I’m assuming I’m still married in this scenario, yeah? If you’re single and alone at a bar, the best stranger to talk to is clearly someone who is shit hot. No one said you had to leave that bar alone.When visiting a bar alone, what is your take on the best stranger at a bar to have a convo with? My vote is young dad; they’re happy to talk to anyone other than their kids, they do not get too drunk because they have to take care of the kids, and they are not quite as out-of-touch as some uber-suburban Dad types.
- Hot single person
- Fellow sports fan
- Exhausted office worker
- Anyone in a cowboy hat
- Hot married person
- Roadie
- College kid
- Fellow mom or dad
- Biker. They could stab you to death. But what if they invite you to be IN their gang instead? Worth the risk.
- Bachelor(ette) party attendee
- Anyone your age nearby
- WAY too loud fellow sports fan
- Random group of adults who are too excited to be hanging out at a Ruby Tuesday together
- The old alkie who sits at the end of the bar and drinks from 10 am to 7 pm every day
- Genuinely enthusiastic businessman who wears a polo shirt with his company’s logo on it
- Generic old person
- SantaCon attendee
- MAGA hat wearer
They are! My gut reaction was to say NO, but that was based solely on a literal interpretation of what constitutes meteorology. But when you and I or Chip Drayback of the ABC6 Action News StormForce talk about the "weather," all we're talking about is "Hey, what's it like outside?" That's why they have daily pollen forecasts every spring and fall. It's also why the Accuweather website does, indeed, include mosquito forecasts. Mosquitoes are a huge weather factor. Every summer I'm like WOW IT'S GORGEOUS OUTSIDE LET'S GO HAVE A COOKOUT, GANG! Then I step out onto the deck and suddenly I'm painted in bugs. It's like a dead pharaoh put a curse on me. So I go back in and rummage around the fridge for uneaten lunch meat.In terms of day-to-day living, mosquitoes are very much part of the atmosphere: a teeming, miserable part of the atmosphere. They influence what you're gonna do outside and what you're gonna need on you or with you, same as if it's raining or snowing. Every local forecast on a warm day should start with Chip telling you whether or not it's buggy outside. I know bugginess can vary from property to property. But if you live in city that's a reconstituted swamp, as I do, or you live in a state of 10,000 breeding grounds, as I USED to, then I think the weather guy can talk in generalities about it. I need to know if I have to take bug spray with me to the zoo, and I need to be reminded that skeeters are out there, ready to ruin my shit anytime I think the Earth outside actually looks hospitable for once.Are mosquitoes weather?
I'd trip in Oakland. Oakland is pleasant. In fact, it's so pleasant now that you can't even afford to rent a bus station locker there. I spent a day in Oakland profiling Stephen A. for GQ and had enough free time to walk around its Chinatown for a couple hours on my own and grab a bigass lunch. I wouldn't have minded drugs then. I could have hallucinated a giant serpent popping out of my lo mein to say hi to me before Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Would have been a nice twist.Oakland has legalized magic mushrooms. Is there any place in the country worse than Oakland to trip? Why and where?
My parents are both very conservative Christians. As in: Noah's Ark is undisputed truth, six day creation, etc. I've got a kid on the way. I can certainly educate her with a factual and scientific understanding of the world, but I'm torn. I want her to have a good relationship with her grandparents, and I can play the 'Everyone has a different religion' card when it comes to whether or not God exists. (My wife and I are atheists, so we don't expect much religion in our house but don't want to be jerks). But: I'm not interested in a both-sides compromise when it comes to evolution as accepted theory, but I don't want to tell her that there's any merit in her grandparents thinking. What would you do?
What is the acceptable speed declination for drivers when it is raining? I think anything more than 10% is egregious. Without fail my commute is doubled when it rains. Folks drop to 30 mph on the highway during rain like it is apocalyptic snow. Need guidance on how upset I should be at these a-holes as I am stewing in the rain jam.
HALFTIME!
It will not. But here's a twist: you should be GLAD it'll never happen again. I have not had this happen to me, so I can only assume it's deeply satisfying to have your chips and salsa simultaneously depleted. Just like when you'd nail the gas station pump on zeroes back in the day. But now you're out of chips and salsa. MY GOD WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. The way the system usually works, you run out of salsa first, then they bring you more to even it out with the chips. Then you run out of chips, and then they gotta bring you more of THOSE to get it back even with the new salsa. And on and on it goes. That gives you tacit permission to cycle through baskets of chips and bowls of salsa at will until your tamales arrive and you already want to die.That's the proper way of eating at Uncle Julio's. I don't ever want to be FINISHED with my chips and salsa. I want a basket of fresh chips that's the size of the fucking Vredefort Crater. And I don't want to leave any opening where my guilt trigger says to the waiter, "No, I don't need any more chips and salsa," when they offer to refresh both simultaneously. I want to eat beyond my body's means.Dave:I'm at my local Mexican restaurant and just finished both my chips and salsa at the exact same time. I'm 38 and this has never happened before. Will it ever happen again?
Are there any modern bands that still made good music more than 15 years after they first made it? Not counting artists that left a band and continued to make great music with a different group or as a solo act, I can't think of anyone that put out an album that far into their career that was still good, whether because music tastes have changed significantly, the artist can't recapture their old magic or they are just putting something out to have an excuse to tour.
They do. You gotta leave it free for them. I'm tend to be overly agnostic about using the handicapped shitter if no one is in it, but I'm less so about the family restroom. When parents need that restroom, they REALLY need it. An exploded diaper can happen anytime, anywhere. You don't have to be near the gate for Junior to pull the pin on a gallon of used breast milk. And when he does, he needs immediate attention. If I have a shit bomb in my arms and I flee to the family bathroom, only to discover that you're trying on a new suit from Joseph A. Bank in there, I'm gonna give you my best dirty look when you walk out of there. Serious Minnesota energy will radiate off of me. As an American, it is my right to believe that MY needs supersede that of any other living person.So yeah, you gotta leave that bathroom vacant. Unless you're getting a blowjob in there. I can't fault you for that.I've been going to Oklahoma City a lot lately, and there is a large family restroom at the airport that is never occupied. You have to start entering the men's room to get in there, and it's not by any of the gates. I've started changing in there, and it's downright luxurious. Am I an asshole? I'm pretty quick, and no one has ever knocked or been standing outside waiting any of the times I've done it, but I imagine at times that people use it for more legitimate reasons than getting slightly more comfortable pre-flight.
I do because there's nowhere else to put the right earbud. My deaf right ear now serves as a repository for that earbud. I can't just leave that bud hanging. It would fly around all over the place and take out my eye. I already have just one ear. I don't need one EYE to boot. Also, I use the Apple earbuds that came with my phone because I'm cheap and lazy, and they're flimsy enough that if one earbud comes loose, it'll pull the other one out. This is especially true if I'm engaged in one of my trademark vigorous elliptical trainer sessions at the gym. Everyone knows I'm the guy working those arm sticks on the machine WAY too hard. I can't afford any technical difficulties, nor can I afford to have "Number of the Beast" cut off mid-solo. I should probably buy better workout headphones.Carl:If you're listening to music on your phone, do you put both ear buds in even though you can't hear out of your right ear?
No. If I had, who's to say it's REALLY counterfeit anyway? If it looks and acts like legal tender…Keith:Do you think you've ever unwittingly passed along a counterfeit bill?
It's Fantasia. That's cheating, because Fantasia used music that was all public domain, but still. It's a fucking great soundtrack. I used to listen to it on a loop in high school. I would put Beethoven's "Pastoral" on my loudspeakers and imagine prancing through a grassy meadow with my imaginary girlfriend. I don't regret it. As a classical music DJ, ol' Walt had skills.Which Disney soundtrack is the best, which is the worst?
- Teen Beach Movie. I have definitely queued up "Meant To Be" on Spotify when no one else was around. It's a good song. Why wouldn't it be? Disney owns all of show business now. They have their pick of songwriters, musicians, performers, and crew for anything they wanna do. It's reasonable to assume that, with all those resources at their disposal, even their least ambitious shit is still gonna turn out to be pretty good.
- Beauty and the Beast. My daughter used to be obsessed with Belle and watched this movie on eternal repeat. I would get all huffy and be like, "Oh this again?" all while humming along and choking up when Belle finally breaks the curse at the end. This is the best of the mid-90s Disney soundtracks, unless you count…
- The Nightmare Before Christmas. And you should. WHAT'S THIS? WHAT'S THIS? THERE'S A SKULL UP IN MY BUTT! WHAT'S THIS? IT'S FILLED WITH HORSIE GUTS!
- Snow White. Still as corny and dated as you remember, but that's part of the charm. That movie looks and sounds like it was made back when evil witches actually existed. I was genuinely sad when my daughter left these kinda movies behind, because I knew I was probably never gonna get the chance to revisit them ever again, at least not in THAT kind of detail.
- Coco. By Twitter law, you must love Coco. The Coco hive is strong and can erupt at any time for any reason. I was in Mexico City last year for Day of the Dead. I was supposed to think about all my lost loved ones and how much I loved them. Instead, I thought about Coco. DAMN YOUR EYES, WALT.
I always knock unless the door is already ajar/open. If no one answers, but I clearly hear raging going on inside, I go ahead and open the door. If it's quiet as a church behind that door, I double check the address. I may have shown up to an actual church by mistake.Chad:What are the rules for knocking on the door vs. just walking in when showing up at a get-together/party?
Probably. You just played 18 holes of golf, gripping clubs that are positively awash in WASP germs. What difference is a flake off of Rickie Fowler's scalp gonna make? All these golfers are dirty fuckers anyway. The second they leave TPC Sawgrass, they gather at a rented McMansion nearby to do blow and fuck each other's wives and trip on fermented camel shit. The PGA can pretend their sport is some grand exercise in abiding by Emily Post's rule of etiquette. Meanwhile, their players are hanging out in Orlando, butt chugging old hot tub water. Dirty hands are the gentlest hazard they play through.Austin:Ever notice that when a group of professional golfers finishes a round, the first thing they do is take off their hats and tussle their hair and then shake hands? Am I the only one who finds this gross?
I can't believe I just Googled "Trump foot size" and didn't die, but anyway he's listed as a size 12. As with all things Trump, you should take that with a Size 50 grain of salt. But he's a tall guy, so it stands to reason he'd have the trotters to match. As a size 12 myself, I can tell you that this is not a tiny foot size. Those Brooks Brothers parachute pants of Trump's are almost certainly misleading you.Know who else is a size 12? Obama. So join us next week when Trump undergoes emergency toe-lengthening surgery to become a size 13 and defeat his sworn nemesis in the battle of the foot.Does Trump have tiny feet or are they misleading due to the giant pants he always wears?
Email of the week!
So we're visiting my grandparents this weekend, and last night my grandmother had a happy hour with a women's community group thing she's disbanding and wanted my wife and I to stop by with our one-year-old. Our daughter is juuust beginning to take her first steps and is dazzling everybody. To keep her out of the way, I pick her up and am holding her. The girl also likes to stick her finger(s) in your mouth.
Granny after dark!As she tries this trick on my grandmother (who is quite hammered at this point, as an 80-year-Old ought to be at 6 on a Thursday), I go, "careful Reenie, we don't know where those fingers have been, heh-heh." She takes a beat and replies, "Well, you don't know where my mouth has been."