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A Few Random Things, and a Celebration of Our Unpopular Opinions!

September 12, 2016 By Jeff 55 Comments

hawaiiI work with a guy at my current job who I also worked with at my previous job. It’s weird. Our offices were a few feet away at the old place, and now our cubicles are roughly the same distance apart at our current place.

Anyway, a few days ago I asked him if that mustachioed doucheflap who sells MyPillows on TV reminds him of one of our old co-workers. He looked at me like I was deranged, but didn’t put up too much of an argument.

“The thing I remember about him,” he said, “is that his wife used to give him a box for Christmas, with ten handmade vouchers inside. Whenever he wanted to have sex, he had to hand over one of the vouchers. She gave him ten for the whole year.”

Can that possibly be true? I want it to be, but it sounds like a tall tale.

I remember hearing a story about some kid whose father would fly off the handle every November, and take his car away from him. Then, he’d give it back as a Christmas present. Again… I hope it’s true, but have my doubts.

What are your favorite please-be-true tall tales about friends or co-workers that you’ve heard? Share ’em in the comments section.

And for the record, that dude looked EXACTLY like the MyPillow man. I mean, seriously. I stand by the statement.

rsz_the_pookieI took this picture of Andy yesterday. He was begging for a hunk o’ the peach muffin I was eating, so I took the opportunity to snap a photo. And it turned out so well, I texted it to a few people.

“Is Andy OK?!” the first response read. A few minutes later somebody else reacted similarly. Then my parents called in a semi-panic… Apparently everybody thought I was doing some kind of “in memoriam” mass email. Sheesh. Can’t I simply spread the cuteness without it meaning something tragic?

To be fair, he is very old. He’s 15 now. In fact, we got him two days before 9/11. He came from the pound, and cost something like $106. I guess you could say he’s a rescue? I wouldn’t, because I try very hard not to be an insufferable shitbag. But you could, if you wanted. Me? I prefer “came from the pound, and cost $106.”

State of the dog report: He’s fine, except he can’t hear very well, and doesn’t get up the stairs as quickly as he once did. He still eats and drinks and begs like a champion. And if he’s aware the mailman is on the property, he still goes ass over tits. He just doesn’t always hear him these days. He’s lying right here, in the doorway of the bunker, working on his 22 hours of daily sleep. He’s a fantastic human being.

OK, I’m back. I just hugged him.

Speaking of “in memoriam” I saw a curtain of flesh surging through Wal-Mart the other day with one of those RIP Cody 1989-2012 Never forget! tattoos between her shoulder blades. A touching tribute for sure, possibly even more heartfelt than a decal on the rear window of a Chevy Lumina with no wheel covers. I’m sorry… I’m getting a little emotional.

Wonder what happened to Cody? How much you wanna bet the official version of events is “bullshit?” I’m just throwing it out there.

I’m almost finished with this book, and have been laughing my ass off. Seriously funny stuff!

About a month ago I was 40 episodes behind on the Marc Maron podcast. The first episode I heard was a few weeks before the infamous Gallagher “interview,” and I’ve listened to nearly every episode since then. So, that’s about 600 episodes. Crazy!

In any case, I got way behind with it, finally hunkered down, and ripped through 40 lengthy interviews in about a month. The most recent episode (not counting today’s) was with Billy Crystal. I had no idea he went to Marshall University on a baseball scholarship. Or maybe I knew, and forgot? I went to Marshall — for a short while. There was girlfriend trouble, some other trouble… There’s no real point in going into it at this late date.

There were only two episodes of the Maron podcast that I couldn’t finish: the lead singer of Radiohead, and some insufferable blowhard actress. I can’t even remember her name now. The Radiohead guy was pompous as fuck, and also humorless. It was as if he could barely speak from underneath the great weight of his intellect.

Thinking back on that festival of pretension, it made me want to try the “share your unpopular opinions” thing again. I raised it recently and it didn’t get a huge response. I think it’s a good Question, though, and I’m going to try it again. I’ll share a handful of my unpopular opinions, and ask you to do the same in the comments. Hopefully these will prime the pump?

I’d much rather listen to Eddie Money than Radiohead.

Domino’s makes a damn good pizza. Not the best in the world, but better than most people would like to admit.

There are two scenes in Deliverance that make me grimace even more than the hillbilly sodomy scene. The sodomy comes in at number three.

I kind of like the smell of skunk.

There’s almost nothing that makes me want to change the channel faster than Family Guy.

If you have anything on this, we’re all ears! Or eyes, I guess. We’re all eyes.

See you again soon.

Have a great day, my friends!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Laina says

    September 12, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    The smell of fresh asphalt is so appealing to me it makes my mouth water. I think it is because it reminds me of the beach?

    Reply
  2. Griff says

    September 12, 2016 at 1:57 pm

    I think Quentin Tarantino is largely overrated and is an editor with the balls to tell him “no” away from being a great film maker.

    Reply
  3. DaveF says

    September 12, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    Eating seafood is nothing but a game of intestinal Russian roulette.

    Reply
  4. Walter says

    September 12, 2016 at 2:50 pm

    I like McDonalds chicken McNuggets with hot mustard dipping sauce.

    Reply
    • icecycle66 says

      September 12, 2016 at 5:34 pm

      I like cold McNuggets.

      Reply
  5. MikeFromLongIsland says

    September 12, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    I didn’t have time read the whole entry but noticed the pic.

    Is Andy OK?

    Reply
    • Walter says

      September 12, 2016 at 3:25 pm

      Well done sir.

      Reply
  6. Uncle_Wedgie says

    September 12, 2016 at 4:26 pm

    Dogs are absolutely the best human beings. Particularly if you have already used up your 10 vouchers and it is not February yet.

    Reply
  7. Pdparrot says

    September 12, 2016 at 4:33 pm

    Listen to a complete Phish song is 100 times worse than listening to the Grateful Dead. But not by much.

    Reply
    • johnthebasket says

      September 13, 2016 at 6:33 am

      I don’t understand the mathematics in play here. I’ve been a Dead fan since Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty (both 1970) and I think the Dead is two orders of magnitude better than Phish (roughly 100 times) and that seems to me to be a difference that exceeds “not by much”. I admit to the possibility that I’m missing something due to a flashback from those early days.

      jtb

      Reply
  8. RAR says

    September 12, 2016 at 4:37 pm

    I worked for many years in a pharmaceutical research laboratory with some of the brightest people you can imagine. With this wazoo intellect comes some pretty odd baggage. Most of the bosses were seriously OCD (Oral-Compulsive Disorder). A few examples: some would wash their hands every 5 minutes and line up all pencils, tablets and lab ware so that all things were either parallel or perpendicular. Your annual review would usually be gigged for “needs improvement in organizational skills” (i.e., pencil straitening, paper tablet alignment and curious hand washing). A coworker had a peanut butter sandwich and a Mason jar of tap water every lunch for 7 years. A lady coworker would occasionally come in wearing lip stick apparently applied with a 1″ paint roller. During those episodes, she would be extremely angry, actually threatening one of her fellow lab mates with a throat slitting. The word would go out immediately if the “Slash” came to work so bedecked…management thought she was a good worker. Another lab guy would deliberately come in at 4am so he could leave at noon (after smoking 2 packs of Pall Malls, drink about a gallon of instant coffee and accomplishing nothing). Another lab guy (M.S. Cal Tech) would rat through the trash cans looking for metal bits (solvent cans, wire, etc.) to be turned in for extra $$$ at the local metal monger. And we wonder why our drug prices are so high?

    Old dogs are great….!

    Reply
    • icecycle66 says

      September 12, 2016 at 5:36 pm

      “4am so he could leave at noon (after smoking 2 packs of Pall Malls, drink about a gallon of instant coffee and accomplishing nothing)”

      My boss does that.
      The mornings are rough, but the afternoons are pretty good.

      Reply
  9. Joe T. says

    September 12, 2016 at 4:45 pm

    I like my cereal soggy. Any sign of crispness means I’ll wait.

    Reply
  10. Joey Jo Jo says

    September 12, 2016 at 4:45 pm

    – Kid Rock is not horrible.

    – Sriracha is worse than Hitler.

    – People who pronounce it “Chipoltay” need an ass-kicking.

    Wait, that third one might be popular…

    Reply
  11. STLSteve says

    September 12, 2016 at 5:11 pm

    – The smell of bleach is fantastic.
    – Star Wars sucks.
    – Rolling Stones are better than the Beatles.

    Reply
  12. jg says

    September 12, 2016 at 5:21 pm

    The Beatles were in the right place at the right time. Every band in the world could play those three chords. Resting on laurels made Paul “Someone’s knocking at the door, somebody’s ringin’ a bell. Do me a favor, open the door, let ’em in” a billionaire.

    Also Frank Sinatra was overrated. So is Bob ‘Nosferatu’ Dylan.

    Reply
  13. icecycle66 says

    September 12, 2016 at 5:33 pm

    I was on TDY to Newport News last year and I decided that I would take no music with me. I would only live on what came over the radio waves. During a particularly horrible commute there was nothing on the radio but garbage. After listening to the auto-scan for about 10 minutes I hear “Two Tickets to Paradise” playing. I said out loud, “Thank god for Eddie Money”.

    When “White Wedding” came on after that i said “Thank god for Billy Idol”. Those are things I never thought I would ever have a reason to say.

    —–

    I’m part of a group of people from my home town that are immune to, or like, the smell of skunk. During pre-school and kindergarten there were a lot of skunk family problems living under the aluminum building our classrooms were in. Kids would go home sprayed a few times a month. Now when we pass a dead one on the road I take deep breaths through my nose.

    —–

    Steve Martin is about as funny as Maya Angelou reading letters from Auschwitz.

    —–

    Weird hair color and piercings can make ugly bitches hot.

    —–

    Ketchup is great on hot dogs.

    —–

    Apples suck.

    —–

    Reply
  14. icecycle66 says

    September 12, 2016 at 5:39 pm

    Hitler had some good ideas.

    Diet Coke tastes good.

    Artificial banana flavor is a delight.

    Congress does a damn fine job.

    The current presidential candidates are each so good it’s hard to choose.

    Joe Satriani is over rated.

    There isn’t enough swearing in Deadwood.

    Communism isn’t a very good theory on paper, but it works out great in practice.

    Reply
  15. PamInPA says

    September 12, 2016 at 6:43 pm

    I cringe whenever I see one of those “In Memoriam” stickers on a car window. It just seems like a cheap attempt to gain attention and sympathy, as if every other person on the planet has not lost a loved one. No need to announce to the world that your pain is somehow more special and important than the next person’s pain. And what, exactly, is/was done “in memoriam?” The purchase of the vehicle? The douchey driving? The slapping of the sticker on the window? What an embarrassingly lame memorial!

    Reply
    • Uncle_Wedgie says

      September 12, 2016 at 7:03 pm

      How about the “In Memoriam” sticker next the two parents, seven kids and a dog stickers?

      Reply
      • Jack says

        September 12, 2016 at 9:33 pm

        Is it a bad thing that suddenly I want a fake “In Memoriam” sticker on my car?

        Reply
      • johnthebasket says

        September 12, 2016 at 10:13 pm

        Unk,

        More entertaining: The “In Memoriam” next to the two parents, seven kids and a dog stickers with one of the seven kids mostly scratched out.

        jtb

        Reply
        • Revashanes says

          September 13, 2016 at 6:32 am

          whoowee!! John that was a good one.

          Reply
        • madz1962 says

          September 13, 2016 at 7:05 pm

          Hilarious, jtb!!!

          Reply
  16. Rod Torfulson says

    September 12, 2016 at 9:53 pm

    I could see if those vouchers were for some depraved, questionable shit then maybe that’d be a cool gift. But straight sex? I wouldn’t turn any in and then when she asked about them in May or June, I’d tell her, oh, yeah, sorry, I found someone else to redeem them. Thought I mentioned that. Hope that’s ok, it was a better deal. 2-for-1, you know. Plus, when I get ten punches on my card, I get a free half-and-half with an around-the-world.

    Reply
    • johnthebasket says

      September 12, 2016 at 10:16 pm

      I had a different idea about what to do with the vouchers . . . Ten times is hardly worth it, so sell them to guys at the bar for twenty bucks apiece. You get two hundred bucks, and the wife gets a little variety in her life.

      I like it when everybody wins.

      jtb

      Reply
  17. T-storm says

    September 12, 2016 at 11:56 pm

    I once saw the Sex Vouchers open up for STP. It was a good day.

    I had a hard time getting through the Lucinda Williams WTF episode.

    I sometimes have a hard time getting through a Carolla episode because it’s 20 minutes of “a good family and education and you’ll overcome all of your problems” followed by “my family was garbage and i barely passed high school”.

    Reply
    • Pat says

      September 13, 2016 at 11:13 am

      That is the reason I had to stop listening to Carolla. There might be 45 min of good stuff in one of his 2 hour podcasts.

      Reply
  18. Gordian Knott says

    September 13, 2016 at 6:47 am

    I guess you could say he’s a rescue? I wouldn’t, because I try very hard not to be an insufferable shitbag. But you could, if you wanted. Me? I prefer “came from the pound, and cost $106.”

    Every time I read this paragraph, it knocks me over. Sentences like these are why I come back to this site through the years.

    I’m guessing the grimacing scenes in Deliverance are:

    1. Early in the film when the hillbilly dude, hammering in the garage, hits his thumb

    2. Late in the film when John Voight, struggling to shoot an arrow at the hillbilly rapist on the cliff, accidently shoots himself instead, lodging the arrow in his side

    Care to weigh in Jeff?

    Reply
    • Jeff Kay says

      September 13, 2016 at 9:55 am

      The whole cliff segment almost gave me a full-on heart attack. I don’t know why, but I had a hard time watching it. Also, the part where Burt Reynolds’ character crawled out of the water and had a big fucking bone sticking out of his leg. Blecch.

      Reply
      • Gordian Knott says

        September 13, 2016 at 12:01 pm

        Forgot about the bone. Yep, major props to the makeup department for pulling that off.

        For me, grimacing moments in order probably would be: 1) Reynold’s cracked femur 2) cliff segment with misdirected arrow 3) Ronny Cox (townie dude with guitar)’s corpse with his arm bent at weird angle due to accident in rapids 4) John Voight’s dreaming of corpse emerging from river at end of film 5) hillbilly dude and hammer 4) Hillbilly rapist gutted by Reynold’s arrow 5) rape stuff.

        Also, the Ned Beatty character, covering for John Voight’s disturbed weeping at the boarding house table causing an awkward silence, saying “this corn is real special ain’t it.”

        Reply
  19. Limey says

    September 13, 2016 at 12:00 pm

    When the time comes I’ll personally pay for an “In Memoriam Andy 2001-202n” back tattoo of him laying a yard cruller.

    (Note I’ve given him at least 3 more years).

    Reply
  20. Westersteve says

    September 14, 2016 at 12:23 am

    Beatles or Rolling Stones is like trying to determine which diarrhea pile looks best.
    Cars are only good to get from point A to B.
    Pro football is fake.
    Country music is what pop music from the 70’s should have become.
    If you care about iPhone vs Android you are a dick.
    Rap music and hip hop are the Phish and Greatful Dead for the new century, music as an afterthought.
    Religion is for the weak.
    Science is not always right.
    Ann Coulter would look fine after a few drinks.
    Star Wars is only good at 10 yr intervals.
    Star Trek TOS was the best.

    Reply
    • Root 66 says

      September 14, 2016 at 9:21 am

      I totally agree with the pro football comment! Also, I once had a guy practically in tears because I told him that pro “wrestling” was fake. He was thoroughly convinced otherwise!

      Reply
  21. AngryWhiteGuy says

    September 14, 2016 at 6:20 am

    Dear Sirius xm Jay Thomas sucks

    Dealdash mall commercial Want to punch that guy

    Icycle good call on Joe Satriani

    Reply
  22. Root 66 says

    September 14, 2016 at 9:15 am

    I’m certain I have a myriad of unpopular opinions, but here are just a couple:

    -“New-York-style” pizza is NOT good pizza.

    -Music from the 1970’s (all genres) was some of the most creative of our time. Why do you think current artists have to do remakes of it?

    -I really liked the original “Batman” TV series with Adam West! He will always be the real Batman to me. The “Dark Knight” stuff is garbage!

    “Curtain of flesh surging through Wal-Mart…” this is precisely why I always read this site! 🙂

    Reply
  23. chill says

    September 14, 2016 at 7:07 pm

    WTF… I’ve been trying to post a comment, and the ‘post comment’ button produces a 404.

    Ah, OK. Deleting cookies fixed it. Never mind.

    And one of my unpopular opinions is that I prefer a manual transmission and won’t buy a car with an automatic.

    Reply
    • Limey says

      September 14, 2016 at 9:25 pm

      Same here, but we’re a dying breed. You can’t have a self-driving manual transmission car, so our days are numbered. I should buy a minivan for my family car (for business use, not because of over breeding) and there are exactly zero stick shift mommy vans available 🙁

      Why don’t you get stuck in the snow? Manual transmission and defeatable traction control. The horror.

      I am going to do my damnedest to keep a stick shift toy in the garage as long as possible.

      Reply
      • chill says

        September 14, 2016 at 10:39 pm

        I can certainly get stuck in the snow, but my car allows me to turn ON the traction control. It’s off by default. Not only a manual shift, but also RWD and sticky summer tires. It’s my one and only car. No toys allowed; around here machines earn their keep.

        But as far as the present day is concerned: if the roads are that bad, then my work is closed. As for the past, all cars were RWD and most were manual shift. We learned to cope. The kids today do not learn to cope.

        Reply
        • Limey says

          September 15, 2016 at 5:32 pm

          I’ve tried driving my mid-engined RWD manual shift sticky summer tired toy car in the snow and it just doesn’t work. I have sledded down a hill in it. Not doing that again 🙂

          Reply
    • madz1962 says

      September 14, 2016 at 9:37 pm

      I got that 404 shit too.

      Reply
    • Erin says

      September 16, 2016 at 11:57 am

      I’ve had one car that wasn’t a manual transmission in my 25 years of driving – and I hated it. Just got a new car last summer (my first in over a decade), and had to search high and low to get the manual I wanted. I plan on driving this one for at least the next decade. Not sure what the hell I’ll do after that…

      Reply
  24. madz1962 says

    September 14, 2016 at 9:38 pm

    When I’m feeling really happy and uplifted, I like to blast “the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and dance a lot.

    Reply
    • chill says

      September 14, 2016 at 10:31 pm

      Wow, what could be less danceable? – “The Way We Were?”

      Reply
      • madz1962 says

        September 15, 2016 at 5:02 am

        Wild Fire and that other song Shannon about the dog come to mind. Classic 70s feel good music!

        Reply
  25. johnthebasket says

    September 15, 2016 at 7:01 am

    Chill,

    With respect, we have Reporters who don’t understand that the Stones, the Beatles and Dylan invented the second wave of rock by combining blues scales, chords and lyrics with Wave 1 Little Richard/Elvis/Buddy Holly/Chuck Berry sounds and changed the world. If Madz wants to boogie to a sinking boat, that strikes me as the least of the problems in these comments.

    I WILL stipulate that listening to Wildfire can cause significant damage to the prefrontal cortex and the liver.

    John

    Reply
    • madz1962 says

      September 15, 2016 at 9:27 am

      Mine was just a little tongue in cheek unpopular opinion.

      Reply
    • Lee Harvey Ramone says

      September 15, 2016 at 1:16 pm

      What Wave are we on currently? The erosion is getting too profound for me to keep up.

      Reply
      • johnthebasket says

        September 15, 2016 at 6:22 pm

        I have no idea. It’s pretty easy to keep track of the first couple of waves of anything (feminism, the farm worker movement, LBGT rights, the Tea Party, etc. – literally millions of movements), but after that there’s always splintering, fading, morphing – all the stuff that happens when large groups of people try to do something together. Nothing profound here: Sociology 101.

        I wasn’t responding to individual taste (you like Michael Murphy, that’s fine with me: I’m partial to Carolina in my Pants) except for the comments where people who are probably too young to have been there don’t have a context for appreciating the three acts I noted. And it was one sentence: a lot fewer that it has taken to explain it. What the hell: Jeff asked for unpopular opinions.

        jtb

        Reply
        • westersteve says

          September 16, 2016 at 4:10 pm

          Lighten up , Francis … and reread the title of the original post.

          Reply
          • johnthebasket says

            September 16, 2016 at 5:03 pm

            Yeah, maybe I’m reading it wrong. I thought it said “unpopular opinions”. About half the comments (and it’s nice to see so many comments) seem to interpret that as absurd opinions or provocative opinions. I interpreted the QOD to mean opinions one has that are not broadly shared. Sorry I didn’t get the idea, but I’m glad to hear you were joking about the music stuff.

            best as always,

            John

            Reply
  26. Lee Harvey Ramone says

    September 15, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    Any Gordon Lightfoot will do just fine in a pinch. Is that too unpopular?

    Reply
    • Limey says

      September 16, 2016 at 8:40 am

      His favourite snack is pasta? WTF, that’s not a snack.

      Reply
      • johnthebasket says

        September 16, 2016 at 5:03 pm

        . . . and he keeps mispronouncing it.

        Reply
  27. Jason says

    September 17, 2016 at 10:30 am

    Oreo cookies are shit. Budweiser is shit. People who make unnecessary noise are shit.

    Reply

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