I answer emails on drinking Natty Light at age 30, more racist company names, and whether or not I loathe The Sports Guy.
Inbox-O-Rama #5 is upon us. I have to tell you, I love writing these up. The questions and submissions I’m getting just keep on getting better.
As always, anyone whose question, comment, etc. is included in an Inbox-O-Rama gets a new 11 Points sticker. (Assuming you’re patient, send me your address and live in the U.S.) And the good news: They’ve arrived! They’re a little smaller than I thought they’d be but they look really cool. I’ve put one my laptop, and my girlfriend’s laptop. I didn’t ask first. Love me, love my website, I say.
Here we go…
1 | Photoshopped headlines have fooled me!
Last week in Inbox-O-Rama I posted a picture of an Irish newspaper headline reading “Massive blow jobs for Belmullet”. I found it mind-boggling. Well… it was too good to be true.
I was going to title this email “Massive Blow Jobs” but I figured that might not make it past your spam detector.
I may not be the first to inform you, but I believe the picture you displayed in your last Inbox-O-Rama was tampered with (the headline from the Mayo Advertiser). Most of the articles I have found online list the title as “Massive Jobs Blow for Belmullet” (here: http://www.advertiser.ie/mayo/article/14280 and here: http://muckrack.com/link/143776)
Also, the text in the headline appears to be altered (“blow” is set a little too close to “Massive” and the other words in the headline appear lower than the first).
May still be an actual headline, but the way I’ve seen it phrased elsewhere seems to be more believable. I don’t want it to seem like someone did this intentionally to fool people, but … I don’t know for sure.
Just wanted to give you a heads up. Love your site.
–Jennifer in Omaha, NE
Aww shit. Irish, you gonna mess with me and fool me with your headlines, I’m going to fool you with mine. I hired a virtual personal assistant in Bangalore to submit the following photo to 80 Irish newspapers and websites every day:
2 | T9 Switch of the Week
Every week I get great submissions for words that T9 predictive text switches out for other words. (Like last week’s Smirnoff-poisonedswitch.) Here’s the best one I got this week…
The t9 on my LG [prefers] the word “jews” to “keys”.
–Bridge (via Twitter)
That is a good one. I would find it hilarious to get a text that said, “Come home, we’re locked out and need your jews” or “That guy cut me off, let’s go jew his car” or “Matt Millen said that stopping the run and drafting wide receivers are the jews to victory.”
3 | Favorites on So You Think You Can Dance?
Last year I did a list on 11 reasons why So You Think You Can Dance is better than American Idol, and one on 11 reasons why American Idol is better than So You Think You Can Dance.
Have never received a question about either show until this one…
Who is your favorite choreographer- dance wise, and who is your favorite choreographer- judging panel wise?
Mine would be Mia Michaels dance wise, and Lil C for the judging panel, his method of critiquing is always so entertaining.
–Amanda (via Twitter)
Choreography-wise, I think my favorite remains Shane Sparks. I know that’s controversial and he doesn’t always “hit”, but he’s done my favorite hip-hop routines on the show. I also like Doriana Sanchez a lot, but mostly that’s because I think the disco dances are always great. Mia Michaels and Wade Robson are clearly the most talented, but sometimes get so far up their own asses that their routines piss me off.
I’m still not sold on Tabitha and Napoleon, Sonya or Mandy Moore. Tyce DiOrio is hit or miss for me. And Alex de Silva had OK routines, but he was arrested for sexual assault, so he ain’t coming back.
As for judges, Lil C is actually one of my least favorites. Only Debbie Allen is consistently worse. Without any hesitation my favorite guest judge is Adam Shankman. I think his personality can be polarizing but I find his judging to be funny, useful and accurate.
4 | In defense of Natty Light
When I turned 30 back in August, I lamented it with two lists. In last week’s Inbox-O-Rama, I told a story that included my friends and me drinking Natural Light. Which prompted this…
ewww… natty light? really? aren’t you 30?
–Mallorie
Well there really isn’t any retort for that (other than “at least it wasn’t Boone’s Farm”)… but I would still like to speak in my defense. At age 30, I still play a whole lot of flip cup. I feel that game is timeless. And in flip cup, you’re not really tasting the beer. (Thus the infamous 11 Best Crappy Domestic Beers list I wrote back when this site was less than a week old.)
So if occasionally, during a beer-purchasing trip, you grab an extra 30 of Natural Light (for around $11, mind you)… it’s not the end of the world. It’s a cheap insurance policy against running out, and since you’re not really drinking the beer for its full-bodied flavor and rich tones anyway, I say, why not?
Also, I’m terrible at being 30.
5 | The gingers are coming!
There’s been much talk on this site about gingers. Two vigilant readers wrote in to warn me about a recent festival that brought together 3,000 gingers…
They’re plotting something: Ginger festival
–Derek
And…
Hey, Sam, love the 11 Points lists, just thought you might want to check this Redheads Festival thingie, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8245290.stm
–Daniel
And while I don’t trust them (I strongly believe gingers are the second-most-likely people to be plotting world domination, only trailing the Germans, and just ahead of the Chinese)… I’d like to think they all got together and sang this in harmony:
Hand in hand, we can live together,
Ginger or not, we’re all the same.
Black or white, brown or red,
We shouldn’t kill each other, ’cause it’s lame.
6 | On Baseketball
In my list of 11 Firsts In Internet History, I speculated that the guy who invented the first search engine, Archie, was probably so upset he didn’t push harder and create Google that one day he was found hanging by his neck in his fucking closet. In last week’s Inbox-O-Rama, I posted an e-mail from that guy, because he actually wrote me to tell me no, he’s very much alive.
But, as of last week, I had repeated the line “hanging from his neck in his fucking closet” twice, without anyone catching the reference. Until finally, this e-mail came…
I missed it the first time, but nice Baseketball reference, I freaking love that movie.
–Hiller
Yes! Someone finally caught my Baseketball reference! Which finally lets me share this list of the 11 dumbest comedies I inexplicably love. I didn’t think this list warranted its own full 11 Points but it’s perfect to include here…
- Baseketball
- Dead Man on Campus
- White Chicks
- Miss Congeniality
- The Stoned Age
- Good Burger
- Eurotrip
- The Ladies Man
- Dirty Work
- Half Baked
- Orgazmo
I look forward to defending at least one of these choices (and probably more) in next week’s Inbox-O-Rama.
7 | Flipping houses
A great observation based off my 11 For Dummies Books That Are Actually For Dummies list…
Did anyone else notice that “Flipping Houses for Dummies” now comes bundled with “Loan Modification for Dummies?” Hilarious!
–Anonymous (via Facebook)
Well you’ve got to upsell! That’s just as natural as if they paired Vista For Dummies with Repairing The Computer You Threw Out The Window For Dummies.
8 | Sam’s internship at the Jerry Springer show
This week, the fine people at Cracked.com posted a link to an older list of mine. In that list, I mention my three-month internship at the Jerry Springer show when I was in college back in 1999.
did you really spend three months in college interning at the “Jerry Springer Show”? If so, what was the most outrageous part?
–Pikzeequeen (via Twitter)
Yes, I really did work at the Jerry Springer show. Sadly, it was during that transitional era between film cameras and digital cameras so I don’t have any pictures from my time there. (I was never a big film camera guy.)
I might do an 11 Points list just on the crazy stuff I saw and experienced there. But to start, when I think about my craziest experience, it was my first day. I had been there for less than 10 minutes when I got my first assignment: Run out to the Walgreens nearby to buy razors, so a man could shave his legs (which would be revealed to his wife when he told her he was secretly a cross dresser).
Second-weirdest? When a stripper from Kentucky pulled me into the bathroom in an effort to seduce me while, meanwhile, all of the Midwestern tourist women in said bathroom watched. (Needless to say, her attempt failed.) (Actually, I probably needed to say that.)
9 | That ain’t right
A new photo submitted as a follow-up to my 11 Accidentally Racist Product and Company Names list…
i was thinking of your unintentionally funny/racist lists, and just so you know, there is a bar in WI called Nig’s Bar.
–Adam (via Twitter)
Yeah, might want to change that. When I was putting together the accidentally racist products list, this one just missed the cut…
Definitely along the same lines. Sometimes, even if your name has been around forever and you can cite tradition, it reaches the point of being so offensive you’ve got to change it.
On an unrelated note, I’m watching my beloved Cleveland Indians and I barely recognize any of the players.
10 | Sam and the Sports Guy
In my new season of NFL picks, I’m using picks by ESPN.com’s The Sports Guy as one of my 11 predictive methods. In that first set of picks, I wailed on the Sports Guy a bit. That brought this e-mail…
I read both your column and Bill Simmons column. I find you both tremendously entertaining…I even went as far as to tell my friend Randi, who introduced me to 11points.com, that I felt as if you were strongly influenced by The Sports Guy because you’re writing styles are incredibly similar. I too am a Journalism major and find that it’s easy to spot his avid readers because they tend to pick up his writing mannerisms..so imagine my surprise when I read that you actually hated him..a lot. What gives? Major fan of your column btw, keep up the amazing work!!
Love, Kellen
First of all, I think it’s great that you ended it “love”!
The reason I go after The Sports Guy is professional jealousy, nothing more, nothing less. He basically won the blogger lottery — he started early, his blog caught the right eyes, and he found his way into high-profile job at ESPN making six figures to write a column once or twice a week. It even got him a staff writing job at Jimmy Kimmel for a while. This all makes me seethingly jealous.
Oh, and, in general, I find Boston sports fans to be abrasive, boorish and entitled… I hate The Sports Guy’s stance that watching football at home is more fun than watching at a stadium… and, most of all, I hate that he went on auto-pilot years ago and never tries any new ideas or even jokes. He’s better than that.
So while I understand that people will inevitably compare the two of us, I like to think I’m working this hard to take the funny columnist thing to a different level. And I will do my best to never copy The Sports Guy.
11 | I pranked him to death with a tire iron
Sam, I’ve been reading all the inbox-o-ramas and I noticed that nothing was selected on your list about passed out people (here). I thought [this, and it’s] pretty hilarious…
Mix egg whites and pepper and rub it on your prank-ee’s asshole. They will wake up the next day with a burning, slimy asshole and will think they had a gay escapade.
–Victor in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Yup, these are my readers.