd wager that only 20 percent of all public bathroom soap dispensers have actual soap in them. Ever try every goddamn dispenser in the place before realizing you have no means to scrub the fecal matter off your hands? It's a real low point. And half the time, I can't even tell if the full dispensers are actually working. Did it squirt in my hand? Why was it so lacking in viscosity? Did the janitor fill this with pure urine?

Kevin:

I think it's fairly safe to assume everyone knows, right?

But I don't know. What does Mr. Suburban know? Does he know that Roger Goodell rigged the Superdome lights? Does he know the name of the bin Laden shooter? Has he found a particularly good place for chicken pot pie? I MUST KNOW. TORTURE ME NO LONGER.

Daniel:

What's up with quarterbacks licking their fingers before every snap? Isn't that kind of gross? I would not want to catch a ball that Mark Sanchez basically spit on. One year everyone is going to get foot-and-mouth disease.

I don't think you have to worry about Mark Sanchez throwing you a ball that you'll actually be able to catch. Maybe he used team-approved Christmas soap before the lick.

I have no problem with the customary pre-snap hand lick. You gotta get a good grip on the ball, fella. Plus, I get to copy the pros whenever I throw a Nerf ball to my kid in the backyard. I get real, real serious before that throw. No way I'm taking any chances with a saliva-free throwing hand.

Cameron:

If you were gifted powers to resurrect NFL players and coaches back from the dead to provide commentary for a game, who would you pick and why?

I think most people would choose Howard Cosell, and then immediately regret it. He was a fucker.

Mickey:

How long would you last if you were homeless? I asked my wife this question, and she said a week (she's fucking soft, though). I'd like to think I could make it several weeks, maybe a few months before I lost my will to live/die of starvation/hypothermia/shanking.

The stipulations are you can't ever not become homeless; once you're homeless, that's your permanent station in life. Also, you have to be homeless in a northern city, with harsh winters and shit...none of this pussy-ass, Fort Lauderdale homeless shit.

So then, am I AWARE that I'll never stop being homeless? Because that would factor into it. If you know that things will never get better for you, that's a much faster avenue to suicidal despair than being like, "Whoa hey, that rich guy gave me his baked potato! OL' DREW IS BACK IN THE GAME!" More than the elements, I have to think that the hardest part of being homeless is the destruction it wreaks on your self-confidence, and the growing idea that you BELONG out there on the street. That no one loves you enough to take you in. That you've fallen so far that you have no prayer of recovering. That you will die cold and alone and no one will give a shit. All of that might even be worse than waking up in someone else's feces. Then again, maybe not.

Theoretically, you should be able to live a good long time despite being homeless. There's no shortage of food and blankets to scavenge. There's free water at public water fountains. And if the weather turns rotten, there are shelters and churches to turn to if need be. Your biggest threats would be crime (for example, an arrogant mergers and acquisitions executive stabbing you for pleasure) and an obvious lack of health care. You could survive for years and years. Again, that's in theory. Personally, I start to have a nervous breakdown 20 minutes after the power goes out. When a massive blizzard struck Maryland in February 2010, the wife and I slept under 80 blankets in a 40-degree house and I TOTALLY pretended that I was living on the street. By 2 a.m., I was shivering and miserable and knew that I would never last out there in the real world of homelessness. I'd be shivved and left to die of tetanus within two days.

Don:

Which NFL players or coaches would you want in your crew when the inevitable zombie apocalypse arrives? Do you go with a goal line package like Vince Wilfork and Haloti Ngata, for the biggest human shield possible?

You don't want big guys. It's not like they require more bites to turn full zombie. They have more surface area for nibbling, and they can't run as fast. You need players who have agility, who can learn to use a lobo in a relatively short period of time and outrun the zombie hordes. And you need to make sure those players aren't ME FIRSTERS who will steal all the food from the campground and go freelancing on their own. That means Russell Wilson can play for my zombie killing team any day. You won't catch him standing around during armageddon!

And you need Jim Harbaugh. If there were a zombie attack, I would do everything Jim Harbaugh said. He would scream at me to start digging protective trenches and I would say, "I can't do it coach. I'm too tired and I've lost half my leg!" and he would grab me by the collar and scream, "DIG THAT TRENCH OR I WILL FUCKING EAT YOU MYSELF" and an hour later there would be a trench. Coach Jim pushes you to places you never thought you could go!

Josh:

Some of my close friends and I recently went bowling. The game quickly turned into who could bowl the ball the fastest when we noticed the mph counter on our screen. This new game of speed ball was so much more fun than regular bowling. I'm wondering what other activities would be improved with the simple addition of a radar gun?

There's a radar gun at bowling alleys now? Holy shit, that changes everything. I mean, I've always bowled for speed. I don't care if I knock down any pins so long as people know I'm a big strong man who can roll a ball really fast. I don't want to hit the pin. I want to ERADICATE the pin. This is why I always end up rolling a 64.

I think a speedometer would improve golf carts. Maybe fancy golf carts have them, but none of the oversized Rascal scooters I've been on have had one.

HALFTIME!

Casey:

In a fight to the death, who wins more often: a Hawk or a Human?

We are stripping any type of environmental variables out of the equation for this death match. This is one normal sized hawk vs. one normal sized man, in a white, plain room, 20 x 20 x 20. No perch, no weapons, no way out.

Both Human and Hawk are motivated to survive and kill the other, but neither possesses any extra rage or bravery out of the ordinary. Both are also aware of the stakes: there is no surprise attack element.

Personally, I think the human wins 70-85% of the death matches. Yes, the Hawk would badly scar and claw the human, but how many times would that need to happen before you actually died and your heart stopped?

So it's an ordinary hawk and not a DEATH HAWK? I think the hawk would have the upper hand at first because it's a wild animal relying on pure instinct, while you are still a man and thus aware of your own mortality. There would be a five-minute freakout period at the beginning in which you're screaming OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS HAWK WANTS ME DEAD! And that gives the hawk the edge.

I assume that the hawk would essentially stage a series of dive attacks on you, with you frantically trying to grab the hawk to snap its head off. For the hawk to kill you, it would have to swipe at your neck and open your carotid. OR, it could blind you and then slowly peck you to death over the course of hours, which is still preferable to going to a Mumford & Sons concert (ZING!!!!). I don't know that a lucky neck swipe is as probable as you reaching out and getting a firm hold of the thing. But getting a hold if it is still no guarantee that you'll emerge the victor. The hawk can retaliate by pecking and flapping and, again, freaking you the hell out. It has a built-in psychological edge, even if you are in full survival mode. So I put the human's win percentage down at around 50 percent. The hawk has air superiority and can be utterly relentless if it so chooses. I really hope I don't ever have to fight one.

Clinton:

I have lost the ability to watch movies by myself. I mean, if my fiance is there and we're watching a movie together, it's usually fine, or if I'm at a movie theater... no problems. But if I'm alone and I try to watch a movie... be it an old favorite or something new... I invariably get about 20 mins into it (30 mins, max), get bored/distracted, and turn it off. This happens damn near EVERY TIME. I'm 32 years old and I have the attention span of a Pixie Stix-drunk toddler. Is this just a part of getting older, or is something wrong with my brain?

It's a handful of things. First off, being older means that you are naturally pickier. Every year, your tastes become more and more narrow until you hate pretty much everything, including entire swaths of the human population (Pennsylvanians? FUCK THEM). That means that you're going to be less tolerant of sitting through an entire movie, especially if you have a good idea of where it's going. Also, being older means you have more responsibilities, so it's good bet that your movie-watching will be broken up by a late request from work, or a wife or a child demanding something. And once you're used to movies always being interrupted, that just becomes part of your watching routine. I don't even count on watching the full movie in one night anymore. I know that every movie I watch is now a two-part miniseries.

The other thing is that you now live in a world where the distractions are far more tempting. When I was a kid, there was no Internet to lure me away from watching Bachelor Party for the ninetieth time. The movie was the only leisurely distraction I had. But now you can check email and Twitter and see if anyone responded to your pithy comment on Reddit and you can sneak in a game of Temple Run. Those are all fun little distractions that don't take up a large amount of time. After that, watching an entire movie starts to feel like homework. And given how shitty a lot of movies are, a lot of us have better things to do than sit there and hope that the second hour of Snow White & The Huntsman is better than the first.

By the way, don't tell Leitch any of this or he'll strangle himself.

John:

I'm getting married soon, and we intend to try to have kids very shortly thereafter. I'm all about both of these things, but one thing about the kid really concerns me: what do you do with him/her if you two are alone in public and you have to take a massive shit? You can't just leave the kid outside, right?

It depends on the age of the kid. I have a seven-year-old and a seven-year-old can use a public bathroom on her own and hang outside while you take a shit in the men's room, which is HUGE. It's a milestone in parenting that deserves some kind of commemorative scrapbook. That's the day your child turns into a friend you can take anywhere.

But younger kids are a bit dicier. With a baby, you have to put the baby in a stroller and then either leave the stroller outside the stall or (preferably) find a handicapped stall to wheel them into. A three-year-old can hang with you while you shit, which is awkward for all parties involved. But sometimes it's preferable to leaving them on their own outside the stall, where they can lap up pubic hair-infested sink water or be abducted by the hobo shooting heroin in the next shitter over. Neither situation is an ideal setup, but those are the first moments in parenthood when you find that you have to leave your kid on their own for just a moment and that's good for them. They usually rise to the occasion while you're in there shitting your brains out. Sometimes they end up drinking toilet water, but other times they do just fine.

But yeah, shitting alone is wayyyy better. I look forward to doing it again in 2027.

Brett:

Ever thought about taking a curling iron and straightening out your pubes? It's risky because the thing's hot as fuck, but I'd like to see a girl's facial expression when you drop your drawers and there's a curtain over your dick.

I think it could look quite fetching. You could even style bangs for it!

Ryan:

Pulled this outta my ear with the paper clip. I was so amazed I couldn't toss it for two days.

That's distressing on so many levels.

Rob:

What if NFL teams could replace their offensive linemen with sumo wrestlers?

It wouldn't work. Sumo wrestlers are conditioned to wrestle for roughly 15 seconds. In other words, they're ideal offensive linemen if an NFL game consists of exactly one play. But when you're running 50 or 60 plays a game, Yokozuna isn't built to last. It's a shame, really. I'd like to see more human freaks incorporated into the sports world: the hypothetical 500-pound hockey goalie, the seven-foot field goal blocker, the 600-pound batter who is sent out to get hit by a pitch every at bat... I'd like all these proposed ideas given a trial run.

Alex:

So, my grandparents 69th wedding anniversary is coming up, and I was wondering, what are the chances anyone has ever 69-ed on their 69th wedding anniversary? It was the first thing that came to mind last week when they mentioned it'd be 69 years in 2013.

You're talking about two people who are in their late 80s at the very youngest. I just don't see how it's possible. Even if they were still physically fit and able to contort themselves into such a position (and were on the kinds of medication needed to keep their genitals stimulated), I still don't think they'd bother. By the time you're 90 years old, you already know that 69ing is overrated. Seriously, it sounds like a cool thing to do, but the man can barely breathe and the woman ends up working the top side of the man's penis, which is the least sensitive part. It's all wrong. They'll probably just share an Ensure bottle and turn in early. And good for them! 69 years and one filthy-minded grandson to show for it. That's good livin'!

Scott:

I was driving home for the holidays, and came across a "Speed Test Zone" on I-15. The posted speed limit was 80 MPH, and I couldn't tell you how happy it made me. I was hitting 88 MPH like my name was Doc Brown, but at the same time I was worried that if I actually crashed my car that it would prove that people aren't responsible enough to drive that fast.

Speed Test Zones exist? Holy shit, sign me up. I like the idea of designated areas where we can toy with state and Federal laws. You could have a one-square-mile area where dealing ALL drugs is perfectly legal (HAMSTERDAM). You could designate a random suburb of Cleveland as a legal fistfighting zone. There are so many ways we could improve society (and reap millions in potential television revenue) simply by taking certain areas of the population and testing them like lab rats. Sign me up for "legal frottage" district.

Daniil:

If you were granted a wish and guaranteed to always be allowed to drive a certain speed, but also, in no circumstance, ever be allowed to exceed it, what's the lowest speed you would agree to?

For example, if you choose 45, you're always guaranteed to go 45, meaning you'd never have to wait in traffic again. You're always allowed to go slower if you need to, but can never exceed 45. Obviously, you can say 120, but what's the absolute lowest you would accept?

You can't do 45 because driving 45 on any freeway for a significant amount of time would be torturous. It would take nearly twice as long to get anywhere. Everyone would honk at you. You would want to curl up into a ball and die from embarrassment. The lowest acceptable constant speed would have to be 60, MAYBE 55. But no lower than that. I'll deal with stoplights for the rest of my life to avoid being Louis Skolnick on the freeway.

Email of the week time!

Joey:

The other day at my high school, this kid I have known forever named Ryan committed perhaps the most depraved act of douchebaggery I have ever heard of. He was walking to gym class and walking by a backpack. The kids he was walking with jokingly bet him to take a shit in the bag, and they told him that if he did, they would each give him five dollars.

Surprisingly, Ryan decided to do it. He picked the bag up, walked to a secluded part of the hallway, and squeezed one out into some random kid's backpack. He shuffled back and returned the backpack. The only problem was that Ryan took the shit right in front of the security cameras. The result was a ten-day suspension and a hard earned twenty-five dollar fine.

High school kids are the worst.

REMINDER: The Funbag is now twice a week, with a Live Funbag every Thursday. See you then.

Oh, hello! And welcome to the now-weekly LIVE edition of the Deadspin Funbag. We'll do this every Thursday right around 1 p.m. and go until 3pm. To submit a question to the live Funbag, you gotta post down in the bowels of the discussion section below. It is there, and only there, where your questions about grandparents 69ing and murderous paralympians will be answered.

To get things going every week, I'll post one question up here before diving into the comments. So let's get on with it ...

Mark:

I follow several naked women posters on Twitter like ‘iLikeGirlsDaily' and the like and I am amazed at the number of unique women that have naked pictures of themselves on-line. What's the over/under on the number of American women with at least a bare breast shot of themselves out there? Consider that there are probably 90 – 100 million adult women in the U.S., I'm going with around 800,000.

It really is remarkable how many of them are out there. If you're a single man, this is obviously a thrilling development. OH MY GOD, SO MANY WOMEN. But if you're a father, this is obviously the most horrifying thing ever. OH MY GOD, SO MANY WOMEN.

First off, we should acknowledge that there are a great many women who are naked on the Internet who NEVER intended to be naked on the Internet. I'd wager that at least 10 percent of those photos were intended for private audiences (you can go ahead and increase the amount for people who got naked while under the influence of alcohol and/or heavy narcotics). So I don't know if we should count them because I think we're trying to ascertain the number of willing participants. But even if you discount those fine upstanding ladies, the number remains STAGGERING.

A two-year-old leak of porn-star medical records included more than 15,000 people. But that's just in California, and that only accounts for paid sexual performers in one state. The number of amateur performers almost certainly dwarfs that number. And then we have to account for magazine centerfolds, legitimate actresses in nude roles, the thriving market in illegal Czech and Russian immigrants who are sent here in shipping containers specifically to star in Brazzers videos for your merriment. Even if the number of women who are naked online (and I count thong shots in this guesstimate, because thong shots) is a small percentage of the overall American population, you're still talking about potentially tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. I say it's lower than 800,000 here in America alone. Maybe 400,000. But still, that's terrifying. YOU STAY AWAY FROM MY KID.

And now, join me down below for the live Funbag goodness ...

A look at the awful children's programming you're forced to endure before you can finally kick the kids out of the TV room to watch sports for eight hours. Illustration by Jim Cooke.

The Show

Max & Ruby

The Theme Song

Max and Ruby! Ruby and Max!
Max and Ruby! (horn fill) Ruby and Max!
Max and Ruby!
Ruby and her little brother Max!
Max and Ruby!
(giggling)

The Mythology

Max and Ruby are both child bunnies living in a house together. Ruby is the big sister. Max is the little brother. It appears that they live alone and that their parents are dead, presumably run over by a Chevy Silverado, or perhaps sold for meat by this woman:

As a result of their parents' mysterious absence (creator Rosemary Wells says that the parents are alive but never seen, which strikes me a flimsy attempt of a coverup. ROSEMARY WELLS IS HIDING SOMETHING FROM US), Ruby is forced to take on more maternal responsibilities than a bunny of her age would normally have to shoulder. She must feed Max. She must clothe Max. She must constantly pick up after Max because Max leaves his goddamn toys all over the place.

As a result of this added burden, Ruby is a coarsened young woman. Her frustration with Max's bullshit manifests itself in EXTREME BITCHINESS. She micromanages poor Max nearly to death. Max is never allowed to do anything on his own. And his passion for toys and candy is frowned upon by this ... this withered soul of a sister bunny. As a result of her constant haranguing, poor Max can speak in only Tourette's-like, single-word bursts. "LOBSTER!" "SUPERBUNNY!" "FUCKROLL!" Stuff like that.

Also, Ruby has a distinct lisp. If you're forced to watch Max & Ruby enough, the lisp becomes a nail slowly getting driven into your head. Why is she lisping? Does actress Samantha Morton, the voice of Ruby, have a similar lisp? What would happen if Ruby and Mike Mayock announced an NFL game together?

Episode Format

Every episode of Max & Ruby contains three stories, all of which follow the same distinct pattern. Ruby is always designing some special card for a fucking historical society or something, because apparently Ruby is a 68-year-old woman living in Greenwich. Meanwhile, Max does something to fuck up her best-laid plans ("Max, you spilled your gooshy gooshy gum globbers on my card!"). But in the end, it turns out that all of Max's dumbshittery has served to IMPROVE whatever stupid thing Ruby was doing. Usually, it's Max and Ruby's grandmother who has to come along to point out Max's inadvertent triumph. "Oh ho ho! Why, this is the most original historical society invitation I've ever seen!" Then Max smiles and we circle wipe to black.

Secondary Characters

Grandma: Again, it's Grandma who usually shows up at the end of every episode to point out to Ruby that Max's spontaneity helped save the day, which no doubt causes Ruby to further resent her brother's youthfulness and her inability to exert complete control over the world at large. When Ruby is pushing Max around and demanding he not eat her lipstick, she's really projecting her anger at Grandma onto him. Why don't you live with the kids, Grandma? How can you pop in and out at your convenience? Can't you see that Max is marginally retarded and in desperate need of structure? Why have you left this all on Ruby's shoulders? And you have the NERVE to walk through that door chuckling like nothing's the matter? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, WOMAN?!

Louise: Ruby's best friend. Gets bossed around by Ruby almost as much as poor Max does. Louise is something of an underdeveloped character here. I want to know MORE. Where did she come from? Are her parents dead too? Will she grow up to be that bunny friend who sleeps with one guy too many, causing Ruby to both chastise her sexual freedom and envy it in equal measure? I feel like the writers will leave her arc unresolved.

Mrs. Huffington: Some old lady in the hood that Max and Ruby are always doing shit for. Apparently has no issue taking advantage of cheap child-bunny labor. Forces Max and Ruby to look after Baby Huffington even though THEY ARE LATCHKEY CHILD BUNNIES. Serves as a proxy for Grandma when Grandma is out bowling or doing whatever the fuck it is that Grandma enjoys so much that she can't assume full custody of her grandkids.

Bunny Scout Leader: Lapine Girl Scout troop despot whom Ruby is always desperate to impress.

Setting

Max and Ruby live in an undefined past in which no one has televisions and everyone listens to those big olde-timey radios that kids huddled around back when we fought World Wars and shit. I think the lack of modern diversions is what exacerbates Max's crippling ADHD. If he had a DS to distract him, he probably wouldn't lead all those ants out to Ruby's garden club picnic.

Best Episode

"Max Gets Wet." Max plays with a hose and gets all muddy. It has its charms.

Worst Episodes

"Max's Halloween." This is the one where Max wants to dress as a vampire, but Ruby demands he dress up like a prince because ... well, because I don't know why. I think Ruby, despite loathing Max for weighing down her life, secretly fears his ever becoming independent and leaving her. If Max were to finally grow a brain and become a functional adult bunny, he'd throw off the yoke of Ruby's dictatorship and get the fuck out of there. And then what would Ruby be left with? NOTHING. That's why she throws a shitfit when the poor kid wants to wear a goddamn vampire cape.

"Ruby's Bird Bath." Ruby keeps bitching at Max to stop putting toys in her bird bath because it has to be "environmentally correct." She says this over and over again. I have no fucking idea what this means. It's a bird bath. There's nothing environmentally correct about it. You don't stumble into a meadow and chance upon a perfect concrete cistern with a statue of a little boy pissing into it.

Pros

Max & Ruby is a quiet show, which is a big deal to parents like me. I don't want some show that has shitloads of loud kiddie music and rampaging, seizure-inducing, anime-style jump cuts every tenth of a second. It's an easy show to ignore if you're in the room while it's on. It's not anywhere near as overly stimulating as a show like Wow Wow Wubbzy, which is fucking awful and which I will detail later in this series. Trust me, once your kid hits tweendom and starts watching deathless corporate muleshit like Shake It Up, you start to miss Max & Ruby. And you hate yourself for missing it.

If you have multiple children, they usually all like this show, for reasons that remain a complete mystery to me. A lot of parents hate Max & Ruby, likely because they've been exposed to it more than a lot of other kiddie programs. But honestly, if I can get these little fuckers to actually come to an agreement about watching "Max's Froggy Friend," then I'm grateful.

Also, the preshow supers tell me that Max & Ruby encourages your child to share and care by promoting social and ecological development. Or something. That's all complete bullshit.

Cons

The format becomes predictable and stale after two viewings. Ruby NEVER stops being a bitch. And no one will talk about Max's obvious developmental problems. It's a turgid slog of a show, so old-fashioned and boring that you feel like someone is holding you hostage at his great aunt's house.

And I still wanna know about those parents. I bet they were murdered. Rosemary Wells knows but she ain't tellin'.

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we're covering dating, swords as gifts, flesh-eating viruses, and more.

Your letters:

Sarah:

Which youth sport produces the most insufferable parents? I have to think baseball only because I've witnessed a dad shout horrible insults at a teenage umpire while sitting on the hood of his truck drinking beer (alcohol wasn't allowed in the stands).

It's hard to argue with baseball, because it's a sport that seems to naturally attract overly competitive dickheads (see: Clemens, Roger). As we've noted before, baseball is anecdotally known as being the sport with the most assholes per capita, and it stands to reason that those assholes come from asshole parents. If you Google "baseball dad arrested," you get nearly seven million results. Compare that with hockey, a sport with its own rich history of asshole parents. "Hockey dad arrested" turns up fewer than a million results, which is astonishing given that hockey dads have committed assault, blinded opposing goalies with laser pointers, attacked refs, tripped 13-year-old opponents on the ice, and committed outright murder. And yet, baseball apparently has more asshole parents by a mile.

Here is how I would rank the worst sports parents:

1. Baseball
2. Cheerleading. Cheerleading is both a sport and a beauty pageant, so you get a hybrid of sports mom and stage mom. Terrifying.
3. Tennis. So many sterling examples of awful tennis parents, from Emmanuel Agassi to Jim Pierce. It's remarkable, frankly. Individual sports tend to have the most insane parents because there are no other teammates to focus on. Your child is performing alone and that means they are subjected to ALL of your scrutiny. There's no teammate to blame. There's no way for your child to hide behind a more talented peer. They're all alone out there, attempting to prove themselves to you in front of everyone. Christ, that's terrifying.
4. Gymnastics. Gymnastics is the kind of sport where, to become an Olympian, you have to ship your three-year-old off to some IMG academy to train with a disgraced Romanian pederast. It's a different kind of parental insanity than the baseball dad, but no less toxic.
5. Hockey
6. Figure skating. See cheerleading. Olympic sports seem to attract the highest ratio of nutjob parents. I think there are a handful of reasons for this. I think you need time and resources to make the Olympics, and so it weeds out the less determined nutjobs. Also, the Olympics are an all-or-nothing proposition. If your child doesn't make the team or medal, you've wasted years of both her life and your own. And that kind of internal pressure only exacerbates the batshit craziness of certain folks.
7. Football. This probably belongs higher up the list because, you know... Texas. That Tim McGraw sure is one lousy father.
8. Golf. The thing about golf is that it's a sport that seems to offer you the best chance of becoming an elite player without you necessarily having any natural athletic talent. Which means you have an awful lot of daddy golf coaches out on the range correcting Little Johnny Manboobs' swing every five seconds.

Steve:

If you got divorced/widowed and had to re-enter the dating scene, what would be your least favorite part about it? Mine would be having to hold in farts again. Those first few months when you're dating someone and you have to let the farts bubble up and cause all that pain and discomfort were the absolute worst. I don't miss that one bit.

I would hate having to sit through bad dates in general. The whole idea that you gotta go back and sift through the detritus in the dating pool to find one human being who won't make you want to punch yourself in the face after 10 minutes in their company... that's unpleasant. I mean, I know that every guy constantly daydreams about being a swinging bachelor and CRUSHING poon left and right. But man alive, if you're a relatively unassuming dude, there's a whole lot of work involved: making phone calls, choosing restaurants, trying to come up with interesting conversational topics. It's like having a second job.

This is why people who have been on the dating circuit for an eternity sometimes pressure mates into marriage. They know exactly what's at stake. They know the endless toil involved with being dumped back into the singles scene. As you get older, you get more and more tired with having to present yourself for people, with being "on" during conversations and having to eat full meals with people who you may not even end up liking. It's a whole goddamn thing. And it's even worse in the modern age now because people treat dates like job interviews. I'd rather have a nail driven through my penis than have to deal with that again. I once made it through a whole date only to have the woman in question spring the, "Oh, I have a boyfriend" thing, which was CLEARLY false and made it clear that I repulsed her in every way. You can HEAR your life being wasted away in moments like that. Couldn't you have simply told me to fuck off before we ordered entrees?

David:

My good high school friend is getting married. I don't want to get him pillows or other crap. I have the best gift idea...the cold steel sword (see the video below). Can I ask how you feel about the "man-gift" wedding gift? Do you think it is appropriate? Most women say no, but they think that crystal champagne flutes is a gift for "us."

Just make sure to throw out the receipt, because she'll make him return it anyway.

I think there's an age limit to giving novelty wedding gifts like this. When I was 23, my brother got married and I got him and his wife a Razor scooter for their wedding gift. This was back when Razor scooters were, like, a thing. This was a shitty, horrible wedding gift, but I could be more or less excused for it due to my youthful impetuousness. If I gave that as a gift NOW, as a 36-year-old, I'd be the biggest dipshit on the planet.

I'm not saying this because I approve of champagne flutes. People register for 16 of those things, which is egregiously stupid. As if you're gonna have lavish cocktail receptions every weekend for the next 60 years. But as you get older, you appreciate having things like, I dunno, plates. Swords are awesome, but they also happen to be useless (at least, hopefully they're useless). Think of it as a home decoration and the appeal of giving it to someone is suddenly less attractive. It's like giving someone a vase, only the vase might later be used as a manslaughter weapon. So if you're under 25, go ahead. But past that? Just give them some money. Money trumps everything.

Dylan:

A person at my local hunting club had this happen to him.... Apparently the arrow was cracked and when he drew back and let go it cracked and the rest is history.

Okay, well that's horrifying in every possible way.


Sid:

Say you were forced to decide between contracting a grotesque flesh-eating virus on your face or on your penis, for a period of 3 months. Full recovery, no scarring after the three-month period is up. Obviously, reflex will cause all men to say "face" without thorough consideration, but I don't know. We're talking GROTESQUE here, as in people dry heave in their mouths at the sight of you grotesque.

I want to say FACE, not because I treasure my penis (though I do), but because your penis has so many nerve endings bundled together that the virus would be more painful and your suffering intensified.

But then again, it's not like your face is lacking in nerve endings. Ever try to eat with chapped lips? It's agony. Talking and eating with Darkman's face would almost certainly be hell on Earth. Whether that beats out having to piss with a stump dick is yet to be known. I guess I'll take the infected penis. At least I wouldn't face any danger of conceiving a fourth child.

Andy:

A couple weeks ago, I was out at a restaurant in Cincinnati with some friends. We started talking about the Bengals and naturally the conversation became about how horrible Mike Brown is. One of the waiters overheard our conversation and told us about a time that he had served Mike Brown and a guest at another restaurant. The bill for Brown's meal was $16 (it wasn't a fancy restaurant). He tipped the guy 75 cents. Mike Brown, the one who owns a professional football team.

I believe any story that involves Mike Brown being a horrible person.

By the way, I hate rich people who make absolutely no upgrades to their lifestyle despite possessing millions of dollars in free capital. "I drive the same truck and eat chuck roast at Franny's Diner every Tuesday night, just like I always do." GO TO HELL. Take your money and buy yourself some decent taste. The rest of us would actually DO something with that money, thank you very much. And you just leave it there, neglected, like it means nothing to you. You buy yourself a Mercedes or you deserve to burn alive.

Ben:

Is there any greater disparity between fantasy and reality than the medical/nursing profession? Porn gives us images of short-skirted candy stripers, the scrotal exam cum hand-job, reciprocal "temperature-taking" and the like.

Reality is (at best) lots of baggy scrubs and weary faces. At worst, you've got a pool of people who've won their fair share of Mario Batali look-alike contests

What about pizza delivery? How many pizza delivery boys have actually been seduced in the history of the world? Five? And I bet it was just the saddest intercourse ever undertaken. The cable guy has to have a better batting average throughout history. At least the cable guy has a career. That's way more enticing to the likes of Lisa Ann. Even pool boys have to do better because they have to show off the goods.

I had a friend who used to work as a carpenter in Idaho. And he said that, on more than one occasion, he or a colleague had a lonely housewife openly strip for them while they were working outside a bedroom window. Maybe he's bullshitting, but I choose to believe him because that's way hot.

By contrast, I think we can all agree that the coach/athlete porn scenario is the MOST realistically played-out scenario, especially in Toledo.

HALFTIME!

Nick:

Have you ever attempted to make a meal where the recipe calls for an obnoxious herb like parsley, thyme, dill etc..?

You literally have to buy a month's worth for 2 measly teaspoons. What the fuck do I do with the rest to avoid the inevitable "you just wasted food and money" comment from my girlfriend? The suits over at BIG SPICE must be laughing their tits off.

Your girlfriend is against fresh herbs? That's unusual. Usually, it's the woman who will eat a bite of pork chop and be like, "This is SO good with the parsley." Really? You thought parsley was the star of that dish? Because I feel like the pork chop did most of the heavy lifting, missy.

Anyway, fear not. Are you prepared for a use for all that leftover parsley that will BLOW YOUR SKULL?! Of course you are. This is a recipe for chimichurri sauce. Don't bitch at me that it's not a "real" chimichurri sauce or whatever the fuck. Put it on steak and you WILL have an audible orgasm. Let's go:

INGREDIENTS
1 bunch of parsley, loosely chopped (minus the two teaspoons you needed for that soup or whatever)
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
1/2 cup olive oil
1 small clove garlic, loosely chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
1 shallot, loosely chopped
Salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS
Put everything in the blender or food processor and blend the shit out of it. If the blender gets stuck (which is really annoying), turn it off, stir it around a bit, and add more olive oil if you need to. Blend it smooth, then pour it out. There you go. You're done. Put it on steak or eggs and you'll be shitting happiness.

Chris:

What if there was a "Redzone Classic"? (think ESPN Classic in Redzone mode). We know that NFL Films has complete tapes of every game ever - so why not just pick one random season (like 1994), and play each week of that season in Redzone mode? The season "replay" could start the Sunday of NFL Draft weekend, and would last us right up until training camp/ pre-season. So we'd see '94 Week 1 on 4/28, Week 2 on 5/5, etc.

Redzone classic would just play all of the "old" games as if they were happening in real time. Then Scott Hanson could zip around like he always does and be like, "We'll get right back to Joe Montana and the Chiefs, but first Warren Moon has entered the RedZone!"

At the very least, they should give it a shot. I mean, channel 703 on my DirecTV will stay dark for MONTHS. Do you know how depressing it is to flip to Red Zone Channel when there's no Red Zone shit going on? Sometimes, even during the season, I'll flip to it after Andrew Siciliano (who does RZC for DirecTV still) has signed off and there's a title card that's like, "THAT'S THE END OF RED ZONE CHANNEL FOR TODAY! L8R DICKHEAD." It's awful. I feel like someone died.

I would get all excited for RedZone Classic and tune in. And then, after five minutes, I would probably mutter, "This sucks," and watch an episode of Modern Family that I haven't gotten around to. I don't know about you, but for all the bitching I do about the offseason, I kind of need it. The NFL offseason allows me to catch up on all the pop culture that I missed out on during the fall. I watch a shitload of movies. I read lots of books about people being lost at sea. I promise myself that I'll get into Justified and then still fail to find time for it, which is inexcusable.

And even if RedZone Classic existed, I would still know that it's old, and that would turn me off. I hate old programming. I almost always pick shows based on maximum freshness. Once an episode of some TV has been in the DVR queue for more than a week, it becomes dead to me. And that's insane because who gives a shit when it aired, right? If it's good, it's good. And yet there's some sick desire within me to watch whatever program is the most NOW. Oh Jesus, ESPN HAS GOTTEN TO ME.

Jake:

Do you think we'll ever see an NFL team hang 100 in a game? I'm surprised Belicheck or a Harbaugh hasn't just picked a game against the Rams or someone at the beginning of the year and just decided they're going to do everything they can to get 100 in that game. As much of a long shot it is, I still think I'll see it happen in my lifetime. Sports media the next day will just be the absolute worst, I can't wait.

Even with the new rules in place to hamper defense, you'll never see it happen. No one has scored 70 points in an NFL game since 1966, and the fabled 70-burger has only happened three times in history. No one has come close to 80 points, much less 100. You'd have to score 15 touchdowns (or 14 plus a field goal) to make that happen, and NFL teams average only 12 possessions per game. There's simply not enough time. Plus, you and I both know that every time a team opens a game scoring at a torrid pace that they will inevitably flatten out, ruining your scoring boner.

When I was in college, I played EA Bill Walsh College Football all the time. You could score 100 in that game. Just run the triple option to the right for a TD, then onside kick, then triple option to the left for the TD. Scoring 100 points in that game NEVER got old. Ever. Every time I hit triple digits, I stood up and screamed, "FUCK YOU!" at the TV. I may have had issues.

Anyway, it'll never happen. And if it did, the NFL would go to great lengths to make sure it never did again because the backlash—not just from prisses bitching about running up the score, but also from purists complaining about the clear lack of defense—would be too awful to deal with.

This is why I still hold out hope that an NBA player can match Wilt and score 100 in a game. It's still feasible, right? Kobe got 81. If someone scored 100 points in an NBA game today, I would shit myself with excitement.

Jason:

ESPN is bored.

I'm telling you, they post graphics like that year round. They don't have to be bored to be terrible.


Walter:

Let's say your 2nd cousin is a supermodel like Kate Upton or Brooklyn Decker. Is it ok to fap to her? If not, how far down the family tree does one need permission to fap without feeling like a creep?

This is a fluid situation. If you're 15 years old and Brooklyn Decker is your cousin (even your FIRST cousin), no one's probably gonna fault you for feeling a bit funny in the pants. But if you're a 38-year-old guy and Kate Upton is your third niece once removed, you will feel like a fucking scumbag and no one will approve of what you're doing.

That's one bonus of being an awkward teenager: virtually all crushes are innocent and cute. Once you become a full-grown man, with hair sprouting out of your back and shit, you are a sexual predator who should be chained to a radiator. Not fair, frankly. Anyway, don't go masturbating to your relatives. That's a whole headache that you don't want. And don't go thinking that being related to Kate Upton will somehow improve your chances with her. That adds nothing to your upside.

Max:

Who would win if a team of just NFL kickers and punters (that means kickers/punters playing at QB, WR, DB, etc) played against the best high school football team from Alaska?

The NFL guys would obliterate the high school kids. You're talking about full-grown men versus schoolboys. And a lot of punters and kickers are fine athletes themselves. I'm not saying that just to toss Chris Kluwe's salad. I'm saying that, even though they play a peripheral role in the grand scheme of a football game, the average NFL kicker or punter is still pretty strong and fast. They'd run down Twig Palin with relative ease.

Mike:

So if you draw from the pool of talking heads of all the NFL pregame shows (FOX, CBS, NBC, NFL Network, ESPN), who do you pick for your starting five-man pregame show?

Five is way too many, as we've discussed before. You only need two people, three people at the most. I would take Rich Eisen and Deion Sanders. Deion's completely full of shit, and he uses the phrase "in the game" every four seconds ("Best cover corner IN THE GAME right now"), but I still like him better than most everyone else. Maybe Collinsworth if he's eligible for a studio slot. I don't mind Collinsworth. AND LENA DUNHAM. I WISH LENA DUNHAM WERE IN MORE PLACES.

Casey:

For most of my childhood I thought Colonel Sanders' western string tie in the KFC logo was actually his arms and legs (like a stick figure). What do you think?

I may never stop laughing.


Email of the week time:

TS:

I was recently having dinner at a restaurant with a large group of people and one of my friends started choking on his food. Like, "about to die on top of a mountain of chicken-fried steak" choking. His wife, essentially screaming bloody murder, summoned my wife to help him since she works in the medical field, but she could barely wrap her arms around a 200+ pound man who at that point had almost gone limp in his chair. Thus, his life was left in my hands.

Have you ever attempted to give someone the Heimlich Maneuver? I've always assumed it to be a simple procedure that any idiot could perform half drunk and be immediately declared a hero. But that shit is not only hard, it is incredibly awkward - picture it as basically an aggressive humping of another dude from behind with his wife shrieking in the background and about forty gasping onlookers soaking it all in. After about fifteen giant heaves in his stomach, my friend declared that the food was actually stuck in his esophagus and not his trachea, and we could all resume our meal.

He later vomited an ungodly-sized piece of meat about three hours later. Chew your food and stop embarrassing me, asshole.

Agreed. There can't be a less dignified death than swallowing your food too quickly and then choking to death like a moron in front of a bunch of onlookers. Any time I'm in a restaurant, I always wonder if someone will start choking and if I'll get to save them, because that seems like such an easy avenue to heroism. You don't have to step in front of a bullet. You don't have to confront a terrorist. Just get the food out and suddenly you're Mr. Medal of Honor.

I wonder who gets dibs on a choking victim if two saviors arrive at the scene first. Does the guy who got there first call out, "I GOT IT!" like an outfielder? I'd hate to see that kind of tussle end with a fistfight while the victim turns blue and has a brain clot.

By the way, if you have kids, you will save them from choking at least once. They choke on things all the time. And if they aren't choking on things, they're LOOKING like they're choking on things. Babies look like they're gonna choke every six seconds and you have to jump up and be like, "OH FUCK ARE YOU CHOKING?!" when they're clearly still taking in air.

One time, I was in the car with my kid and she pulled a George Bush, choking on a pretzel in the backseat. I pulled over, reached down into her throat (NOTE: You are not supposed to do this, because it usually ends up pushing the food further down their windpipe), and pulled the offending piece out. The girl owes me her damn LIFE for that. I remind her daily. Don't give your kid pretzels when the car is in motion.

Time for your weekly LIVE edition of the Deadspin Funbag. To submit a question to the live Funbag, you gotta post down in the bowels of the discussion section below. As always, we begin with our question of the week:

Tom:

Would you rather have: A light saber and live in the Star Wars Universe, a magic wand and attend Hogwarts, or the One Ring and live in Middle Earth?

The Ring is out for obvious reasons. You put it on and suddenly the Dark Lord Sauron can see you from afar and scare you half to death. And the ring turns you into a methhead. That doesn't sound like much fun. And while Middle Earth is certainly scenic, you're talking about living in what amounts to the Middle Ages. No TV. No Internet. Probably no hot water. It's a complete disaster.

That leaves the wand versus the light saber. They're not altogether very different weapons. We're assuming that having a wand means you are a wizard and that having a Light Saber means you're a Jedi. The wand would seem to be the more powerful weapon, allowing you to cast various spells simply by shouting out a pseudo-Latinized version of a normal phrase (e.g., arresto momentum, an actual spell used in Prisoner of Azkaban. Not exactly the most creative incantation). But if you have the Force, you can use a light saber in pretty much the same way, as Darth Vader does in Empire when he waves his light saber around and random shit starts flying and ruining Luke's shit. That was about the most badass thing ever.

A light saber is clearly the cooler weapon, even if perhaps it's not quite as useful. But while you might think magic wands look stupid, I should tell you that we got one of those phony Harry Potter wands for my kid for Christmas. The tip of it lit up when you pushed a button and everything. And let me tell you, holding that wand was cool as shit. I totally wanted lightning to shoot out of the thing. It's made from real dragon feathers! I'd give my soul for a working magic wand, just as I would for a functional light saber and the Jedi powers implied within.

This means the tiebreaker is between living in the Star Wars galaxy and living at Hogwarts: Traveling in spaceships and jumping into hyperspace versus secret passageways and magical Christmas feasts with all of your roguish British chums. The Star Wars galaxy is cold and unforgiving. Tattooine is a desert shithole. Hoth is frozen solid. The Dagobah system is a filthy swamp. Alien species and mutant gangsters are ready to kill you virtually anywhere you go. And even the nice places in the universe like Coruscant are lacking the kind of gritty neighborhood vibe I demand from alien worlds. I bet food trucks are banned there. Hogwarts is a warmer, friendlier, homier place, and plus, who knows what kind of trouble the Weasley twins and I could get into!

But the galaxy still wins. I mean, you can't pick a boarding school over an entire space cluster. That would make you a provincial jackass. I'll take the light saber and get on with it.

Now, down into the comment section for the your live funbagginess.

Time to put on our bitchy pants and say shitty things about the Oscars and everyone nominated for the Oscars. Now, according to Entertainment Weekly, this year's Oscars will be "song-and-dance heavy," which is arguably the most terrifying thing I have ever read. The Grammys were two weeks ago. That is the show where singing and dancing are appropriate. When singing and dancing happen at the Oscars, you get this. Who asked for more musical bullshit at the Oscars this year? Was it you? If it was you, I'll piss in your soup.

All of this will presided over by Seth MacFarlane, who's so hip with the kids these days and will surely get ABC the two percent bump in male 18-24 viewership that they so desperately covet. And I think you and I can agree that, when it comes to hosting a year-end musical revue of serious films, there's no better choice than a man who has limited experience in live performance and once recorded this album, and did so without a trace of irony. Viewers at home are counting on MacFarlane to make two or three OUTRAGEOUS jokes about the nominees that will leave the audience in stunned silence because the audience at the Oscars is filled with the most easily offended human beings on planet Earth. It's like the Gawker comment section brought to life. Apart from that, Sunday night's show will be SINGING and DANCING all the time! Musical tributes to musicals! Musical tributes to Ernest Borgnine! A star-studded musical tribute to the work of David Lean! IT'S EVERYTHING YOU WANTED THE OSCARS NOT TO BE!

Anyway, let's get on with Oscar Night, aka the one night a year on which I become a diehard Republican. Please note that spoilers abound.

Best Picture

Argo: I think I've had enough of America feeling sorry for Ben Affleck just because he didn't get nominated for a stupid award. He produced the thing. He still gets an Oscar if it wins this category anyway. Let's not labor feverishly to make Ben Affleck some kind of amazing comeback story. You know what the supposed "low point" of Ben Affleck's career was? WHEN HE WAS BANGING JENNIFER LOPEZ AND MAKING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO STAR IN BAD MOVIES. That was his rock bottom. Oh wow, real fucking hard luck for that guy. How did he find the strength to climb out of that hole? Way to rise from the ashes there, fella. I don't know how you managed. Quick, everyone! Let's all praise Ben for putting down the J-Lo ass-tanning oil and not making terrible script choices! WHAT A COMEBACK. I'm in awe. You want a comeback story? Jackie Earle Haley. That's a comeback story.

Oh, and look! Affleck is gonna make another Boston crime movie. Way to expand the repertoire. I hope that this one ALSO manages to rip off Heat and The Friends of Eddie Coyle simultaneously. That Affleck is a SERIOUS director now! Let's all collectively be astonished, for months on end, that an actor can direct stuff even though actors direct shit all the time.

I'm also very excited for Best Picture to go to yet another movie about making movies. Because I never feel like movies get enough appreciation, you know? We barely pay attention to movies these days. Meanwhile, they're quietly liberating our hostages and saving depressed French actors from suicide. And they ask for NOTHING in return! About time the Academy gave the filmmaking process the vigorous anal tonguing it deserves.

Silver Linings Playbook: You and I both know that if Lasse Hallstrom had directed this thing, it would have been the shittiest, most predictable romantic comedy ever created. "What happens when a bi-polar guy meets a bi-polar gal? And they have to join forces to win a local dance competition to win a bet for a grumpy Robert De Niro? Sparks will fly this summer when Katherine Heigl and Justin Long are ... DANCIN' FOR DADDY-O."

And hey, why did Bradley Cooper wait a whole goddamn week to give Jennifer Lawrence the letter? No man, sane or not, waits a week to tell Jennifer Lawrence he loves her. I told her I loved her 60 times last week alone. I whispered into my pillow, "Oh Jennifer, you are so young but so very ripe. I LOVE YOU AND I MUST HAVE YOU." That's just a given with Jennifer Lawrence.

I also object to any film that pre-supposes that DeSean Jackson is a useful NFL player.

Lincoln: BOOOOOOOOORING. Boring boring boring. Lincoln is so boring that there are characters on the screen who literally talk about how boring Lincoln is.

SOLDIER: Mr. President! The Confederate generals are coming to offer us a peace agreement! What do we do? They need the answer in three minutes!

LINCOLN: Well, let me answer that question by first telling you a fable about Old Farmer Higgins's apple tree ...

SOLDIER: Oh sweet Jesus, GET TO THE POINT, MAN!

Les Miserables: And here's the reason you're getting all the song-and-dance bullshit at the Oscars on Sunday night. One stupid, shitty musical that most people didn't even like, and suddenly the Oscars have to morph into the Tony Awards. I blame YOU, Les Miz, for likely dominating a broadcast simply because you have a handful of songs to toss into the mix. It's like a few years ago when Frida won all the makeup and costume awards and somehow the first hour of the Oscars became a Frida tribute special. No one asked for that shit.

Also, Amanda Seyfried has enormous eyeballs. They're terrifying. STOP TRYING TO HARVEST MY SOUL.

Life of Pi: Oh hey, it's the movie for people who are "spiritual" but don't have the balls to actually pick a religion. By the way, in real life, the tiger eats the kid. It's not even a question. No one manages to co-exist with a tiger on a lifeboat. That's complete horseshit. I did not see this movie.

Beasts of the Southern Wild: GUMBO GUMBO GUMBO GUMBO ADORABLE CHILD ACTOR GUMBO GUMBO PO' BOY GUMBO. It's not enough that people from Louisiana think they have shitloads more culture and pride and charming eccentricities than you. No, no, now they're all MAGIC. Enough.

Zero Dark Thirty: They didn't call out "Usama" before they shot him! That part of the movie is a complete lie. THROW IT ALL AWAY. I demand all of my Hollywood feature films to adhere slavishly to real life, including real-time bathroom breaks and sleeping hours. And why wasn't Maya ever shown going through Pakistani customs? You have a lot of questions to answer, Kathryn Bigelow.

Django Unchained: Thank God Hollywood finally had the courage to tackle the issue of slavery by handing it over to a lily-white film geek who fetishizes saying the word "nigger" as many times as he can possibly get away with. I knew kids from L.A. like this at summer camp. They thought saying that word was the coolest thing ever. One of them was a guy named Macy. People from Los Angeles are terrible.

Amour: Hey everyone, I've got a great movie for you! It's about two old French people in an apartment, and one of them DIES. Doesn't that sound fun? This is the perfect movie-critic movie. Roger Ebert once said that, "No good movie is depressing, all bad movies are depressing." BULLSHIT. Complete bullshit. I saw Kids, buddy. It's a good movie, but I'd rather have that Casper guy fuck me in my sleep than watch it again. No, thank you. Movie critics are always like, "You can have your car chases and fighting robots. To me, there's no greater suspense than watching Emmanuelle Riva wither before my very eyes!" I asked my mom, who is in her late 60s, if she wanted to see this movie and she was like, "Are you out of your mind? Why would I want to see that?" Whoa hey, you don't want to see a terrifying vision of your possible near-future death? I guess there's just no accounting for taste.

Best Actor

Daniel Day-Lewis: I think we should all agree that only Daniel Day-Lewis should be allowed to do the whole "act like your character all the time" thing that Daniel Day-Lewis does. Day-Lewis can do this and get away with it because he's the finest actor of his generation. When your cousin Jenny does it because she's in a dinner theater production of Shear Madness, it's a jailable offense. Method actors must be killed on sight, lest other terrible actors see them ordering at Arby's in their best Thomas Jefferson voice and decide that's the only way they can really get into a character. This is what you've wrought, DDL. Thousands upon thousands of Willy Lomans walking around, annoying the shit out of their families and friends.

Joaquin Phoenix: Someone made the joke that Phoenix should have been nominated for "Most Acting," which is so perfect. You don't deserve an Oscar just because you clenched your jaw and threw on a hunchback disguise kit.

Also, way to be daring and label the Oscars as "bullshit," Joaquin. I totally wouldn't have known that if you hadn't been the one brave, way hip soul to openly degrade an award you secretly yearn to win. I liked it better when you were being a fake crazy person instead of an actual dipshit.

Denzel Washington: Congratulations to Denzel Washington for playing the character of "Denzel Washington" for the 32nd film in a row. It must have been a real stretch for you to play a weary veteran pilot/cop/train engineer/gangster/football coach who finally learns that he needs to stop being so gosh darn stubborn. I couldn't even tell it was you! KUDOS.

By the way, there needs to be some kind of special anti-Oscar (not a Razzie because those are dumb) for the music choices in Flight. Oh hey, the drug dealer is coming! Better play "Sympathy for the Devil!" And here's a girl ODing on heroin! Now is the best time to use both "Sweet Jane" AND "Under the Bridge!" I like the way the songs telegraph every possible emotion. I wish they had played "Kiss Me" during the part where Denzel and that girl kissed.

Hugh Jackman: This isn't a nomination for playing Wolverine? That's stupid. I have no use for Hugh Jackman in non-Wolverine roles. Give Jackman a chance to play someone else and you know what you get? Australia. No one cares.

Bradley Cooper: Looks like someone figured out that the key to scoring an Oscar nom is to play a mentally disturbed (but still attractive) person and surround yourself with a top-notch cast and a top-notch director to hide your glaring acting deficiencies. So I'll give Cooper credit for managing to make himself look like a competent actor despite having the most punchable face in movies today.

By the way, this doesn't apply to Cooper alone, but I remain amazed at how much attention actors receive in relation to how uninteresting they actually are. Actors are profoundly inane human beings. Most of them didn't even bother to finish high school. And most actors like playing other people because they have no personality to call their own. They're all relatively disposable people who feel compelled to either inflate the importance of their precious craft or to expand into other aspects of filmmaking like writing and directing because they want people to think they aren't dumb as bricks. Actors are worthless. But anyway, GOOD LUCK, BRADLEY!

Best Actress

Jessica Chastain: Someone is taking wayyyy too much credit for killing this bin Laden fellow. "I'm the motherfucker who found this place." O RLY, Maya? Because it looked to me like it was one of your field operatives who risked life and limb to case that joint in Abbottabad. "I'm gonna smoke everyone involved in this operation and then I'm gonna kill bin Laden." Excuse me? I didn't see you storming the compound. You just sat on your candy ass at Bagram Airfield and let the SEALS do your dirty work for you! And I didn't see you waterboard ANYONE! You're no team player, Missy!

Emmanuelle Riva: This is SO not the Emmanuelle I had in mind. Sylvia Kristel died this fall. She's the REAL Emmanuelle. Where's HER Oscar? Let's see this Riva lady give prepubescent boys in 1986 a raging hardon on Cinemax Free Preview weekend the way Sylvia did. That Kristel was a trailblazer.

Also, how hard can it be for an 85-year-old woman to play someone who's dying? It's gotta be like second nature to this woman. I'm not that impressed. Play Tina Turner and then you're showing me something, lady.

(SIDE NOTE: Riva's birthday is Sunday night. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MADAM!)

Quavsdlkfsgklsghsrklergdfivfddflkfjgdf Wallis: Obviously, we can't poke fun at such an adorable little sprite who's just elated to be part of the festivities. I think it's wonderful how she doesn't yet realize that Hollywood is a soulless places where people's dreams are regularly beaten down and then sold into sexual slavery. I find that kind of naiveté refreshing.

I will say this, though: I hope she doesn't win. Frankly, I wish she hadn't even been nominated. Nothing good can possibly come from putting a very small child in such a prominent position. Ask the Slumdog Millionaire kids currently working an East Kolkata sump pump if all that attention did them any good. I'd rather have my kid work at Bill Conlin's summer home than work in the film industry.

Naomi Watts: She's the actress you call when Nicole Kidman asks for too much money, right? I just figured that was common knowledge.

Jennifer Lawrence: I'm not gonna say anything bad about Jennifer Lawrence and you won't either because if you do I will find you and I will END you. I think we can all agree that Jennifer Lawrence is a celestial sex-cherub sent down to Earth by Our Loving Creator to end all wars and have all our babies. Her delicate mouth, husky voice, and supple thighs foretell it. I WILL WAIT FOR YOU, JEN. I WILL ALWAYS BE HERE WAITING FOR YOU, NO MATTER THE COST.

Best Supporting Actor

Tommy Lee Jones: What on earth do you have to be so grumpy about, asshole? "Oh, I was Al Gore's roommate at Harvard and now I'm one of the most respected actors in the world. GRRR I'M SO GRUMPY GRRR." Get over yourself. No one forced you to be part of the world's most vacuous profession, so don't be surprised when an entertainment reporter dares to ask you a question that you don't find intellectually challenging. Any time someone says that you "don't mince words" or that you "get right to the point," that means you're a complete dickhead.

By the way, I like the reveal at the end of Lincoln that Thaddeus Stevens was fighting hard for abolition all because he was shtupping his house-mistress. Way to suck all the nobility out of him at the last second, gang.

Robert De Niro: Why are we supposed to be impressed that Robert De Niro decided to not mail it in for the first time in 15 years? You shouldn't get an award for finally doing your goddamn job. He wasn't even that good. He was still playing Robert De Niro. It's not like he was playing Malcolm X. Half of his lines consisted of, "The fuck is wrong with you?"

Alan Arkin: Are you a respected elderly actor who gets all the good and dirty lines in an otherwise serious movie? OSCAR NOD FOR YOU. Bonus Oscar points if you're playing someone IN the film business. Voters love that. "Oh hey, he's an asshole who works in show business! I can totally relate to him!"

Christoph Waltz: This is what happens when Christoph Waltz appears in a movie that is NOT directed by Quentin Tarantino:

They should just nominate Tarantino for the acting award. He's using Waltz as his own personal motion-capture suit.

Philip Seymour Hoffman: It's hard to judge an acting performance when it's contained within a movie that doesn't make any goddamn sense. I'm sure Paul Thomas Anderson was like, "Hey Philip and Joaquin! We're gonna take you out to the desert and you're gonna race motorcycles for a completely unnecessary 10-minute sequence. DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! PRETEND YOU'RE A BANANA! I have final cut now so I can just throw whatever idea I want into this picture!"

That movie was ass.

Best Supporting Actress

Anne Hathaway: Ah, here we are. Anne Hathaway: The Valedictorian of Actressing. Not since Hilary Swank have we been subjected to such a long string of soulless, coldly professional acceptance speeches. It's like watching a LinkedIn profile talk.

And I resent that Hathaway is considered an automatic lock for this award. This is why the Oscars suck now. The event is so overcovered that when Hathaway's movie comes out, the entertainment press collectively goes, "She's a lock to win!" and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The media don't predict these awards anymore. They DICTATE them. That's why the show has been virtually devoid of any real surprises for years now. Frontrunners are given a head start, and if they lose momentum, the media christen a new frontrunner far enough in advance that the new frontrunner's eventual victory is no surprise at all. It's complete horseshit. It's like 5,000 Chris Bermans all tipping the same draft pick.

Helen Hunt: Hey, I heard she's naked in this movie ...

/does quick Bing image search, since Google image search is so uptight now

OH WOW SHE GIVES UP THE BUSH AND EVERYTHING. That's good acting. I have no quarrel with Helen Hunt. Except for that Oscar she won for As Good As It Gets. I mean, come on. I barely remember that movie, let alone that she was in it.

Jacki Weaver: Well, she's obviously not winning. I know she's a great actress, but I don't think she had more than six lines in that entire movie. All she did was stand there with her mouth open while Robert De Niro yelled at Bradley Cooper. She's no Jen Lawrence. What if Jen Lawrence and Kate Middleton made love? I think the world would end if that happened, but in a good way. That would be a natural, fitting conclusion to history.

Amy Adams: Wait, was she the one in Wedding Crashers? I'm so confused. There are redheads giving handjobs in EVERY movie now. How do you expect me to keep track of these things?

By the way, my kid likes the movie Enchanted, which features Adams singing this song:

Thanks for putting that in my head for three years, Amy Adams. Can't wait for Seth MacFarlane and you to do a duet of it!

Sally Field: Hey, she should just be happy they let her in the movie. She's been on shitty TV shows and hawking bone pills for the past seven decades. Besides, she REALLY should have won this award for Soapdish:

It still holds up, that one. I'm not even being sarcastic.

The Other Categories

No one cares. That's the irreversible flaw of the Oscars. You're wasting three-plus hours to get to a grand total of roughly four minutes of meaningful action. Even football doesn't have that poor of a ratio. The Oscars are pointless and stupid.

On that note, join me here Sunday night as I live blog ... THE OSCARS! I couldn't be more excited.

It's finally here! Oscar Night! Speeches! Safe wardrobe choices! Four million references to "old Hollywood glamour"! Diet Pepsi commercials! Tap dance montages! THE WHOLE SHEBANG. I can't wait. I hope you've had as much Chardonnay as I've had, because I am feeling BITCHAY.

If you need a proper introduction to the evening, please consult Friday's hater's guide. Your host tonight is Seth McFarlane, because ... wait, why is he hosting? Aren't Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel available and close by? Bizarre. Your Best Picture nominees are:

• Dying Old People
• GUMBO GUMBO GUMBO
• Fuck Iran
• Fuck bin Laden
• AJ Daulerio Finds a Girlfriend
• Quentin Tarantino Avenges Black People
• Singing
• Deepak Chopra
• Mary Todd: The Story of a True Bitch
• GIRLS STARRING LENA DUNHAM

I'll be here all night posting pithy bon mots that someone on Twitter probably came up with half a second faster than I did. Stupid Twitter. Refresh the page and I promise new entries will appear at the top of the post and not the bottom. And join us down in the discussion to add your own invective. Let's do this.

11:55pm: Argo wins the big prize, which is cool by me because Argo was awesome. That's it for us, gang. This was goddamn endless.

11:54pm: Jesus, Mrs. Obama, get to the point. Take your industry campaign money and skeedaddle.

11:52pm: Jack is here to hand out Best Picture. Shitfaced? YOU BET!

WHOA HEY, Jack is throwing it to Michelle Obama. Oh man, there's a pair. He'd lick coke off her ass in a heartbeat.

11:46pm: Daniel Day-Lewis got the "NOW! NOW! NOW!" money shot for his Oscar clip. He will not be losing this evening.

Oh, and look who showed up! It's Joaquin Phoenix! Guess you weren't too good for this show after, you little shit.

Streep doesn't bother milking the suspense. She gets right to handing DDL his hardware.

11:41pm: God, that fucking The Artist music...

Anyway, Henri from "Cheers" is here to present Best Actress. I did not know that Amour included wife-slapping. That's so French of them. Your winner is Jennifer Lawrence, and I audibly gasped when she ate it on the way to the stage. I mean, she really ate it. I want to help her, perhaps carry her to a rain-swept barn and nurse her tender ankle back to life via candlelight and who is she to thank me I'm just a simple farm boy! We never meant to fall in love!

11:36pm: Ang Lee still looks floored to have won. Does this mean Pi is gonna get Best Picture to make up for the great Crash fiasco of two thousand something?! Probably not but let's make some pretend suspense while we can!

11:32pm: Jane Fonda is here with Michael Douglas to hand out Best Director. Remember when Fonda openly hit on Stephen Colbert on his show? God, that was horrible. I wish I could unremember that.

We got no shots of directors in safari hats during the nominee listing, which is a huge upset. Speaking of upsets...

ANG LEE. BOOM BITCH.

11:27pm: I'm stunned they aren't showing little script page shots in these screenwriting awards. They do that every year to make screenwriting look super important. Screenwriters are the most annoying people on Earth. "We gotta workshop this scene here..."

Tarantino wins Best Original Screenplay. As always, he treats his speech like a DVD commentary. His characters, mannnnn...

11:25pm: Mini-Seann William Scott wins Best Adapted Screenplay. He is fucking fired up.

11:24pm: Charlize Theron is here with Dustin Hoffman, who is the size of Kristen Chenoweth. Remember when Theron danced on stage FIFTY HOURS AGO?!

11:22pm: That's really a TV ad for an electronic cigarette, and there's really Foreigner playing in the background. FEEL COOL AGAIN, SMOKING YOUR NJOY KING.

11:17pm: I'm thrown by the fact that Adele has a last name. Also, Renee Zellweger was herself thrown by the idea of having to read the name of the winning song. WHAT ME, READ?! I'M TOO FAMOUS TO READ!

11:13pm: They gave three of the Best Song nominees clip jobs, which is basically a giant blinking sign saying YOU WILL NOT WIN. Zero fucks given to the Chasing Ice song. How did a documentary afford original music, anyway? That Life of Pi song wasn't a song! That was just the score, wasn't it?

WAIT! They've brought out Norah Jones to sing a song from Ted. I'm dying now. I can feel the blood draining out of my body. These people are on West Coast time. They don't give a shit about your bedtime.

11:08pm: It's past eleven and they're only presenting Best Score. Our lives are withering before our eyes. I have become the Amour lady.

11:06pm: One of the dude who won a short film Oscar tonight rocked RG3 socks to the ceremony. FUN FACT: It was Mike Shanahan who forced Kristen Stewart to limp onstage tonight.

11:00pm: Whoa, one of the dead guys got a special musical tribute from Barbra Streisand. Nora Ephron's corpse is feeling a bit shortchanged. Streisand looks like she's dressed to read your palm.

10:57pm: Clooney is here to introduce the death montage. Peter King says it was a busy year for death! Bonus points to you if the Academy lets you talk from beyond the grave during the montage.

10:53pm: "I believe this award is a recognition of the extraordinary generosity of our industry towards improving the real world." Are you fucking kidding me? Someone said that with a straight face? Eat a bag of shit, Katzenberg.

10:52pm: Jeff Katzenberg won a humanitarian award. He will bludgeon an intern to death with it next week. YOU CALL THIS LOBSTER BISQUE? THIS IS LOBSTER BULLSHIT.

10:51pm: MEXICAN PEOPLE TALK FUNNY! AMIRITE, SETH?

10:50pm: God, Kate Capshaw. She RUINED Temple of Doom. Just fucking took it and set it on fire.

10:48pm: Kristen Stewart, um, is like, um, here. Um, whatever. Um, she had some vodka and slept with the guy whose kids she was babysitting for. SHE'S JUST TRYING TO FIGURE LIFE OUT, PEOPLE.

10:40pm: Adele, dressed as a galaxy, does a fine job with "Skyfall." Unfortunately, there are OTHER Best Song nominees. And you will have to sit there and hear every last one of them. God, I hate this category.

10:35pm: Jennifer Lawrence is here to introduce Adele. Lawrence is dressed like she's about to get married. And she is... TO ME.

By the way, you would think selling tens of millions of records would buy Adele better fingernail acrylics.

10:32pm:Sandra Bullock is here to present Best Editing. Speaking of editing, she got the Janet Jackson nose job. "I'd like the triangular nostrils, please."

10:25pm: They have speakeasy girls handing out popcorn! Wahlberg is taking home six of them. Before fucking them, he'll tell them old stories about that one guy he nearly stomped to death. WHAT A CHARMER.

I feel like the voiceover lady plays way too prominent role in this broadcast. Do I really need a play-by-play lady telling me this is Anne's first Oscar? YOU ADD NOTHING.

I still say that nominees should just submit a list of underlings to thank that runs on a crawl if they win so that they can make better speeches. Surely they have thoughts about the state of the global economy. I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR THEM.

10:24pm: "I'd like to thank my assistant stylist intern TWICE, just to make sure I include her."

10:23pm: Anne Hathway's nipples win! She's so classy I am DISGUSTED. WHAT A BITCH.

10:20pm: Christopher Plummer is here. Is that a false nose? Someone oil Hathaway's gears.

10:18pm: "Well, we didn't think we'd ever work on a Bond movie but we DID..." Oh, please! Continue! Where did you grow up? GET OFF THE GODDAMN STAGE. YOU'RE A HALF-WINNER.

10:15pm: A TIE for Sound Editing? Really? Is it worth splitting hairs over THIS category? "Well, we can't just reward ONE Sound Editor!" Your first winner is a dude who looks like Renny Harlin. Your second winner, again, is a dude who looks like Renny Harlin.

10:11pm: Mark Wahlberg has to present with Ted. Because having animated presenters always KILLS. I know that the audience is just awkwardly staring at Wahlberg and a tennis ball. Don't try to get me to suspend my disbelief.

10:09pm: Chris Pine! "Chris, I <3 when you… finger me in the doorway, lick my tight asshole and choke me so hard i can't breathe…"

10:05pm: IT'S EVERY LES MIZ SONG SUNG ON TOP OF ONE ANOTHER AT THE SAME TIME! AREN'T YOU HAPPY THAT YOUR HEAD IS NOW DYING?

10:01pm: God, this segment is taking ages (even though Jennifer Hudson was pretty damn magnificent). It'll be 11:34 in about five seconds. Anne Hathaway comes out looking a ten-year-old boy. Why are so many actresses cutting their hair short? Is this a CHUCKSTRONG thing?

9:58pm: Here we go. It's a full-on tribute to movie musicals, featuring EVERY MOVIE SONG EVER SUNG IN ITS ENTIRETY. Musicals get a disproportionate amount of attention from this ceremony strictly because you can't just have a bunch of guys standing up on stage re-encating scenes from Glengarry Glen Ross... OR COULD YOU?!

9:55pm: They're piping in the orchestra from another building? That's bullshit. Why have them at all? McFarlane introduces John Travolta WITHOUT making a single steam room joke, which is astonishing. Travolta chose the "half-Vega" from his wig room for the evening. It's a nice change from his usual choice of shoe polish.

9:53pm: Is Salma Hayek filming a telenovela AT the Oscars? Because she's dressed like it.

9:51pm: Jennifer Garner walks out onto the stage with a purple dementor lashed to her back. Jessica Chastain joins her. Her full takeover of Julianne Moore's career is nearly complete.

9:42pm: McFarlane just fucking HATES the audience. Tom Shales won't approve. By the way, if you add beard stubble and horrible teeth to Seth, he could easily pass for Ricky Gervais' cousin. Affleck comes out and offers McFarlane a snide "maybe you can turn the show around" comment. I'm telling you... these movie people treat TV people like they're fucking mutants.

9:40pm: I don't like it when they show chopped up clips from the Best Picture nominees. Just give me one money scene. "I never learned to READ!"

9:37pm: "And the 27th film nominated for Best Picture... THAT'S MY BOY... paints the story of a father... and his boy."

9:32pm: Jamie Foxx struts out onto the stage with Kerry Washington. IS SHE HIS DAUGHTER TOO? I rule out nothing.

9:26pm: Shirley Bassey comes out to rock the Goldfinger theme. Now there's a lady who has offered her pool boy a scotch. Awesome.

9:20pm: Halle Berry, dressed in wallpaper and shoulder pads, is here to introduce a Bond music genre. Man, I sure as shit hope they don't include that Madonna song.

9:19pm: They're flying through these awards, and I'm getting suckered once again into believing they'll be able to keep it up. Ah, but they never do. Every year, they start off blazing and then we get a four-hour stretch of montage tributes to Bing Crosby films. I don't know how they always manage to blow it.

As always, the people who win makeup and costume design awards look utterly in capable of dressing themselves or doing their own hair.

9:16pm: Jen Aniston comes out looking like the Autobot logo. McFarlane goofed on her before she came out, but I feel like everyone here is basically dismissing McFarlane's jokes with an implied "you're just a TV guy" sneer, even thought television, as a medium, ruins movies right now.

9:12pm: Oh wow, they played off a VFX guy using the Jaws theme. That was cruel. I'm liking this broadcast.

9:10pm: Life of Pi won the Best Effects award. Please note that those breathtaking effects don't take place until about 30 minutes into the flick. Those first thirty minutes consist of a guy reading "The Secret" to you out loud. It's brutal.

9:05pm: Sam Jackson rocking the red velvet smoking jacket this evening. He's missing Jay-Z's brandy snifter.

Your Cinematography winner is Edgar Winter. COME ON AND TAKE A FREE RIDE FREE RIDE...

No wait! He's Lucius Malfoy. FILTHY MUDBLOODS.

9:02pm: I haven't seen Beasts of the Southern Wild, but it looks a whole lot like those Levi's ads. GO FORTH.

9:00pm: Jesus Christ, that's some big hair on Melissa McCarthy. She looks like Meat Loaf.

8:51pm: Oh wow, we're starting right off with Best Supporting Actor. They're blowing one of six decent wads right away. I don't know if I'm happy or if I'll deeply regret it when they're slogging through the Short Film bullshit at 10:30.

And Waltz pulls off the upset. He thanks Tarantino, who is approaching Kennedy levels of drunken ruddiness. You could fry a pig in his skin oil.

8:50pm: Couldn't this whole thing be sock puppets?

8:47pm: McFarlane is now singing your sister's wedding song while Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum dance around him. That was pointless.

8:44pm: Here's McFarlane's boobs song, which is sadly devoid of actual boobs.

8:40pm: William Shatner arrives via satellite to tell Seth he sucks. As always, you cannot host this show without making it into an extended meta-commentary on what its like to host the Oscars, something roughly twelve living people have done. I CAN TOTALLY RELATE. I liked it better when McFarlane was openly insulting the audience to their faces.

8:37pm: McFarlane is plowing through these jokes as quickly as humanly possible. I wonder if they forced Vilanch on him. Like you agree to host and then Bruce storms in and is like "Amour! More like a-BORE! Let's put that on my t-shirt!"

8:35pm: Roman Coppola wearing some serious molester eyeglasses, with the maroon tinted lenses and everything. Do not let your son tour the family vineyard with him.

8:33pm: Seth McFarlane looks like that Book of Mormon guy.

8:26pm: Before the show starts, just take note: If you picture the Oscars taking place at an exurban Hilton Garden Inn and swap out the actors for insurance agents and swap out the Oscar statues for Orin Helggeson's Two-Diamond award plaque, this whole thing makes a ton more sense. Let us begin the show...

8:25pm: Braying donkey imp Chenowith asks Queen Latifah if she'd ever host the Oscars. Because... Christ, I don't know. We've already gone to plaid here.

8:23pm: Renee Zelwegger, constantly looking as if she's about to burst into tears as always, gets her turn in the Chenowith anal tongue bath. I'm not sure enough people are telling Kristen that she's doing a great job. Joe Flacco has gotten less compliments this month.

8:15pm: Jamie Foxx brings his shockingly old daughter to the ceremony and says he wants to show the world how beautiful she is. Jamie, as someone who also has a daughter, I cannot begin to tell you what a terrible idea that is. I thought that was his girlfriend and the co-host lady was flirting with him and then I was like GIRL, YOU BETTER STEP TO THAT BITCH. Then it turned out it was Jamie's kid! A shocking twist!

8:10pm Chenowith and Anne Hathaway, in between swallowing entire worlds with their huge freak mouths, take a moment to play a guessing game involving some kind of mystery box. I hope inside it says ZONK with three llamas chewing hay.

8:06pm: Chenowith is interviewing Adele and Adele looks like she could crush her like a bug. Why did they pick the smallest possible human being to interview everyone? That's not flattering. Get Geena Davis in there to help Adele out.

8:04pm: Halle Berry! This is what I love about the Oscars: It managed to finally bring the entire cast of Movie 43 together under one roof.

8:02pm: "Who are you most excited to see tonight?" seems to be Kristen's stock question of choice. I dunno, Kristen. Movie stars? My coke dealer, who sells Merck pharmaceutical coke at wholesale prices?

8:00pm: Kristen Chenowith is co-hosting the pregame show and she is just fucking terrifying to behold. She looks like something out of Brazil. Her neck muscles are permanently set to full contraction. I think she's eight inches tall.

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we're covering method acting, giant condor pets, and more.

Before we get to the Funbag, one quick announcement: There will probably not be a live Funbag on Thursday. But don't despair. You'll always have your raging alcoholism to help fill the void.

Now, your letters:

Dom:

If you could only have 1 type of cheese for the rest of your life, what would it be? It would be the cheese in any dish that contains cheese, from cheeseburger, to mac and cheese and even pizza. I think the 2 top contenders are Cheddar and Mozzarella. Cheddar has more flavor and good versatility but mozzarella has the pizza covered, plus could also work on a burger in a pinch.

What about Venezeulan beaver cheese?

Seriously though, it has to be mozzarella. And I say this as someone who routinely makes cheddar cheese pizza for his kid because the kid prefers it to mozzarella. Turns out cheddar cheese pizza—despite being an affront to God—tastes okay. But I can't stomach the thought of spending the rest of my life with mozzarella-free pizza. Pizza is too important to me, and to you. It's more important than nachos, alas. The ultimate cheese triage list would probably look something like this:

1. Mozzarella
2. Cheddar
3. Parmigiano-Reggiano
4. Cream cheese
5. Feta
6. Ricotta
7. Gouda
8. Provolone
9. Monterey Jack (honestly, between this and cheddar, I can never tell which cheese they put on my nachos. It's all horse cheese anyway, I reckon)
10. Bleu cheese (if that's your thing)
11. Brie

I have brie at the bottom of this list because I fucking hate it. I know all foodies are mandated by law to adore runny cheeses, and if they smell like feet, all the better. But I can't get into it. It looks like human pus. I don't understand brie at all, even when they wrap it in phyllo dough and dump sixty pounds of candied nuts on top.

Just to make this list official, I asked the Washington Post's Dan Steinberg—who once worked as a cheese buyer for Whole Foods—if cheddar or mozzarella was the more important cheese:

"This is really tough. I don't like eating mozzarella plain that much. I still think it has to be mozzarella. You're basically saying you could never eat pizza again. That's like losing two food groups at once. Either way, your straight cheese eating options are so limited as to be basically useless. But losing pizza on top of that is brutal. I'd much rather have mozzarella on my burger than cheddar on my pizza or pasta. Cheddar pizza is not passable....

"Fuck, can you have fake cheddar powder on Doritos/popcorn/Cheetos? I forgot about that. Wouldn't change my decision, but those are tough losses."

I forgot about the Dorito factor. That's devastating.

Milan:

Since Daniel Day-Lewis is a method actor, let's assume that he brings his character's persona home to the wife and kids nightly. Which of his roles do you think would be the shittiest to live with?

My top (bottom) three are:

3. Christy Brown - Excused from all household chores involving manual dexterity

2. Daniel Plainview - Hates everyone in the house, especially his wife - who is in competition for his children's love...who he also hates

1. Bill the Butcher - Short fuse, quick to reach for a kitchen knife, smells like tainted meat

Brown would be the worst because he's utterly useless from a parenting perspective. Legend has it that the film crew on My Left Foot had to help carry Day-Lewis around the set during breaks. Just imagine how aggravated you'd be if you were an electrician who had to carry an actor around all day when you knew full well that he could walk on his own power. You can admire his dedication to the craft while still wanting to plunge an ice pick into his skull for giving you extra busywork.

And having Daniel Day-Brown at home would be even worse, because that's an extra child to deal with (though I don't believe Day-Lewis was actually married at the time of filming). Bad enough you have to wash and feed and clothe the kids... now you have a 180-lb. special needs child thrown into the mix. In his acceptance speech Sunday night, Day-Lewis readily admitted that his wife had to deal with "strange men" in the house, which means he totally kept up the Lincoln thing during intercourse. I can't even imagine how awkward that would be. "A funny thing, this boner of mine. I've heard tell that John Adams once ordered the flag outside the Capitol set to half mast whenever his was unable to please his concubine. A funny man, he was. But a strong one, too. Now bend over..."

Sarah:

Of the four major sports, which one do you think churns out the most insufferable retirees? I have to think ex-MLB players are the worst, but I could be wrong.

Have you met Mercury Morris? There are entire movies about how insufferable ex-football players are. They litter the NFL Live set every day. They flock to Radio Row during Super Bowl week because it's the only week of the year that people pay attention to them. They'll talk to NFL Films about ANYTHING, even games they didn't play in.

Out of all the sports, football players seem to have the greatest difficulty moving on. They don't get to play the game as long as baseball players or basketball players do. They don't play as many games a season, which perhaps means they have sharper memories of the few games they played in. And since football is such a violent sport, they get to essentially pretend like they fought at Iwo Jima any time you bring up that game against the Rams.

Football, more than other sports, is seen as a big test of manliness. And so ex-football players are addicted to that feeling of being the baddest motherfucker alive. That's why so few of them regret playing a game they know will knock DECADES off of their lives. The sport so thoroughly satisfies their egos that, once retired, the only way they can get the feeling back is to talk about the past, again and again and again. For Joe Theismann alone, football stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Dan:

What do you think the world record is for the number of days a human being has gone with getting their only calories on a given day from malt liquor? Certainly, only two types of people drink malt liquor, college freshmen and homeless people. But I figure the average college frat bro, even if he's drinking for days on end, must stumble into some pizza or Taco Bell. As for the homeless, they are survivalists first, and while they spend a great deal of money on malt liquor and cigarettes, they must save 99 cents here or there for a stick of beef jerky before the day is out. My friend and I have suggested that the record is three days straight is really the most anyone could have done this.

It is my intent to break this record.

You can go three weeks or so without solid food, provided you drink enough water. The problem with consuming nothing but malt liquor is that, as you well know, alcohol causes mass dehydration. And drunken dehydration is the WORST. I have woken up at 3 a.m. some nights after binge drinking and been so dehydrated that my esophagus was dried shut. The sides were literally sticking together, like when your lips are chapped. NOT ALARMING AT ALL. It's one of the absolute worst feelings in the world. All I had to do was order the occasional glass of water at the bar but I didn't because I didn't want the bartender thinking I was a pussy. STUPID IDIOT! Every veteran alcoholic should always keep a gallon jug of distilled water by his or her bedside.

So you would have to consume enough water to make up for whatever water you lost downing bottle after bottle of King Cobra. Provided you have the willpower (and no one does), I can't imagine you would be able to survive longer than a week or so. I'm sure there's been a hobo alkie who has pulled off the feat—something with an absolutely frightening case of alcoholism, Waco Kid-style ("Food makes me sick")—but I would advise you not to try to beat out that one brave railtramp. You'll probably die in the process. And if you don't die, you'll wish you had. Nothing makes you feel worse than malt liquor. I remember being in college right after The Chronic came out and oh man, drinking from 40s seemed like the most badass thing ever. Every goddamn freshman white guy was walking around with one. Then you got to the last third of the bottle and you were ready to kill yourself. 85 percent of all forties go unfinished, and rightfully so.

Nate:

Who do you think was the first person to pull their collar up over their nose to shield themselves from smelling a fart? My guess is that it probably happened during the Renaissance. Lots of fluffy collars to work with.

It probably started whenever shirts were first invented. That's an instinctive move, covering your nose with your shirt. You'd probably do it even if no one taught you to do it. Because it works! I'm sure it only works on a psychosomatic level and that you're breathing in just as many fart particles as you would uncovered, but I really do think the shirt does an adequate job of staving off the feeling that I have POUNDS of feces trapped in my mouth. Sometimes I pull the shirt away too soon and the fart smell comes rushing back in. That's such a deeply regretful moment. Sometimes I keep the shirt to my mouth so long that the whole thing is drenched in drool after thirty seconds.

When there's a bioterror attack on US soil (and there will be!), I'm gonna be just like everyone else and do the shirt thing—hoping that a layer of 50-50 cotton/poly blend will be enough to prevent any and all anthrax from entering my body.

Tyler:

Just now as I am holding in a fart in my office cubicle I can't help but wonder what life would be like if no one was able to hold in farts. Better yet, what if there was also no way to muffle a fart? Every fart that brewed up would have to immediately come out at full force. Would we be better off? Corporate America would definitely be more exciting.

The entire bro population would be outraged by this. "BRAH! This chick farted in the meeting and it was so smelly BRAH! I bet she menstruates too SO GROSS BRAH!" It's always fun to meet guys who present themselves as tough only to get completely freaked out when they find a spot of period blood on the fitted sheet. They would campaign vigorously against a fart-transparent society.

I think we would all be better off in the long run with open farting. Farting around people means you have a level of comfort with them. You trust them to not get all judgy with you simply because you ripped ass. So if we all farted around each other liberally, I dare say that would make people far less uptight. We'd lose one little layer of the superficiality that we deploy in our everyday interactions. We'd all feel so much more trusting. LOOSER, am I right?

/rips ass in solidarity

HALFTIME!

Marty:

How much do you think Hall & Oates earn per year these days?

This booking site says that H&O demand $150,000-$250,000 for gigs here in the US. Pollstar says that they currently have nine domestic tour stops planned for this year. In theory, that would bring in a minimum of over $1.3 million strictly in performance fees. Of course, you have to subtract the agent's take, and the management company's take, and you have to discount any overhead the duo incur, including possibly paying their own backup band and perhaps paying for their own hotel unless expressly stated otherwise in the tour rider. And who knows if a handful of those dates are favors that Oates owes some shady promoter in Florida as a way of settling a gambling debt.

Then there's licensing. Because musicians make nothing from album sales anymore, they protect the shit out of their licensing fees. For a classic song like "Maneater," Hall & Oates could easily charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for a national ad campaign, and tens of thousands of dollars for an appearance in a movie or on a TV show. Given that the duo has a relatively vast back catalog for licensing purposes, you're talking about multiple revenue streams. Hall & Oates probably make an extra $500,000 a year from licensing alone. And that's without having written a hit song in decades.

That's the dream, you guys. The dream is to invent something or write a song that makes money for you, FOREVER. When you've created something that lives on and on and on without you having to do another goddamn thing, you are free to rake in royalties and spend forty weeks a year hanging at your villa in Lake Como with your finger up your butt. We can get there, guys. We just need a really, really, really good idea. Like an app that can detect mayo in a sandwich without you having to bite in or remove the top of the bun. I'd pay $3 for a mayo scanner. Then we could all be RICH and buy big grotesque houses in the same cul-de-sac and have barbecues EVERY NIGHT. I will make this happen or die trying.

Brett:

If you quit your job to go coast to coast winning prize money from karaoke contests, and had to sing the SAME song every night, what would net the best results? Gotta get the male vote, the female vote, the north vote, the south vote, and can't pick something too long, too old, too obscure. My brother says "Born to Run." "Sweet Caroline" has also been thrown out there too.

I would throw a pint glass at you if you sang "Sweet Caroline" in a karaoke bar, so that's out. It depends on your voice, really. Everyone has their own go-to karaoke song, one they've honed and workshopped over years and years. Eventually, you rely on it so much that you become terrified of trying to do any other song. I almost always do "Purple Rain," but one time I decided to try "Sunday Bloody Sunday" instead, and it was a fucking catastrophe. My voice broke forty seconds in and stayed broken. And I had to stay there and warble through the whole fucking thing, acutely aware of how awful I sounded. It was devastating. I'll never forgive myself for straying outside my comfort zone. NEVER TAKE CHANCES, PEOPLE. You will only get your heart broken in the end.

Anyway, if you're looking for songs that have universal appeal for your karaoke standard, you're probably best off picking an old Motown song. Only assholes don't like old Motown songs.

Andrew:

Side-boob or under-boob? A buddy at work and I got into this debate today. He is squarely on the side of under-boob whereas I prefer side-boob.

Sideboob gives you more boob. You get the sexy little crease from the underside of the boob, just you would from underboob, plus the top shelf. That's more boob for your dollar. The very best sideboob shots are basically full breast shots minus the nipple. Sometimes, you can even see the nipple beginning to crest right at the edge of the boob. That's good retouchin'!

Of course, a lot of sideboob shots are accidental. Some gal goes out wearing a basketball jersey and there's your sideboob. It's not always a look designed for flattery. Meanwhile, Kaxlee over at bewbsareus.com is rocking a sports bra with the bottom half of it sheared clean off for maximum underboobage. It's a fine way to present yourself to the general public. Still, I'm with the sideboobers. Throw plain cleavage into this argument and things get really heated.

Erix:

If you were dropped in an ancient society in an Escalade with an unlimited supply of gasoline, how many people do you think you could kill before they'd devise a way to take you down?

If you're killing these Spartans simply by running them over, the answer is not many. Hitting an animal—a deer, a pig, a human being, etc.—is usually enough to total an automobile. And even though an Escalade is a big asshole car that could probably withstand hitting more people than the average sedan, there's a very strong likelihood that after just a few hits, the airbags would deploy and the car would be disabled. After that, you would be in bigass trouble. A couple rocks to the windshield and vultures would be pecking at your bowels in no time flat.

You'd need a better killing strategy, like throwing big rocks at people from afar. Drive-by stonings, as it were. You could take out more people AND scare the shit out of them as well. They'd think your car was some kind of mythical Bear God sent down by the Lord to punish them. Then you could emerge from your car and announce that the killing will cease if they give you all their gold and fine women. Then you could turn your car into a rolling harem, bartering floor mat lint for gold because people back then were really stupid.

Then one day, a jealous tribal elder would discover that your tires could be punctured. The next morning, you've got sixty arrows in your Firestones and a slit throat. No more gold and ancient pussy for you, my friend.

Mike:

You can have any animal in the world to have as a pet or for service purposes, and the animal will be tamed and twice the size of the average size of said animal. Which animal do you choose? Imagine having a condor with a 20-foot wingspan that you can ride on (yes, you can use the chosen animal for transportation, too) and attack from the sky. What about an enormous blue whale that can take you across the Pacific? Or a double size chihuahua! It'd be kinda big, I guess.

Is it physically possible to ride a condor who is just double the size of a regular condor? I'm not sure that's big enough to support the average man's weight (and is it an African or a European condor?!).

Anyway, if having a giant DEATH HAWK to call your own means you can regularly fly around like you're living on Pandora, then that beats everything. Think of the time you could save beating traffic by condoring to work. And you could take joy flights every weekend. Just drink a six-pack and go cruising through the sky. HOLY SHIT SWEET FREEDOM. That beats having a giant shark or a giant bear or a giant lion to call your own. What am I gonna do with a giant bear, apart from use it as a sectional sofa?

Ben:

If you put Schwarzenegger against Jim Brown in a Running Man rematch, do you think he'd still win? How about in a good old fashioned bar fight, no flamethrower-jetpack?

Well, wait a second. Obviously, the Running Man fight between them was staged. I think young Jim Brown (or at least, younger Jim Brown) would have, in real life, beaten young Arnold senseless. And I think that would still be true today. Jim Brown throws people off of balconies. A bodybuilder is no match for him. WHAT A HOTHEAD.

Andy:

If I told you right now with 100% certainty that your favorite NFL team was not going to win a Super Bowl in your lifetime, would you quit being a fan? I would. I have loyalty to my team, even through the 4-win seasons, because I know that experience will make the Championship feel so much better. But I could not continue to watch if I knew for sure they would never win it all. It's all about hope.

I don't think I'd stop rooting for them because I'm a pussy and I wouldn't want other people judging me for bailing on my team. Plus, as a Vikings fan who suspects the team will never win a title in my lifetime, it would be oddly comforting to know it for certain. It would be freeing. I wouldn't have to constantly worry about them not winning a title because I would KNOW that Gary Andersen is going to miss that kick, or that Brad Childress will settle for a fucking 50-yard field goal and let Brett Favre throw a soul-crushing pick. No more having the rug pulled out from underneath me.

Besides—and I've said this before—winning a title can't be the only reason your root for a team. The other parts of being a fan—meeting other fans, enjoying the handful of triumphant regular season wins, seeing your favorite player come close to breaking a record with a valiant effort—all of that has to matter to you. Sports teams don't win titles enough to justify the amount of time and love you put in. There have to be other, more fundamental reasons you watch them. There has to be some joy in the journey, even if your stupid team NEVER ENDS UP WINNING BECAUSE GAHHHH FUCKING DENNY GREEN WHY DID YOU TAKE A KNEE YOU FUCK?!

Christian:

My 9-year-old son found some of my cock rings and my wife caught him playing with them. She was at first horrified, but quickly couldn't contain her mirth once my son told her that he was wearing them on his toes. At what point do I tell him he was using cock rings as foot jewlery?

His rehearsal dinner. Next time he plays with the cock rings (you have more than one?), take a video of it and note from behind the camera that you will be playing this video at the wedding. I did this to my kid when she ran around the house wearing her underwear on her head. And lemme tell you, I cannot WAIT to spring this thing on her in twenty years. She will be fucking LIVID. It's gonna be awesome.

Email of the week!

Brian:

For the last week, there has been a spider (maybe the size of a penny) on my ceiling just chilling there. Every couple of days, he moves to a different spot and chills there. Spiders have never freaked me out until they get within striking distance and as long as he is content to chill on the ceiling, I'm content to let him. No sense in killing him and upsetting all his millions of spider cousins, right? Well this morning I'm getting ready to leave for work and HE'S GONE!! FUCKING DISAPPEARED!! Now he could be anywhere, right? Is this what I get for not dispatching him on first sight or did he decide I'm not worth killing and move on?

He's waiting under your pillow. Move to a new town.

A look at the awful children's programming you're forced to endure before you can finally kick the kids out of the TV room to watch sports for eight hours. Illustration by Jim Cooke.

The Show

Wow Wow Wubbzy

The Theme Song

Wubbzy lives in a tree
He likes to PLAY PLAY
He's got a bendy tail
And he LIKES IT THAT WAY!
WOW WOW WUBBZY WUBBZY WUBBZY WOW WOW
(at this point in the song, a tiny man actually comes out of your television set and stabs you in the face)

Please note that the guy who sings every song on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! sounds exactly like that one guy from Blink-182. It's horrifying.

The Mythology/Episode Format

Wubbzy is an annoying yellow blob who lives in a world where everything is shaped like an Apple product. There are no sharp corners in Wuzzleberg, probably because the characters would accidentally gouge out their own eyes if there were.

Anyway, the average Wubbzy episode features Wubbzy getting crack-addict-level excited about a cool new invention, a chance to be on television, or some other goddamn thing. But then Wubbzy gets so cracky that he inevitably fucks up and then has to spend the end of the episode fixing the Wuzzlenator that he broke in a fit of deranged mania.

Frankly, the plot of Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! is beside the point. What you really need to know is that it's the loudest goddamn show on television. It's like someone took a bag of sound effects and bludgeoned you to death with it. Every episode of Wubbzy ends with a song (again, sung by the Blink-182 guy's vocal doppelganger), and these songs are always edited in the choppiest way possible, with characters frantically leaping in and out of the screen every half-second, and the background colors constantly shifting, in the standard "seizure-inducing anime" style. I've seen Michael Bay films that are more subtle and placid. Watching Wubbzy for more than two seconds will make you seasick.

Secondary Characters

Widget: Pink rabbit-like creature who wears overalls and talks in the most grating Southern accent allowable under federal obscenity laws. Take the Mater character from Cars and make him twice as stupid. That's Widget. Widget sucks.

Walden: Nerdy math nerd who talks in an English accent and invents shit that Wubbzy usually ends up breaking.

WALDEN: This Wuzzlesaucer will help the Wuzzletrees grow faster!

WUBBZY: Wow, wow, Walden! What happens when I act like a moron and press this HYPERWUZZLE button?

WALDEN: Oh, no! Now the Wuzzletrees are getting too big and eating all the Wuzzlepuppies! Perhaps I shouldn't have included a massive design flaw for my idiot friends to carelessly exploit!

(FLASHING COLORS AND SHITLOADS OF LOUD NOISES)

WIDGET: DURRRRR don't worry, little buddy! I'll dadgum cotton-pickin' horn-swagglin' fix it!

(fixes Wuzzlesaucer, cut to awful song)

Daizy: Third Wubbzy friend. I don't really know what she does, frankly. She has a hard time getting a word in edgewise what with the redneck yammering on and on.

The Wubb Girlz: All-blob female group led by Beyoncé. BEYONCÉ. For you ladies out there who think Bey is the be-all, end-all of good taste, I would like to point out that Beyoncé could have chosen to guest star on ANY children's television show she pleased, and she chose this one. Wubbzy. Not Sesame Street. Not Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness. Fucking Wubbzy. Blue Ivy is screwed.

The Wubb Girlz have a song of their own, by the way. It goes like this:

SING A SONG
SING SING SING
SING ALONG
SING SING

Now repeat that 80 times. I don't care if it's a reincarnated John Lennon singing it; it's puke. The Wubb Girlz song will stick in your head all day and you will eventually take a straight razor to your dome to remove your scalp so that you can burrow into your skull and remove the melody manually.

Setting

Most every episode of Wubbzy takes place in Wuzzleberg. For the Wubb Girlz episodes, the action usually shifts to Wuzzlewood. Everything on this show starts with either "wubb" or "wuzz," making the show feel like an entire collection of Urban Dictionary terms for hermaphroditic grooming techniques.

Best Episode

None.

Worst Episode

The one where Wubbzy goes to Wuzzlewood and "sells out," buying a bunch of bling and walking around like he's Wubbstin Wieber before Beyoncé is like, "Wubbzy, you should just be yourself!" I strongly disagree, Bey Bey. I would prefer Wubbzy be anyone else but Wubbzy.

Pros

The disclaimer before the show says Wubbzy helps promote "social and emotional development." O RLY, Nick Jr.? Because whenever my 7-year-old watches this pile of shit, I see emotional REGRESSION. Half an hour ago, this girl was reading quietly on the couch. Now she's painting the walls with diarrhea and licking it off. You did this to her.

Cons

Everything. Wubbzy is fucking terrible. It's not merely bad, it's actively HARMFUL. It's everything a children's program should never be: shrill, inane, and overly stimulating. It's like mainlining soda directly into your child's eyeballs. The fact that Nick Jr. airs it is proof enough for me that the network doesn't give a flying shit about your kids. TURNS OUT THEY'RE JUST IN IT TO MAKE MONEY! I feel so used.

The fact that my kids love this show is enough to let me know they shouldn't be watching it. I'd give a finger for these kids to like Sesame Street, but noooooooo. No, they demand this. Every goddamn day. There are few things worse than turning on the TV at 6:30 in the morning and being bombarded with this show. It ATTACKS you. I feel like a dirty bomb has been set off in the house. I delete this program off the DVR every five minutes, and yet my children are able to find another eight episodes to record 15 minutes later. DirecTV desperately needs a FUCK THIS SHOW option that blocks every episode and wipes it clean from the viewing guide.

This show will ruin your children for the day. I've seen it transform them from normal kids into Stripe from Gremlins. (Note: I just realized that Gremlins is an allegory about child-rearing. Only took me four decades to realize it.) The after effects are no different from what would happen if you let a child eat a birthday cake smothered in liquefied Jolly Ranchers. They become frantic little demons, running into walls and scratching off each other's faces. All because of stupid Wubbzy and his loser friends. I hate this show. I give it no stars.

Also in WYCTPS: Max & Ruby

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we're covering Presidential tipping, shitty recipe instructions, fighting old people, and more.

I was in New York on business last week (as much as what I do can be called "business" with a straight face) and I was working out of this office building downtown one morning when I had to go take a shit. So I grabbed my guest pass, beeped my way through a set of hallway doors (I always pretend I'm walking into NSA headquarters when I do this), and then walked absent-mindedly into the bathroom.

The bathroom was divided into two rooms: one for toilets and one for sinks. I found this unusual, but not enough to stop me from walking into the deserted toilet area and dropping anchor. As I was finishing up, I could hear a bunch of footsteps outside the stall, but no voices. I wiped up, flushed, pushed open the stall door, and was greeted by the sight of three or four women. I was not in the men's bathroom.

A smart person would have underplayed this moment. He would have uttered a simple "Oh my goodness, so sorry..." and then quickly exited. But I fucking FREAKED. I was like OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS NOT THE MEN'S ROOM! I allowed every woman in there to get a good long look at me for a police sketch while I pleaded with all of them that this was a total accident and that I never, ever did this sort of thing. NOT A PERVERT, GANG. Then I ran out of there and forgot that I never washed my hands. And I figured that was the end of it, but one of the ladies walked out of there the same time I was running.

WOMAN: What's your name?

ME: Uh... Drew? (I should have given her a false name, like Jack Dickey)

WOMAN: Did you not wear your glasses today?

ME: IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!

And I ran away from her. If I had a time machine, undoing this sequence of events now takes priority over killing Hitler.

Now, your letters:

Randy:

What if, in basketball, the shooter had to take their foul shots where they were fouled? Would teams completely alter their gameplan? Would teams start hacking away immediately after the inbound pass? Would games even be watchable assuming teams just spend half the game mauling each other the second the other team touches it?

You can institute the rule strictly for "in the act of shooting" fouls, and keep regular free throws for all the other fouls. And for those spot shooting fouls, you wouldn't make it a bunch of one-point free throws. You would just let the shooter take a free shot from the spot. So if LeBron gets hacked while dunking, he gets a free dunk worth two points. If he gets hacked from beyond the arc, he gets a free, uncontested three-pointer from that spot.

I'm sure there are a million reasons why this rule wouldn't work. But it SEEMS cool. Free throws tend to be a drag on basketball games. At the end of the game, when little Timmy has to make both shots for Scrappy Boy U to upset the three-seed, free throws are riveting. But otherwise, they're mostly boring as shit. They're always taken from the same spot, and your team's shithead power forward NEVER makes them when you really need him to. It seems unfair that if your guy gets hacked on a layup, he has to go shoot two shots from much farther away. Giving him a free layup on a foul would probably result in less hacking and smoother gameplay. Those games where there's a foul called every five seconds are the fucking worst. Unless you're Dwyane Wade, in which case that means the refs were ordered to let you win tonight.

Patrick:

When does fame run out? Is Fran Tarkenton still famous?

I think he is. Millions of people know who he is, which is a pretty solid case for fame. Obviously, his fame is regional. If Fran Tarkenton walks into a restaurant in Mankato, people turn their heads. If he does the same thing in Copenhagen, people just keep on eating their lingonberry and twig pizzas. But if you're famous somewhere, that's usually enough. That's the amazing thing about being famous. If you've done something that makes you recognizable to a significant portion of the general public, they usually remember you FOREVER, often fondly (One exception: Ryan Reynolds, who is clearly NAWT A MOVIE STAHHHH).

Once I recognize someone as famous, they stick. Thirty years from now, I'm not gonna be like, "Justin Bieber? I don't remember anyone by that name." I'm gonna be like, "BIEBER! He's the kid who sang all those songs and then developed a nasty meth addiction and eventually hired a crew of thugs to hold the Grammys hostage!" Fame has extraordinary staying power. You and I remember famous athletes long after they've finished their careers. If you saw Herschel Walker at the airport, you'd still flip out and be like, "Holy shit! It's Herschel Walker! And his other personality, Madam Bixby!" Even when that person slips out of your mind for years and years, you still remember them instantly with a little bit of prodding.

This is why so many people want to be famous. Last week, we sorted out that Hall & Oates, who haven't had a hit in decades, still probably pull down hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars every year simply because of the staying power of both their fame and their music. For a lot of notable people, being famous essentially means you are your own resume. You can spend the rest of your life making money in some shape or form merely by being you. That's a rather valuable asset, and that's why Lindsay Lohan can still usually find a Saudi prince who will pay her $50,000 for a blowjob.

Robert:

Are there any instructions in a recipe that make the whole thing not worth it? For me, it's anything involving a double boiler. I love chocolate crinkle cookies, but you expect me to lug out the double boiler and risk scalding the chocolate or not tempering it properly? Fuck that. Folding and sifting are up there, too.

I'm the sort of person who fails to read the recipe in full before I start cooking because I'm impatient and I just want to start cooking my braised beef cheeks NOW NOW NOW. And it's usually halfway through the cooking process when I stumble onto a direction that says "Let marinate overnight, or for at least 16 hours." GAHHHHHHHHH! I don't have time for that shit. Looks like we're gonna have to just boil this turkey instead.

Anyway, I agree with Robert that double boilers can go to hell. You want me to wash TWO pots? Fuck you. That isn't happening. Some other dead-on-arrival recipe instructions:

• Straining. Nope. Not doing it. Anything requiring a cheesecloth is out. This sauce will have bits of pork hoof in it and I don't want to hear anyone complain about it.
• Use of a candy thermometer. This is not a laboratory. Just tell me how brown the caramel needs to be.
• "Clarify the butter." No. What do you have against butter foam? That buttery santorum is just as viable as the clear shit.
• "Using a piping bag..." Nope. No piping bag. I spread that shit on with a dirty cake knife and that's all the effort I'm willing to put in.
• "Using your Kitchenaid mixer paddle attachment..." Fuck you. I don't own that. Most of these cookbooks are written for Greenwich housewives who have a 5,000-sq. ft. kitchen and every conceivable tool that can be purchased from the Williams Sonoma catalog. There's barely room on my kitchen counter for a toaster. I can't buy some $500 cake brewing device.
• Deep frying. I love deep fried food as much as you do, but I'll be goddamned if I do it at home. You get a thousand grease burns on your arms and by the time your chicken is fried, the whole kitchen is coated in a layer of peanut oil.

• There are also ingredients that stop me up, too. Any recipe that includes an item that clearly cannot be purchased at a normal grocery store may as well have a big red label across it that says RECIPE PRINTED JUST FOR SHOW. I was in the bookstore yesterday and there was a cookbook from Richard Blais, the guy who won "Top Chef" a while back. And pretty much every recipe included shit like liquid nitrogen, ras el hanout (isn't that a Batman villain?), and a gallon of verjus. No one's making those recipes. Ever. Even though I know that hunting out different ingredients is what helps make dishes taste new and exciting, I don't give a shit. If the ingredient list includes Haitian jackfruit, you can go to hell.

  Matt:

  What would happen to society if it just never stopped raining? Don't think about environmental or farming consequences (for some reason, they've got those problems figured out... say it's 100 years in the future and everyone has adapted to constant rain). Quality of life indoors would largely stay as it is now, but it would never not be raining outside.

  I smell a failed NBC pilot. Let me get right to penning an awful script for it. I'll have people start using samurai swords for no reason at all.

  If we're just dealing with the psychological consequences of endless rain, I don't think humanity would be fundamentally altered in any drastic way. I mean, Seattle is cloudy for an average of 226 days a year and those people seem to be doing okay (I often fantasize about moving to Seattle even though I know absolutely no one there).

  There would be a lot more depressed people, of course. People would stay inside a lot and wear sweaters and listen to sad Bon Iver albums just like I do every Tuesday. The people at BIG UMBRELLA would rake in massive profits. Trench coats would be back in vogue, making it difficult to suss out exhibitionists from regular people. Tanning salons would spring up every other block. We'd all have to take vitamin D supplements. The tourism industry in various island nations would plummet to virtually nothing and Jamaica would be consumed in an all-out civil war.

  Eventually, we would have to adapt our modern environment to deal with the constant wetness: more skyways, more indoor parks, more artificial beaches and ski slopes, etc. It would be like living in one of those weird places in Japan or the United Arab Emirates where they have indoor golf courses. Personally, I would re-enact the first sex scene from Match Point on a daily basis.

  If you allow for environmental consequences to endless rain, you're obviously talking about a global apocalypse: massive floods, destroyed crops, landslides that kill millions. Soon entire continents would be swallowed whole and you would have to fight to survive against Dennis Hopper tooting around on a jet ski wearing an eyepatch. FUN!

  Ryan:

  So my roommate has a dog. I get home about an hour or two before him each day and the dog has been in the house for 8-9 hours. The dog obviously needs to go out and shit when I get home, but the last thing I want to do is take it out and clean up its shit with a plastic bag. It's hard for me to just look at the dog and ignore it. Do I have to suck it up EVERY DAY?

  I think you should get a discount on rent from him for it. It's his stupid dog and you're basically performing a dog-walking service for him for free every day. I don't see why you couldn't say, "Hey, I take your dog out to shit every day. Give me 30 dollars." Then again, your roommate is probably some crazy dog person who will stab you to death merely for broaching the subject. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE MY DOG STAB STAB STAB!!! Crazy dog people are hard to deal with.

  HALFTIME!

  Ben:

  Which sport would it be most fun to play invisible 6th (or 10th or 12th) man? You have no other powers.

  It's hard to figure out a fun way of messing with a baseball game. Football's too dangerous. Basketball is promising. But I think boxing is the dark horse here—peppering [most hated boxer] with kidney shots from a safe distance is probably more satisfying than causing Kobe to dribble off his foot.

  So your role here is to essentially be a saboteur, yes? Oh man, what I would give for an invisible mole on the Vikings roster. SUCH POWER.

  Anyway, being the invisible monkey wrench would be fun in virtually any sport because you could convince people that there's a poltergeist in the stadium and scare them half to death. But if I could pick only one sport, it's gonna be golf. You could just hang out on the 18th green for the entire tournament and divert putt after putt after putt. You could pick up one of Phil Mickelson's fantastic chip shots and throw it in a fucking river. Then you could watch Jim Nantz cry. Who's gonna turn down a chance to prank a bunch of dipshit golfers? No one, that's who.

  As for football... Even though it would be terrifying (especially if I'm invisible but padless), I would stand 10 yards behind the opposing QB and then kick him in the ankles on every passing down. Then I'd sprint back toward the end zone. It would be way cool.

  Andrew:

  My co-worker asked me if I believed I could take legendary golf Jack Nicklaus in a fight with both hands tied behind my back.

  I'm 5'9", 175 pounds and have barely any fighting experience besides the occasional recess basketball brawl in grade school. But the golden bear is 72 years old...I think take him down by keeping a low center of gravity and using forceful headbutts.

  My question is, do you think you would take him? And what's your strategy?

  Wouldn't you save your head butts for a kill shot at the end? Either way, you and I probably aren't beating the old man in a death match that way. Despite his advanced age, Jack Nicklaus is said to be in decent health. Plus he has Grandpa Strength, which means that he has the power to juggle six five-year-olds simultaneously. You'd do your best to kick him and head butt him, but he'd probably be able to push you to the ground and get on top of you. And once that happens, it's over. You're utterly defenseless. The Bear can make you his whore. Jim Nantz would sprint into the room to remark upon how classy of an ass-beating it was.

  Grandpa Strength means that you can do things like beat up young whippersnappers and solder together car parts. You just need 18 hours of sleep after doing so. They can do the short-inning work. They can't pitch a complete game.

  Nick:

  I hope the cover is machine washable...

  So that's a chair? Everything about that is confusing.

  Jesse:

  When they deem football too violent in the future, which animals would you like to see take over and play the game? Consider that animals with no thumbs could carry the ball in their mouth.

  It has to be gorillas. That's as close to human football as you're gonna get. Also, you could get rid of all the namby-pamby head injury rules and go back to old school monkey football. Who's gonna be against that, apart from the world's two billion animal lovers? NO ONE.

  Of course, in the future, it won't be animals replacing players. It'll be robots. That's right... CYBERBALL...

  I'll take coach Sky Rogers any day. His powerful air attack will wear you down!

  Mike:

  Samuel L. Jackson is the only person I can think of where you MUST say his middle initial every time you say his name. Besides saying his full name, the only acceptable variant is Samuel L. Sam Jackson sounds like a president you learned about in elementary school and promptly forgot about. Is there anyone else you have to refer to in this manner?

  Michael J. Fox immediately springs to mind. And John L. Smith. We wouldn't want John L. Smith confused with all the OTHER John Smiths who ran themselves out of the college coaching profession by allegedly committing fraud! A lot of actors have to include their middle initial as a way of differentiating themselves from other actors (George C. Scott, for instance), and then that little resume quirk becomes part of a lasting brand, even though it likely has nothing to do with how friends and colleagues address them. There's no way Michael J. Fox's family addresses him as "Michael J." That would be disturbing.

  Also, presidents milk the middle initial for all its worth: John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush, LBJ, FDR, etc. The middle initial also seems to be a male phenomenon. Except for that Vivica A. Fox lady. I don't know what makes her think she's so goddamn important.

  Ricky:

  At what age does it stop being acceptable to steal glasses from bars? Because at age 26, I just stole 6 glasses tonight.

  I still have all the pint glasses I stole from bars when I was in my 20s. I even kept one that was just a promotional tchotchke for Fox Sports Net's now-defunct National Sports Report. The headline on the glass says, "Better highlights than that chick across the bar." OH, FOX SPORTS! You slay me.

  Anyway, you're free to steal those things all through your 20s until you get a serious girlfriend and she gives you a disapproving look the next time you pilfer a Duvel glass from some upscale mussel restaurant. And then you get married and she makes you get rid of all the glasses and all the bar towels you stole from your semester abroad in Europe because they don't fit with the spring theme she has planned for your future dining room. And THEN she makes you get rid of the beer mirrors you stole from your old job waiting tables. NOT THE PETE'S WICKED ALE MIRROR! You worked all night to get that into the trunk of your Oldsmobile! Now you have to drink beer out of a generic Crate & Barrel tumbler? WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED, MAN?! When was your spark of life so cruelly extinguished?

  We're talking about Ricky here, of course. Not me. Totally not me! I still have my FOX glass. My precious, precious FOX glass. Its cheap sexist humor shall sustain me always. Anyway, steal all the glasses you can, my friend. Especially those fancy craft brew ones with the gold rims.

  (NOTE: Stealing beer glasses in a foreign country is a million times more fun. I still have a liter stein I stole from some beer hall in Munich. Drinking three beers out of it simultaneously is more fun than the law allows. TAKE THAT, FUHRER!)

  Justin:

  Do you think at any point in the past we've narrowly dodged a nuclear attack (anywhere in the world, between any two countries) by there being an actual hand-to-hand fight to deactivate the countdown? JFK and Khrushchev came damn close, but that was all averted through negotiations and deals and such... I just wonder if there's ever been a physical confrontation in order to stop a nuclear strike. BONUS POINTS if the nuke is shut down as it's already flying through the air, heading toward its target.

  "Source programmable guidance!"

  Anyway, this article from Mental Floss details seven different close calls we've had with all-out nuclear warfare. Virtually all of them can be traced back to communication failures and/or faulty computer equipment. None of them were averted simply because a heroic Navy SEAL fought off 60 Panamanian commandoes and cut the blue wire in time. Kinda bullshit, if you ask me. Also, I find it disquieting that nuclear war could break out at any moment just because a Commodore 64 at NORAD had a faulty graphics card. I have zero faith that our digital infrastructure is up to date.

  In general, we bomb the shit out of a lot of other nations and fight in any number of covert wars specifically so that we NEVER get to the point where a nuclear bomb will go off if Channing Tatum doesn't stop the bad guy in time. If that kind of scenario were realistic, then nuclear bombs would probably go off every other day. EXCITING!

  Joe:

  Why haven't you talked about BIG SPICE? I was at the grocery store today and they wanted $15 for a 2-ounce bottle of cardamom. Are they serious?

  Whoa hey, Columbus didn't commission three ships, lose 450 good sailors, and slaughter an entire race of human beings for free. If you want those exotic spices that keep the world economy afloat, you gotta pony up.

  By the way, I have to think that 90 percent of the spices you buy are simply created in a lab over at Lowry's corporate headquarters. If they really did pay a Madagascan village boy to climb a 90-foot tree to personally harvest vanilla beans, your tiny bottle of vanilla extract would probably cost $80,000.

  Browie:

  What are the chances you've seen a porno in which the woman actually gets pregnant?

  Yeah well, she ain't STAYING pregnant. I'll tell you that. I bet the entire porn industry has ONE doctor that it relies on to address such matters.

  Anyway, given that most porn is shot bareback (even with the new laws in place in L.A. demanding performers use rubbers), and given that most porn stars are mentally unstable people who probably have substance abuse issues, it's more than likely that Rita Faltoyano occasionally forgot to take her birth control and was blessed with Rocco Siffredi's love child. I say you've witnessed the conception of a fetus at least one time.

  Jon:

  Does Obama have to tip people? Does he have to tip the Secret Service members who protect him?

  He should buy them watches, the way a QB buys fancy watches for his O-line. He could engrave each one! "Thanks for keeping the POTUS's suit clean, amigo. -Barry"

  My guess is that a staffer takes care of all thank-you notes and year-end bonuses/tips for underlings on the President's behalf. And I bet that staffer skims 20 percent off the bonus money and then stiffs the White House garbage men.

  Email of the week time!

  Joe:

  Have you waken (woke, woken?) yourself up laughing really hard at a dream you're having? The last time that happened to me I was dreaming about being in a sauna with a turd man. He was sitting there with a towel around himself, as is the dress code, and another towel around his shoulders. He had his poop elbows on his poop knees and he looks up at me, wipes sweat off his forehead (he had that kinda soft-serve ice cream swirly head top) and says, "Man, it's hot in here." The look in his eyes killed me. He reminded me of Gordon Gecko. Woke up pretty close to pissing myself in laughter. Goddamn, that was a great dream.

  I think we all wish we could have had a dream about Turd Man, my friend.

Time for your weekly LIVE edition of the Deadspin Funbag. To submit a question to the live Funbag, you gotta post down in the bowels of the discussion section below. As always, we begin with our question of the week:

Pete:

Imagine if someone you knew to be trustworthy offered you an opportunity to retire 10 years from today, and he would pay you a pension of $100,000 per year for the rest of your life. The catch? For the next 10 years, every time you are in front of a computer or tablet device, you have to type with one hand. You can under no circumstances type using both hands, or the deal is off. Do you do it?

So I have to spend 10 years typing with just the one hand, and then I get the pension, yes? It's awfully hard to turn that down. If you've ever typed out an email on your phone, you know that it sucks 80 times worse than typing on a plain old keyboard (then again, maybe I'm just an old fogy who will one day fetishize computer keyboards the way insufferable writer types now cherish Smith Corona). But you also know that you can get into a groove with your thumb on a good day, and that autocorrect may soon be so good that you merely have to think the word for the thing to show up on your screen. Surely, that's worth a lifetime of financial security. I'm getting better at texting while peeing. I suck at peeing now. There's urine all over the place. But the texting part I'm OK at!

I'm typing this answer with one hand as we speak, as an experiment, and it's fucking terrible. I've had to go back and re-type half the words. And that's with my right hand. With the left hand, it's even worse. One day, we're all gonna take out insurance on our hands because tapping out messages is so important to us. Whenever I get a minor cut on my fingertip these days, it RUINS me. GAHHHHHH CAN'T TYPE. We live in an age where written communication has overtaken oral communication as the preferred method for human interaction. If someone offered you the choice between being deaf, blind, or mute, you'd take MUTE in a heartbeat. Your life would barely change. In fact, you'd probably be relieved that you had an excuse to text everyone from now on instead of speaking directly to them. Thank god! No more personal interactions! What a fucking pain those are!

It could be that your hands are now more valuable to you than your mouth. Think about it. Would you rather have a pair of hands and be able to write and masturbate and make shadow puppets, or would you rather keep your mouth and be able to talk and eat solid food? Sure, bacon is always good. But no more texting. No more Temple Run. And you have to hump the mattress every night, which gets tiring. I think I'd keep the hands, man.

Now, down into the comment section for the your live funbagginess. This week's live Funbag comes to you from sunny Miami, Florida. I've been in Florida for fourteen hours now and have yet to see a man eating another man's face. NOT BAD, FLORIDA! Off we go...