Your letters:

Peter:

How many years away do you think we are from being able to upload a picture of a platonic friend/sexy coworker/friend's mom and have the internet do a facial recognition search for porn starring someone that looks similar?


Even though I'm certain that workers at the Pentagon already have access to high-tech facial recognition software that allows them to search for Redtube videos of your mom banging her pastor, the current consumer offerings in this department are woefully thin. I found a site called Pictriev that claimed to be able to search for faces on the web. So I took my head shot (HANDSOME) and uploaded it. Pictriev told me there was a 55 percent chance the face I uploaded was that of a man. It said my approximate age was 25, which was flattering but wrong. It also said I looked like Brendan Fraser, which I think is still flattering, but wrong. Then it displayed a gallery of similar faces on the web. Here is that gallery:


There's a 24 percent chance that I'm Diane Kruger. I don't think I'd have a problem if that turned out to be true. I'd just throw on a Helen of Troy costume and diddle myself all day long.

Pictriev did manage to turn up one Photoshop of me from the web, so I guess my search was a "success." But none of the pictures they turned up were porny in nature. Chances are, any attempt to plug in a bikini picture of that secretary you stalk on Facebook will turn up empty.

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Most other sites that search for faces (including, of course, Facebook) do so using tags. They don't actually scan your face for unique features and octagonal glasses, the way Roger Moore's computer could in For Your Eyes Only. I know that sucks, because we'd all like to think that there's a Sarah Phillips porn tape out there just begging to be discovered. But consider all the terrifying alternative uses for widespread facial recognition technology. Someone could use it to steal your identity. A stalker could use to search for all photos of you on the web, then print them and cut them out and make a little shrine to you that will only be complete once your liver is resting in a silver bowl in the center of it. Employers could easily find that Photoshop your friends made of you fucking a donkey in a hot tub. If this technology is not yet fully developed, it's not the worst thing on Earth.

Zack:

I was in a wedding over the weekend, and while we were sequestered away waiting for thing to start, somehow we got on the topic of American Pie. Let's assume there must be a number of people, let's call it X, who saw that movie and subsequently stuck their dick into a pie to see how it felt. What percentage of X, let's call it Y, burned their dick when they put it into the aforementioned pie? My gut tells me that anyone dumb enough to put their penis in a pastry would likely do it too quickly and torch their dong, so I'd put the over/under at Y = 85 percent. Others (WITH DISTURBINGLY KNOWING CONFIDENCE) said it'd be as low as 15 percent, because someone who isn't afraid to put their dick into things has put their dick into things before and isn't going to put their dick into something all willy-nilly. What's your estimation on Y?


See now, this is the kind of question that should be on the SAT. What makes you think it's "dumb" to stick your dick in a pie? You could be a MENSA member and still want to do it because you just wanna see how it all plays out.

I think your friends are closer to the correct percentage than you are, for a handful of reasons. First of all, most pies keep without refrigeration, so the average pie is already out on the counter at perfect room temperature. No need to microwave it and subject your dick to dreaded microwave hot spots in the center apple ooze. Everyone knows that, after about three seconds in the microwave, pie filling becomes hotter to the touch than a fucking exhaust pipe. Few boys would dare risk their manhood for that. For even heating, you'd have to toss it back in the conventional oven. And if you're gonna fuck a pie, you're gonna be too horny to stand there with a rock hard dick waiting for it to heat up for twenty minutes. You'll just nut into an oven mitt ten seconds later because you can't stand it anymore.


Also, I'd be willing to wager that the majority of piefuckers out there fuck store-bought pies. If your mom was nice enough to make a pie from scratch, you're not gonna defile it, and if you are, you're not gonna do it right after she pulled it out of the oven. You're going to bang one of those cheap whore apple pies from Safeway, the kind someone buys in bulk for a library fundraiser or some shit like that. That's a pie you can get away with stealing and raping.

As someone who made love to handful of food products as a teenager, I can tell you that the temptation to have sex with a pie is real, and that most boys usually end up regretting it. It doesn't feel as good as it oughtta feel, and it makes a huge mess, so much so that you begin worrying about the cleanup well before you've achieved orgasm. Once you get to my age, you've put your dick through Hell on Earth and come to realize that a fistful of lotion is always the way to go.


Jeff:

Since implementing the horribly frustrating new kickoff spot to the 35-yard line, I've noticed many kickoffs that have made there way through the uprights. Shouldn't there be some kind of reward for doing this? What if by making the kickoff through the upright it resulted in pinning the opposing team on the 10-yard line instead of the 20?


Works for me. I've also thought that any returner who fields a kickoff and lets his momentum carry him out of the back or side of the end zone should get whistled for a safety and the summarily spit on by local fans. They let returners get away with murder back there. You could balance the ball on your facemask for 10 minutes and they'd still call it a touchback.

Roman:

In Under Siege, Bad Billy and the Bailjumpers et al. take over the ship. Were these guys terrorists trained to be musicians or vice versa? Terrorist and kick-ass rock musicians? Dual threats!


Obviously, Tommy Lee Jones is a former US agent gone rogue, so terrorist is his day job. As for the band he hired, I presume that they were all mercenaries to begin with and then Tommy had them learn their instruments as part of their cover, which seems like a lot of work, but no one said taking over a battleship was a cakewalk.

But then the band would have to be credible enough to get hired to play a show on the boat, which means they would have to cut demos, play in clubs, and gather up something a following in order to get notice of the U.S. Navy. And that's a real stretch, considering this is a movie where an entire band of terrorists is foiled by a cook.


Brad F:

What if you had to choose one meal you'll be consuming three times a day for 30 straight days. That meal cannot be changed or modified in any way throughout the challenge. What would you choose? On what day do you officially began to hate what you are eating (if ever) and after your 30 days are up, do you think you'd be able to eat that meal ever again? I swear I could knock down a couple tasty sushi rolls for the entire time and would never give up eating said rolls again. Then again 90 meals is a long fucking time!


Take it from someone who once flushed sushi down the toilet at an all-you-can-eat sushi joint, you could not have sushi for 90 meals in a row. You'd die. Your best bet would be to have some kind of breakfast or lunch food that you have every day. I could eat Cocoa Puffs every morning for three months and be relatively pleased with the arrangement. Make it all three meals of the day and maybe I can pull through. Or maybe there's a sandwich you always have for lunch that might also be acceptable at other hours of the day. Record holder Don Gorske has eaten a Big Mac at every meal for years, even though I bet he's lying. You could find an item that's agreeable enough to take the distance, but the key is that it would have to be a relatively staid choice, like an Italian sub or a an Egg McMuffin. If you try to get all crazy and pick chicken tikka masala, your bowels might never forgive you. Personally, I would choose some kind of breakfast sandwich, with eggs and ham and bacon and shit. Never goes out of style.


Nat:

This problem in my physics textbook appears to involve Superman taking a hit from a massive bong.


"What if, like, Krypton had just been in my head this whole time? Whoa."

Eric:

Would you rather never have to wipe your ass after taking a dump, or never have to shake your dick after taking a piss?


A lifetime free of wiping has its advantages. I can only imagine the ego boost that comes with strutting out of a stall having done no paperwork of any kind. I've laid down some clean dumps in my time, but I've never worked up the courage to forgo wiping. I lack the cocksure attitude needed to say: "You know what? NO WIPE. I know I just threw a perfect game." I always have to check, so it would be fun to have that kind of confidence.

Not to mention the fact that you could skimp on toilet paper. Not only is toilet paper costly, but it's a cumbersome item that takes up precious real estate in the grocery cart. If you put an economy-size pack of Charmin in your cart, what else can you fit in the cart? A pack of fucking cheese slices, that's what. Either that, or you have to tuck the TP under the cart on that little shelf they give you, and I NEVER remember that the TP is down there. Lord knows how many times I've enriched the local grocery store by purchasing TP and then just leaving it there for them to pick up and re-sell. FUCKERS.


All that said, I'll take the clean pissing. Because I'm accident prone. For once, I'd like to go to a job interview and not have a pee stain on my khakis.

Curt:

What would you do with your own personal Death Hawk? Let's say this thing is near invincible and you are the only falconer who can control its immense power. If you were dead, it would fly free going berserk, so the authorities have to keep you alive. Would you use it for good or evil? Would you use it to kill your enemies and snatch bags of money from unsuspecting armored car guards? Or would it deliver canned goods to kids in Africa and solve the Asian carp problem in the Great Lakes?


I would simply license it for use. If the U.S. government needed my Death Hawk to take out the three of clubs in the terrorist deck, then they can jolly well pay my ass $3 million for the privilege. And if some kid wanted to hire my Death Hawk to kill a shark at his birthday party, his family is gonna pay up. I'd also happily rent out my death hawk for important courier work. If sensitive materials need to be shipped, you're gonna trust my Death Hawk more than some klutz working for UPS. It's not the most exciting way to use a Death Hawk, but I'm no fool. I'm milking that thing for all it's worth.

HALFTIME!

Jeff:

How many people do you think people have suggested to Anthony Davis that he shave his unibrow? Somehow has had to have said something, right? Is it possible that no one has the balls to tell him how ridiculous he looks? If he has any real friends they would surely rip on him for it all the time. Do you think he's just the weirdest dude on the planet and thinks he looks good? Maybe he believes if he shaves the unibrow he will lose his basketball abilities.


I think that when you're about to become the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft and a multimillionaire, you could have a lizard head growing out of your face and you wouldn't give a shit.

I once a had a friend who had a big permawart on his face, the kind that you would instantly stare at the second you met him. One day, I sacked up and asked him why he never bothered to cut it off. And he told me that he liked himself just the way he was. Now, I think that was silly and that he should have gone to the closest permawart specialist to have that thing lasered into oblivion. But people don't always see themselves the way you see them. I look in the mirror and I see a handsome fellow. Pictriev looks at me and sees a transvestite Diane Kruger. The things that other people think are flawed about us are often things we regard, rightly or wrongly, as a fundamental part of our identity.


I bet Anthony Davis has grown to love his unibrow. He probably got teased for it by friends or enemies or whoever, but now he's gonna be rich, so he'll probably keep that unibrow intact as a daily reminder of people doubting him. That unibrow is his way of saying FUCK YOU to haters and all that. I'm sure he takes any ribbing about it from friends with good humor. And it gives him a distinct brand. He's "that guy with the unibrow" now, which gives him an angle when it comes to product endorsements and shit. That unibrow will be incorporated into all kinds of Anthony Davis ads. The shape of it makes a fine Nike sub-brand logo.

So he's keeping the unibrow. His teeth, however, are a goddamn traffic jam.

Lee:

Every time I'm stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, invariably there is some total fuckwad who leaves no less than 20 car lengths between himself and the car in front of him. Every body in the next lane over cuts in front of him to get 20 car lengths while I am sitting behind him wishing that he would die of dick cancer.


Yes, but when you need to change lanes and one of those stragglers is in the adjacent lane, there's no better friend in the world. Why did that guy let me in for no reason? Beats me. All I know is that it's TIME FOR GUNNIN'.

Willy:

Let's pretend right now that North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un just finished watching the Hunger Games and is inspired by Suzanne Collins' vision. He decides that he'll create the North Korea Games. Rules are the same, just 24 kids trying to be the last man standing and broadcast to an audience. The media reports that the first NK Games will be played this year and be broadcast online. Honestly, do you watch it? Or do you take the high moral road and don't even browse Google Videos?


I wouldn't watch it, and you wouldn't either. One of the biggest plot holes in movies like The Hunger Games is that it presumes that kind of event would generate a large audience when there's no way in hell that normal people would want to watch real children kill and maim each other on television. You'd either find it personally repugnant, or you'd be afraid that other people would find you repugnant for enjoying it. I know a lot of people who watched Saddam Hussein get the rope, and I don't think many of them enjoyed it. Once you know it's real violence happening to real people, a switch goes off in your brain and you shy away.*

(*Unless it's football. YAY FOOTBALL!)

There are a million TV ideas that sound really cool on paper that end up being unwatchable because of this. I'm sure the Fox exec in charge of Celebrity Boxing thought it would be a big draw, and then no one gave a crap. And even though it sounds cool to make prison inmates fight robots for sport, you still wouldn't tune in. Many things that sound awesome on paper end up not being awesome in practice, which is bullshit. I wish reality would be more receptive to stupid ideas.


Anthony:

What percentage of injuries athletes suffer are due to masturbation injuries? 10%? 20%? 50%? Did Greg Oden end his career trying to reach his arm around the back of his knee and up to his dick?


In football, the answer is .00001 percent. In baseball, the answer is a million percent. Ever have a hammy cramp up while fapping, then power through it anyway? Not fun. That's winning ugly.

Brian:

What do you think is the best amount of toilet paper to use for ass wiping? Personally, I'll usually rip off a strip anywhere from 4-8 squares long (depending on the shit) and can usually get 3, maybe 4 good wipes, after always folding it inward to get to a new clean spot. Now, this is assuming I'm at home with a soft, high-quality 2-ply. I work at a hospital, and let me just give a big "Fuck you." to hospitals, hotels, stores, and anywhere else that uses the massive rolls of terrible 1-ply. Gotta have at least 30 SPW (squares per wipe) with that.


I overuse because I lack confidence and because I'd rather be safe than sorry. But I do fold and wipe in order to reduce waste, which makes me a Good Samaritan. I don't believe for a moment that you could get four wipes out of four squares, regardless of ply. You'd have to be a mathemagician to pull that off.

Todd:

It does not appear Ghost, from Sweden, makes music videos, but this concert footage, from HellFest (who knew?), is a little terrifying:

"Ah oh, how they laughed, the little people of Stone'enge."

Is that the Eyes Wide Shut music in their intro? Well played.

Brett:

For $1,000,000 would you let Jerry Sandusky babysit your child/children for 5 seconds? Sandusky is sitting on the couch in the living room. Your kid(s) are 5-10 feet away just standing there watching you as your walk out. The timer starts when the door shuts behind you. No cameras.


Five seconds? Absolutely. What kind of raping can you get done in five seconds? You'd have to be Superman to pull that off. It takes me an hour to wrangle one of my kids for a goddamn bath and they LIKE me. What prayer does an old coot like Sandusky have?

Make it five minutes and we no longer have a handshake deal.

Andy:

Shouldn't sports drafts be snake drafts?

No, because then you're punishing the worst team by making them wait four million years between picks. That's why no one wants the #1 pick in fantasy drafts. No one wants to wait that long in between picks. It's torture. You sit there for four hours while every other cool player gets taken off the board and you're left to choose between Jerricho Cotchery and a bag of flour.


Stephen:

THASS RAICES! And that plantain sticking out also works for unintentional dongs. 2 for 1!


Can't argue with that.

Phewson:

Of the 4 major sports, in which one would the dominant college team have the best chance at beating the worst pro team?


Well, football and hockey are both out. I thought it would have to be baseball because in baseball, all you need to stay competitive is a good pitching performance. Get one from your college starter, and you're automatically just two or three runs from pulling off the upset over the Orioles or whoever.

The only problem is that, due to farm leagues, college baseball doesn't have anywhere near the talent level of a college sport like football or basketball. That's why it's so tempting to pick basketball and say that Kentucky could beat the Bobcats. I wish they played a pay-per-view exhibition of this in late April and answered the question for good. I'll take basketball for now, even though I think it's easy to get fooled.


Chris:

You're on the Metro en route to a Nats game. A random stranger comes up to you and makes you an offer: For the rest of your life, he will randomly show up once a month and hand you $1,000 cash. If you accept this offer, you will also have uncontrollable shits for one day each month. He will pick which time and day of the month it is out of a hat on the 1st of every month, so neither you nor he will be able to willingly choose which day this is. As soon as he shows up, you know that you are going to get $1,000 cash, but you will also be shitting out of your ass until the clock strikes midnight. This is $12,000 cash/year that you do not have to report on your taxes for the rest of your life. Do you accept his offer?


I don't think you do, because in the long run it's a poor investment. You're making $12,000 a year guaranteed, but that comes at a heavy personal price, and there's no telling if you're designated Shit Day ends up ruining a job interview, a business meeting, or some other transaction that could prove far more lucrative down the road. You could easily end up ruining your career just for $12K, which isn't enough to live off of for a year. So do NOT take that offer. Demand that the Poopy Stranger offer you $20K a month as a starting point, then work your way down from there.

Time for a GREAT MOMENT IN ANIMAL POOP.

Jason:

I have two cats. They're both sixteen. One of them has cancer. This is important to the story. Recently, I came home from work one day and I was instantly hit in the face with one of the worst smells ever. I've had large dogs in the past and this easily beat out anything that ever came out of them. I tracked down the source and found it in my bedroom (of course). Except it didn't look like shit. Instead, it was three spots of yellow...something, each the size of my outstretched hand. I let it dry and cleaned it up. A week later, I discovered the same thing. Same smell, same amount of stuff. I figured the cat with cancer was sick and expelling this stuff. Called the vet. She confirmed it and told me to alter the diet. I followed the directions. Yesterday morning I got out of the shower and heard the distinctive sound of a cat wretching. I ran out to try and catch the cat in time to hold him or her over the sink in an effort to reduce cleanup. Instead I was hit in the face with that smell again. The cat without cancer sat right in the middle of those familiar three spots. He looked up at me and wailed. This was not good. I rushed him to the vet. They examined him and told me he most likely had some kind of intestinal blockage. And since waste couldn't go out the back end, his body was pushing it back out the front. In short, my cat is shitting out of his mouth. Basically his intestines are hardened and it's the sign of a variety of aliments. The vet took blood, gave me further care instructions and told me that until we get this situation figured out, I have to just continue letting this run its course. Which also involves the mouth shitting all over my house. As a brief aside: Bissel makes a pet stain remover called Dang! that cleans up mouth shit with ease.


Never own a cat.