Sports person did a sports thing!
January 19, 2016 9:23 PM   Subscribe

“the eleven most boring conversations i can’t stop overhearing” (in which a liberal white male american san francisco bay area resident possessive of the auditory acuity of a baby chihuahua learns to scream).
posted by blue_beetle (145 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
This line appears towards the beginning:

I had a lot of jokes in my head before I started typing. Something ruined the jokes. Oh god, where did the jokes go?

So I guess I knew what I was getting into. Why didn't I heed the warning?

Anyway, I wish I lived in the kind of gumdrop world where "The worst conversation I have ever overheard" was about hot sauce.

True story: An entire family, including 3-4 adults and some children, was at the table next to mine (and my non-white child's) a couple weeks ago. One gentleman started their conversation with "I still think there's a good chance that Obama is the Antichrist." They then had about 20 minutes of conversation on that topic, in public, including tons of racism and some pauses to explain to the kids what an Antichrist was and what was wrong with non-white people.

Go on, talk about hot sauce. Please.
posted by mmoncur at 9:30 PM on January 19, 2016 [109 favorites]


I hope I've never ruined this person's day by subjecting him to one of my conversations. Oh, wait, I kind of hope I actually have, because he sounds terrible.
posted by escabeche at 9:33 PM on January 19, 2016 [25 favorites]


Lost me at the hot sauce. Skimmed the rest until I determined this was a person I could never have a conversation with.

(in which a liberal white male american san francisco bay area resident possessive of the auditory acuity of a baby chihuahua learns to scream)

I don't even understand this part. I feel like cocaine may be involved.
posted by bongo_x at 9:34 PM on January 19, 2016 [22 favorites]


"I am a weird idiot ..."

I'm glad you said it first. Get over yourself you twee jerk.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:36 PM on January 19, 2016 [8 favorites]


I'm not saying the article was great - in fact, I only really skimmed it - but I actually do have an (at least) vague distaste for all of the conversations he mentions. Which is amazing to me. I figured there would be one in there for me, like I'm sure there is for most people who read it, to really break it and make me turn on the guy, but it didn't happen.
posted by mellow seas at 9:37 PM on January 19, 2016 [9 favorites]


Christ, what an asshole.
posted by Itaxpica at 9:40 PM on January 19, 2016 [12 favorites]


I was all set to sympathize with this because I, too, cannot tune people out on public transit and end up spending my commute listening to some girl talk about (for example) how she doesn't believe in tipping because like, it's just doing their job, why should she pay them extra for just doing their job? (At no point in the 25-minute bus ride did this discussion cover server wage vs. minimum wage in some states)

But yeah, I was torn between wanting to kill this guy and just wondering what the fuck parallel-universe San Francisco he lives in. I guess it's the one where you get invited to have lunch in the Google offices, instead of the one where you get on an express bus in the morning that's BOILING I mean BOILING and you get stuck in traffic and people are trying to start fights with the driver while beads of sweat roll down your back and it throws off your entire damn day and then you find yourself composing angry comments on Metafilter at 9:45 p.m.

Can we make this about the worst conversations Mefites can't stop overhearing? Because that would be a lot more enjoyable for me.
posted by sunset in snow country at 9:44 PM on January 19, 2016 [19 favorites]


When you yell “SPORTS!” at sports fans, or when you tweet “Wow I just don’t care about sports at all”, you’re not talking to sports fans. You’re bullying people.

Take it down a notch there, buddy. The anti-sports sentiment is because it's not just that sports are popular, it's that you're culturally expected to follow and enjoy them. People will ask you if you watched the game, completely bypassing whether or not you're interested. Meanwhile, your hobbies, whether it's chess, eSports, or whatever else? You have to explain it to them, and it appears "weird."

It's not bullying. It's culture-jamming. I mean, sure, it's really annoying culture-jamming, but most of it is. The point isn't to make fun of people for enjoying something. It's to remind them that their love isn't universal.
posted by explosion at 9:47 PM on January 19, 2016 [61 favorites]


Also, holy fuck, the rant about dogs? About how San Franciscans love dogs, or love that people love dogs? Way to miss the context.

San Francisco is chock full of people who work in tech or are otherwise exposed to the Internet. The Internet is a weird fucked up place where up is down, black is white, and cats are inexplicably more popular than dogs. When you're that tuned into Internet culture, it does appear wonderful and comforting that San Francisco is full of people who love dogs.
posted by explosion at 9:50 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yeah, this guy sucks. This is what I find the most puzzling:

Here’s something I’ve overheard in San Francisco Bay Area coffee shops ... It’s almost always this exact wording:
“You know what I love about San Francisco? Everyone loves dogs here!”
... My experiences running around Emeryville, California every morning has led me to believe that any one of these conversations which does not mention a pit bull is a conference of liars.


Supposedly he lives in Oakland, is running around Emeryville, and is overhearing things in "San Francisco Bay Area" coffeeshops (i.e. East Bay coffeeshops) -- who does he know that keeps talking about what they love about the city? I feel like everyone I know in the East Bay is militantly East Bay.
posted by crazy with stars at 9:53 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


I realized why Google makes me sign a waiver when I’m a lunch guest: they don’t want me taking pictures of the wall-art. I can only imagine what the wall-art in the finance department says.

Hahaha, this guy is awesome.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 9:54 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


relevant
posted by Jacqueline at 9:54 PM on January 19, 2016 [33 favorites]


There are a tremendous number of people in San Francisco who only experience one or two of the cultures here.

Gay latino bars. Gay latina bars. Places that seem to only cater to people who took too many fertility drugs and have quadruple wide strollers. Leather bars for hairless men. Pyro arts led entirely by women. Gymnastic Korean Dance Dance Revolution clubs. Cults masquerading as self help. Self help masquerading as a cult. So many Javascript clubs for transgender people that some of them moved to Oakland.

If these are the conversations you overhear, take a different MUNI line.
posted by poe at 9:54 PM on January 19, 2016 [18 favorites]


'here's fifty trillion words about things I find boring'
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:00 PM on January 19, 2016 [33 favorites]


This was hilarious, though maybe not for the author's intended reason.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:00 PM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


I feel like I just read someone's stream of consciousness therapeutic journaling.
posted by Trifling at 10:18 PM on January 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


I feel like everyone I know in the East Bay is militantly East Bay.

As a resident of the 510, I can start (or add to) the anecdata.

A lot of the conversations I hear on the regular are from ex-San Franciscans who are giddy with relief and/or gratitude that once they crossed the Bay Bridge, they were able to afford a place to live and a regular burrito fix and pour-over coffee and child care that does not require regular black-market sale of their family's organs.
posted by sobell at 10:19 PM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


I wish this had been a tl;dr.

(realizes has friend with that exact not-uncommon name in Oakland, confirms not same person, continues to snark)

Somebody's parents should have taken Patten Oswalt's advice and been a little more of a hard-assed, hard-nosed jerk while raising this sniveling self-indulgent jackass.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:20 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Tabasco. New York. I dunno, grass is greener every time I switch phone OS. Ebooks. Go Eagles.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:20 PM on January 19, 2016


Probably Andy Dick's voice
posted by GuyZero at 10:20 PM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


Late-stage capitalism
posted by rhizome at 10:22 PM on January 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


Is this a thread where a bunch of people are exposed to Tim Rogers for the first time

Haha yep I wish you could see the look on my face as I saw the (end) credits and everything came into focus.

I have to say he's right that most of these are boring conversations. But talking about them isn't especially a less boring conversation.
posted by atoxyl at 10:25 PM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


Yeah, had to stop at hot sauce.

I actually find it interesting that people have conversations about hot sauce. Maybe not; I thought this might be a vaguely amusing thing to hear about, but then, upon reading this, I'm suddenly listening to a fucking monologue about his interactions with hot sauce. Do you know whats less interesting in hearing a conversation about hot sauce? Hearing a monologue about the same subject.

Then I realized he was going to repeat this, and give a ranty monologue about every conversation he thinks is awful/boring to hear about. Again, whats worse than hearing a conversation about said subjects? Hearing a monologue about it.

I didn't get far enough in the article to see if he wears headphones. Because that's the solution to not wanting to hear public conversations; wear some fucking headphones.
posted by el io at 10:25 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Sometimes I feel like the only person on earth who genuinely enjoys Tim Rogers.
posted by silby at 10:27 PM on January 19, 2016 [10 favorites]


relevant

OK, that was kinda funny.

Is this a thread where a bunch of people are exposed to Tim Rogers for the first time

Not me, #4 Record is fantastic.
posted by bongo_x at 10:28 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


lol airplane food amirite






to be clear i'm saying that article is airplane food
posted by Sebmojo at 10:32 PM on January 19, 2016 [8 favorites]


Insufferable plus interminable is a rotten combination.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:34 PM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


Oh wait is this the guy that wrote that really long (and great!) essay on Earthbound like ten years ago? I liked that piece. This not so much, but I see that sheer length is kinda his thing.
posted by crazy with stars at 10:47 PM on January 19, 2016


Here's a suggestion to replace the boring: Who's the best James Bond?
posted by PHINC at 10:58 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


The worst conversation I heard on MUNI 5 Fulton maybe about a year ago was a newly minted Stanford grad going on and on about all these dudes she dated while at Stanford and all their flaws (they were probably Tapatio men) for about 45 minutes until she concluded "...But I don't want to be the kind of girl who only date Elites." I think my eye roll was audible.
posted by ch3ch2oh at 11:01 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Sometimes I feel like the only person on earth who genuinely enjoys Tim Rogers.

Nope, I do too! But yeah I prefer when he writes about video games. e.g. his review of Ridiculous Fishing. I miss Action Button.
posted by Barking Frog at 11:09 PM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


Is this a thread where a bunch of people are exposed to Tim Rogers for the first time

To be fair to those thrown by his style, this seems a lot less deliberate and considered than his pioneering exposition of connectionist models of human cognition.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:11 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


If we're just doing the thing, I want to nominate the conversation I had to listen to at Beauty's this past Saturday, where a dude next to me talking to a woman across the table started off by recounting everything that happens and every joke in Spinal Tap after she said she hadn't seen it, then moved on to some handwaving about how our relationships define us, said "I mean, no man is an island, right?" in earnest, then trivially restated that by observing that we can't know the cases of people who are islands, and then (and this part actually made me happy to have heard all this) he delivers the pièce de résistance of "and that's why I love studying sociology."
posted by invitapriore at 11:14 PM on January 19, 2016 [16 favorites]


All of those conversations that the writer listed are terrible conversations—but he then proceeded to join those conversations, wrote down his contributions, and expected us to read them. Nope.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:14 PM on January 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


We all have our "worst conversations". I've probably been in someone's. I'm not going to recount any of mine here.

Instead, I'll present you with my favorite piece of conversation-shrapnel, whose context I wish I could know:
Guy talking on a phone on the bus said, "For twenty dollars, I can get you an analyst and a jar of mayonnaise."
posted by Mister Moofoo at 11:30 PM on January 19, 2016 [16 favorites]


(Does Command+F "vim")

So disappointed in the bay area.
posted by sbutler at 11:30 PM on January 19, 2016 [8 favorites]


OK, lots of bad thing here, but starting off stating that you eat hot sauce all the time, but it doesn’t have any flavor, and it’s stupid to discuss your favorite? It’s food, people like food, and they like to talk about their favorite foods. Ever considering the possibility that maybe your taste buds are broken or something? When people are enthusiastically debating which one they think tastes best your conclusion is just those people are stupid, because hot sauce doesn’t taste like anything?

I must have skipped the part about how being liberal or white plays in to any of this, but it was so important to the framing that it’s in the title.

I love a good cranky rant, but nothing about this made even a tiny bit of sense. Is there some Andy Kaufman type meta-humor I missing? It’s happened before.
posted by bongo_x at 11:44 PM on January 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


I didn't get far enough in the article to see if he wears headphones. Because that's the solution to not wanting to hear public conversations; wear some fucking headphones.

Yes, headphones. A while ago I accidentally added an hour to my commute home because I missed the announcement to change trains because of my headphones and I have no regrets.
posted by shelleycat at 11:51 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


I mean thank god for the internet, where the literary art of the 'rant' can flourish to its natural interminable length instead of being cruelly cut short when you run out of white space in your zine
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:57 PM on January 19, 2016 [14 favorites]


I give this rant a C-. Do better, internet.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:06 AM on January 20, 2016


edeezy: "Is this a thread where a bunch of people are exposed to Tim Rogers for the first time"

Oh my god, it is Tim Rogers. If I'd noticed that at the start I wouldn't have wasted my time trying (unsuccessfully) to get through the hot sauce entry before giving up on the whole article.
posted by Bugbread at 12:12 AM on January 20, 2016


I agree 100% with him, and you are boring for disagreeing.
posted by zsazsa at 12:42 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


An interminable eleven-point article about annoying conversations to overhear, and none of the points is "Any conversation of which you only hear one half, because the culprit us on a mobile phone"? For shame.

A couple of years ago I was stuck on a bus, sans working headphones, and worried that the tremendous traffic jam wouldn't help me get to my evening class on time. My thoughts about the woman two seats down, who was slagging off a mildly incompetent co-worker on her mobile, went from "hmm, he does sound irritating to work with" to "Good Lord, it's been half an hour! I'm late for my class. You're still complaining in your outdoor voice about this guy. Unless he set your workplace on fire making tea, he can't be that incompetent. Knock it off, for Christ's sake."

Then I finally got to my stop and forgot all about it till now, because the very next day I bought myself a shiny new set of headphones.
posted by Rissa at 12:53 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


Chicago pizza is disgusting and should be called out in the strongest terms possible.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:22 AM on January 20, 2016 [8 favorites]


Expected this to be terrible based on the comments, and I'm surprised that it was wonderful, full of humanity and empathy.

He's completely right about sports. Life is short and not easy. I have a hard time understanding why anyone has a problem with what other people like, whether it's sports or anything else.

Of course, if people are being overly pushy about sharing their like of something with you, that's not ok, it's bad manners, and I understand that's how some people feel about sports, but in general tweeting about "Sportsball" or whatever is just being judgmental about something other people enjoy. And that's pretty rude.

When you yell “SPORTS!” at sports fans, or when you tweet “Wow I just don’t care about sports at all”, you’re not talking to sports fans. You’re bullying people. You’re the more grown-up version of the kid who kicked me in the back of the knee on the stairs in school every day when I was eleven. Instead of letting me know what you don’t care about, why don’t you let me know what you do care about? If I can’t convince you that anyone can like sports and that maybe you just need to think about sports differently, why don’t you just not bring up a conversation topic for the sole reason of saying it doesn’t interest you?

I like this. The world would benefit from less shitting on things, and more of everyone sharing what they enjoy, even if it's something as mundane as sports.
posted by imabanana at 2:39 AM on January 20, 2016 [15 favorites]


So what type of hot sauce does he put on his pizza?
posted by Panjandrum at 2:47 AM on January 20, 2016


"I am here in this place! You are here also!"

"Yes! We, together, are here in this place!"

- the actual meaning behind 95% of human communication
posted by BitterOldPunk at 3:07 AM on January 20, 2016 [29 favorites]


Hit the pizza thing and bailed.
posted by Splunge at 3:25 AM on January 20, 2016


Not sure if I should use Jerry Seinfeld's or Andy Rooney's voice to read this.

Except they would've known to edit this down about 3500 words.

As a writer I like to eavesdrop. Unless I am not able to get away from really idiotic convos such as in a waiting area or at work.

Which reminds me, the only good thing that's ever come from knowing an insufferable, backstabbing, constantly yakking coworker is the day I started jotting down some of her utterings and emailing them to another coworker. Our own little Shit Kristine Says At Work:

"I don't like heart-shaped things."
"I don't like feet. Even my husband's feet. In bed I tell him to keep his feet away from mine."
posted by NorthernLite at 3:57 AM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


The worst is definitely when you have talkers on planes, especially on a flight that takes place entirely after 10 pm. On my last flight home, two people in the row behind me decided to make small talk for the entire 2 and a half hours of seating, taxi, and flight. I thought I would rip my own ears off.

Having said that, sheesh, that was a long article. I bet these rants lasted longer than some of the conversations he overheard.
posted by chainsofreedom at 4:00 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


Well that was really long. People really do love dogs in San Francisco in a way I've never seen anywhere else. They bring them every where. Like just walking a dog around Target.
posted by bleep at 4:00 AM on January 20, 2016


The most annoying conversation to overhear, hands down, is an obviously juicy personal argument ... in a language you do not speak.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:13 AM on January 20, 2016 [10 favorites]


in my transit, I've overheard conversations about:
--abortion
--morning sickness (followed by actual vomiting)
--jail
--drugs
--every kind of relationship drama

I sort of don't mind this. Except for the morning sickness one, because some vomit got on my elbow and that was super bad. But vomiting is not a conversation.

I mean, humanity is amazing in its scruffy multitudes. This guy should ride Philly public transit. I've not heard one conversation about hipsters or hot sauce
posted by angrycat at 4:20 AM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


I have the best headphones. The other day on the subway I was startled when a hat was thrust in front of me, for spare change. Looking up, I saw a 6 person barbershop quartet (I KNOW, crazy right? Barbershop sextet!!) who were belting it out at the top of their lungs. Never even knew they were there. My music was at about 50% volume. Sometimes I put my headphones in and don't turn on any sound, and I still can barely hear the insipid world outside.

I should advise this gent about those. For all I know people are now mute on trains in NYC.
posted by nevercalm at 4:34 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


So many Javascript clubs for transgender people that some of them moved to Oakland.

OK, we can pack up this internet. We're done here.
posted by listen, lady at 4:37 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


Talk about your lesser works of J D. Salinger.
posted by boo_radley at 4:42 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


On my last flight home, two people in the row behind me decided to make small talk for the entire 2 and a half hours of seating, taxi, and flight. I thought I would rip my own ears off.

I can top that -

* It was a transatlantic flight, so it was eight hours instead of two.
* It was three people in the row behind me - young women, who had just met in that row, and when the small talk started up they realized no way we're all going to be in Paris at the same time? We should hang out and no way you hate your chem class too? and no way you used this naughty French phrasebook too that's HYSTERICAL.
* When the flight attendant came around to offer drinks, they ordered wine. Then they ordered more. And all three of them shared the trait that alcohol turned up their conversational volume.
* Then came the repeated runs to the lavatory at the rear of the plane because one of them couldn't hold her liquor.

Initially I thought it was tremendously sweet that the three of them were making friends right behind me. But as it got closer to "I really should be trying to sleep now because this is a red-eye flight" the more I was tempted to turn around and tell them that while I did dig that they were making friends, would they mind making friends at a lower volume for the love of God please?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:45 AM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


Metafilter: vomiting is not a conversation
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:46 AM on January 20, 2016 [8 favorites]


Well, we've been Holdensplained
posted by bonehead at 5:03 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


From a thread back in April: when exactly did Tim Rogers' writing veer so far into self-parody it is now indistinguishable from someone making fun of Tim Rogers?
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:09 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


New York Pizza and Chicago Pizza are not Pizza.

They're a genre of American pie, but they're not pizza.

Only no-shit Italian pizza is pizza.

We have lots of Italian pizza chefs here in Scotland, Naples is close enough that some of us have been there and can confirm that what we get here is the real thing, and it's not like the pie-shaped objects sold as "pizza" in North America.

Sheesh, next someone will be saying that New Yorkers understand how to bake bagels!
posted by cstross at 5:12 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


To be fair, it's more of a savory tart than a pie.
posted by bonehead at 5:13 AM on January 20, 2016


"the world would benefit from less shitting on things"

. . . but this is exactly what he's doing. Shitting on assumed themes from snatches of other people's overheard conversations, without much of a filter, or an editor. With a weird combination of far too much self-awareness mixed with borderline vapidity.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:20 AM on January 20, 2016 [9 favorites]


Sheesh, next someone will be saying that New Yorkers understand how to bake bagels!

Well, arguably New Yorkers do understand English Muffins.
posted by valkane at 5:23 AM on January 20, 2016


(in which a liberal white male american san francisco bay area resident possessive of the auditory acuity of a baby chihuahua learns to scream)

Acknowledging your privilege is good. Ostentatiously acknowledging your privilege like it's a joke -- "lol, white male privilege amirite?" -- is fucking obnoxious. Dude lost me before he even got rolling.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:25 AM on January 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


This guy sounds like such an over the top SWPL hipster. Complaining about #FirstWorldProblems and about not being a hipster is the key marker of a hipster.
posted by theorique at 5:32 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have the best headphones.

Me too. I got those ear buds that are foam earplugs with speakers in the center. Some day I'm going to look up on the subway and see that the entire subway car has broken out in a massive brawl and I didn't notice.
posted by Drab_Parts at 5:39 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Cholula, Tabasco, Sriracha, Crystal/Louisiana... I love hot sauce.
Even on pizza

Deep-dish, thin-crust, white pizza, Little Caesar's Bacon-Wrapped... I love pizza.
posted by djeo at 5:43 AM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


I agree with everyone that this guy is horrible, but you can't say he's not observant. I thought I was the only one who noticed, but it does appear to be a fact that SF is home to the largest Wisconsin diaspora in the world.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 5:43 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


* It was a transatlantic flight, so it was eight hours instead of two.

Yeah one-upmanship on flight times is pretty easy to resolve with Australia. Plus you generally cross more than one ocean, unless you're going a Pacific route. But even then, if you fly from somewhere on the Pacific to Western Australia, well, you've got another ocean.

What is it about overheard conversations that makes anyone think they'd be anything other than bland? People know they're in public, they're not going to discuss the merits of communicative rationality; the telos of a known-to-be-public exchange is going to be undergirded by its very likelihood of being overheard, and thus bland.

I just wrote that snootily on purpose because I never talk that way conversationally.

And potentially, public conversations will also contain silliness on purpose so as to see who's listening when they snerk at something you say.
posted by fraula at 5:45 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


I found it mildly amusing, esp. since I just arrived at work, it's slow, and the caffeine has yet to accomplish much. I like the book cover. “Irony” is ruining everything. is true, but Conan said it better. I don't have a link because, caffeine, but I probably read it on MeFi. In my family, I will not discuss sweet potatoes vs. yams or Jane Austen for reasons that are specific to my family but pretty similar. It's 1st World Problems, which is, I think, last year's late-stage capitalism.
posted by theora55 at 6:04 AM on January 20, 2016


It's not about hot sauce. It's about loneliness.
posted by amtho at 6:22 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm surprised this guy isn't one of "MetaFilter's Own."
posted by kimberussell at 6:23 AM on January 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


> People know they're in public, they're not going to discuss the merits of communicative rationality; the telos of a known-to-be-public exchange is going to be undergirded by its very likelihood of being overheard, and thus bland.

Would that were always true.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:25 AM on January 20, 2016


What an insufferable, bloviating hipster this guy is.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:38 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


I enjoyed Tim Rogers's extra-long essays for Kotaku in which he described game mechanics as "crunchy" and "meaty," but this was an awful lot of words just to say Like what you like, but don't you dare express what you like.
posted by ejs at 6:38 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


He's got a little list,
He's got a little list
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:48 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


I love a good top eleven unrelated topics essay.
posted by Segundus at 7:05 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


It takes a particular kind of solipsism to devote so much time and effort to pointing out that people are often boring to other people.
posted by Etrigan at 7:21 AM on January 20, 2016 [9 favorites]


cstross: "Sheesh, next someone will be saying that New Yorkers understand how to bake bagels!"

They see me trollin', they hatin'....
posted by Chrysostom at 7:25 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


The most annoying conversation to overhear, hands down, is an obviously juicy personal argument ... in a language you do not speak.

Oh God, you just reminded me of the time I was on the long-haul bus in Spain while the lady 3 rows up had a screaming argument with her husband on the phone and then called the police after he overdosed and hung up on her. Then called him back to berate him for being stupid as the police broke down his door. I mean, I spoke that language, so it wasn't annoying per se, but good God.
posted by chainsofreedom at 7:31 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


(Does Command+F "vim")

So disappointed in the bay area.


They're into vigor these days.

Also dogs.
posted by dersins at 7:32 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


I do commend him for pointing out that there are these foods which will spawn endless, circular conversations, really arguments: pizza, hot sauce but also BBQ, Mexican food, bagels tend to bring out this sense of "I have access to the one true thing and yours is a pale imitation."

I always saw it as snobbishness by the type of people who would be shocked to to be characterised as snobs, thinking that only applies to people who argue about wine or coffee.
posted by vacapinta at 7:32 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


On my last flight home, two people in the row behind me decided to make small talk for the entire 2 and a half hours of seating, taxi, and flight. I thought I would rip my own ears off.

I can top that . . .


Death. There would have been death. I can't even contain my rage right now and I wasn't even on the flight!!!!!
posted by chainsofreedom at 7:33 AM on January 20, 2016


This piece is actually really lovely and and is, at its heart, about being thoughtful about interactions with other people. People who are calling him a bloviating insufferable hipster clearly either didn't read very far into the article, or think we don't deserve some kind of reasoned rejoinder to his critique of the use of "hipster" as a nothing-term used to shut down enthusiasm in public.

"Anyone liking anything at all in public runs the risk of someone calling them a “hipster”, and then feeling shame for being a “hipster” with regard to anything. The word “hipster” is a pocket of air trapped beneath the skin of the human condition. Day by day, it inches toward the heart. Otherwise-decent people allow it into their conversations whenever some ghost in their psychology tricks them into turning a conversation into not a conversation."
posted by erlking at 7:34 AM on January 20, 2016 [14 favorites]


People who are calling him a bloviating insufferable hipster

That barely even counts as paraphrasing.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:43 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


> The most annoying conversation to overhear, hands down, is an obviously juicy personal argument ... in a language you do not speak.

In my third year of university a woman called my apartment, which I shared with six other guys, somehow missed our lengthy answering machine message ("Hi, Mike, Tom, Jerry, etc., aren't home...") and proceeded to angrily curse out and dump her (apparently philandering) boyfriend in a mix of English and Spanish. It was like two solid minutes of righteous anger and profanity, and I will always wonder what she did when she realized she'd called the wrong number.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:43 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


> People really do love dogs in San Francisco in a way I've never seen anywhere else.

And dogs must love SF. There are huge off-leash parks in SF (Fort Funston and McLaren park so far) where dogs run like mad and play rough in a way to this non dog person looks a lot like fighting, but they love it. [these are dogs well-trained to recall] Couples meet and friends are made at the dog parks.

It makes me sad for dogs who are only walked on leash or run in little fenced-in dog parks. I guess land is cheap in San Francisco?
posted by morganw at 8:10 AM on January 20, 2016


I'm truly sorry to hear that the thousands upon thousands of sports fans in the college town I live in feel bullied whenever I make a quiet, snarky, sports-related aside during basketball season.
posted by thivaia at 8:21 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


This piece is actually really lovely and and is, at its heart, about being thoughtful about interactions with other people.

Sure I can see he is trying to make that point but look at how he presents & organises the article. His argument is drowned out by the same kind of noise that he's dismissing. Moaning at length about the minutia of private conversational ephemera alienates and wading through it to get to his point is wearying. Hence those describing him above as being insufferable. Being succinct would win more to his side of the argument.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:23 AM on January 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


This guy turned "Don't Be A Dick" into a long-form Medium article and managed to come off as a dick. He's a regular Hobbit-era Peter Jackson!
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:26 AM on January 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


The appropriateness of "sportsball" type stuff is heavily context-dependent. There are plenty of social-cultural milieus where many people do not have an interest in sports and this lack of interest is socially acceptable. But you still occasionally hear people in these places talking about "sportsball," as though their lack of knowledge about a particular topic which happens to be regarded as mainstream were a badge of intellectualism. It's annoying, and kind of juvenile.

But if you live in a place where all anyone can talk about on Saturday night is the latest college football game, and people look at you funny if you say "yeah, that's not really my thing," I could understand the urge to snark about it.
posted by breakin' the law at 8:34 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


In general articles of the form "an extensive list of things I hate" are terrible, but I enjoyed this one. Probably that just means that the author and I are insufferable in all the same ways.

(Admittedly I only really read like a third of the article, but everything on the list is something I find tiresome.)
posted by bracems at 9:16 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


When I talk about "sportsball" it's usually either to mock my absolute and utter detachment from sports. Like, I don't know what's being played right now and I don't care but there seems to be an important game of something going on in this town, what colors should I avoid wearing so as to not look like I'm a fan of one team or another, and thus avoid any number of undesired interactions with people who care about this? How can I minimize the impact of this thing I don't care about and that people won't stop constantly talking about on my life?

Also holy crap it is annoying to live in a city who has their team in the running for the World Super Game. The buses stop telling you what number and route they are and start being number 🐧 destined for GO SEAHAWKS! and every time I'm waiting in the cold Seattle rain and have to wait an extra moment for the bus to stop being number 🐧 it really pushes my usual "what sports oh whatever I don't care" attitude into "ugh fuck all the sports" for a bit.

But this is indeed a pretty boring conversation.
posted by egypturnash at 9:22 AM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


"liking things ironically" is barely even a thing
posted by atoxyl at 9:41 AM on January 20, 2016


All the examples in TFA are incorrect. The most boring conversation to overhear is a really bad first date full of small talk where the people aren't connecting, like AT ALL, and you hear them trailing off into silence and boredom, awkwardly waiting for someone to bring the check.

My second-runner-up is every dude on a new lifting/weight gain/fitness kick I've heard recounting how many chicken breasts and steamed heads of broccoli he's eating per day, his training schedule, and how bad his current girlfriend hates dealing with the house smelling like farts but DUDE. DUDE. CHECK OUT HOW RIPPED I'M GETTING, DUDE. *chugs protein shake*

This conversation is one I hear often at my office and around the work 'hood, especially working next to an Equinox gym in the richest part of town and surrounded by brogrammers.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:52 AM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


I stopped at the pizza thing because Chicago pizza is NOT deep dish, according to anyone who lives here. And his writing style is so hard to get.
posted by agregoli at 10:02 AM on January 20, 2016


Instead, I'll present you with my favorite piece of conversation-shrapnel, whose context I wish I could know:
Guy talking on a phone on the bus said, "For twenty dollars, I can get you an analyst and a jar of mayonnaise."


HI I'M ON THE BUS AND I COULD ANALYSE A JAR OF MAYONNAISE.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 10:17 AM on January 20, 2016


Is it really that hard to just ignore people?
posted by HighLife at 10:18 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


If you loudly proclaim that there's no such thing as a hipster and that the word has no meaning, you just might be a hipster.
posted by Flashman at 10:30 AM on January 20, 2016


I guess I'm insufferable. I liked it. Thanks for posting!
posted by misskaz at 10:34 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


Cholula, Tabasco, Sriracha, Crystal/Louisiana... I love hot sauce.
Even on pizza

Deep-dish, thin-crust, white pizza, Little Caesar's Bacon-Wrapped... I love pizza.


Read this comment to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire," it's great.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:06 AM on January 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


I liked the part about how many words on a screen but I couldn't see it because I had my browser all blowed up.
posted by Alter Cocker at 11:07 AM on January 20, 2016


From a thread back in April

Oh, THAT GUY.

The most "that guy" That Guy I have ever read on MetaFilter, perhaps
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:10 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


So this guy is building a schtick where he observes the most mundane events of daily urban existence? I know it's sad Garrison Keillor is retiring, but that doesn't mean you get to shit on him on his way out the door. "5 ways you're eating popcorn wrong."
posted by rhizome at 11:18 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


There are plenty of social-cultural milieus where many people do not have an interest in sports and this lack of interest is socially acceptable.

Really? I've never heard of, seen, or been to one. This is, quite literally, the first time I've ever even heard of anyone mentioning the possible existence of such places.

When I was younger I did make an effort - I asked several different people to try to explain football to me. Not a single one of them would even try to do it in layman's terms. It would always be:
"Well, the *lingo lingo lingo* does *lingo lingo* with the *lingo,* and then the *lingo* has to try and *lingo" before the "lingo* "lingoes.*"
"So the... *lin-go, is the...*
"No, no, before that all the *lingoes* line up.
"In what order?"
"They just *lingo lingo lingo,* OK? It's all about numbers. Did you fail math a lot of sometjimg?
But if you live in a place where all anyone can talk about on Saturday night is the latest college football game, and people look at you funny if you say "yeah, that's not really my thing," I could understand the urge to snark about it.

Well, I live in the United States, so pretty much, yeah.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:26 AM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


I will confess that I have read enough of this guy over the years that I could probably write a pretty spot-on facsimile of his style with little effort. I think a good distillation of what's good and terrible about his writing are these (nonconsecutive) paragraphs:

God loves football because we are beings which can walk, run, jump, and do things with our hands and feet. We are not perfect. Sports allow us a venue of spectacle in which to compare our imperfections. I dare say you could triangulate a philosophical proof of the virtue of sports somewhere between eastern spirituality and western psychology: clear your mind, breathe deeply, and forget that your dad forced you to play little league because he loved baseball more than you possibly could have known how to love baseball, I mean, I was just six years old.

...

Bringing up a conversation topic for the sole purpose of declaring your disinterest in it is, in a word, sick. Imagine a person walking down a sidewalk toward you. This person has earbuds in their ears. They are not looking at you. You stand in front of them. You hold your hands out. They stop in front of you. You hold up your hands. You mime earbud-removal. The person takes their earbuds out. They have a look of puzzlement. They’re about to say “Can I help you?” and you cut them off. “Excuse me — please don’t tell me your name. I don’t want to know your name. I never want to talk to you. I will never talk to you. Goodbye.” Then you walk away. Would you do this? Don’t lie to me. You wouldn’t do this. What kind of person would do this? The kind of person who would do this would probably also, given the existence of a tricksy genie, press a Big Red Button that erases human history. That’s not you, is it?

It's pretentious and condescending, but also funny and true.
posted by zchyrs at 11:27 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


how many chicken breasts and steamed heads of broccoli he's eating per day,

Well, I don't know, those could actually be quite...

Oh, wait, I just realized those aren't euphemisms. Never mind.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:35 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


The irony of an article imploring people to let other people like stuff by way of listing eleven things the author doesn't like (along with a healthy dollop of STFU) is, well, let's just say you could make a seersucker suit out of it.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:35 AM on January 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


My kid likes to discuss whatever he's thinking about, loudly, in restaurants. This often includes things like what happens to dead bodies and why Dick Cheney should be in jail. I just assume we are someone else's terrible overheard conversation.
posted by emjaybee at 11:37 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


This will be my last comment, I swear. But this:

If I can’t convince you that anyone can like sports and that maybe you just need to think about sports differently, why don’t you just not bring up a conversation topic for the sole reason of saying it doesn’t interest you?

Basically he is saying "If you don't have the grace of spirit to agree with me, heathen, then please STFU about this topic since I will never agree with you and your opinion is objectively wrong."

He then goes on to equate, with a weak-ass disclaimer, complaining about sports fans to complaining about gay pride. I MEAN COME ON.

Dude needs some headphones. Beats headphones.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:00 PM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


I would just like to take this opportunity to talk about Secret Aardvark Hot Sauce. I'm not going to tell you it's the best hot sauce. I'm not going to tell you you are wrong for liking another hot sauce something more.

But I am going to tell you that Secret Aardvark Hot Sauce will make you make you believe that hot sauce is the One True Sauce and will turn your weeping into shouts of joy, and your boring scrambled eggs into sponges of spicy delight.
posted by Tevin at 12:22 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Now I know its Rogers I'll probably go back and give it a better shake. He's insufferable, but he's also very smart.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:26 PM on January 20, 2016


So is getting stabbed by a knitting needle.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:30 PM on January 20, 2016


Excuse me for that. Much like an overheard hot sauce discussion, this is something I should probably just forget about and move along.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:42 PM on January 20, 2016


The Underpants Monster: "Really? I've never heard of, seen, or been to one. This is, quite literally, the first time I've ever even heard of anyone mentioning the possible existence of such places."

Dude, I went to a football school and there were plenty of places within the football school where not caring about sports was normal and unremarkable. You may need to get out more!

The Underpants Monster: " I asked several different people to try to explain football to me. Not a single one of them would even try to do it in layman's terms. "

You have four tries to advance ten yards. If you cross the ten-yard mark, your four tries start over again at one and you get four more tries to go ten more yards. If you fail to go ten yards in four tries, the other team takes over and THEY try to go ten yards in four tries. Eventually one or the other of you gets to the end of the field and scores points. (Then you do like little kids playing spud do and fling/kick the ball way down field so that you start the next campaign from a "fair" but slightly randomized place.) The yards are conveniently marked for you in five-yard chunks on the field, but also if you're watching on TV, the TV lays down a pair of lines showing where the ball currently is and how far it has to get for the four tries to start over, which is very helpful.

Literally the entire rest of the game is a hundred years of elaborated strategic maneuvers for advancing ten yards in four tries.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:54 PM on January 20, 2016 [22 favorites]


The most annoying conversation to overhear, hands down, is an obviously juicy personal argument ... in a language you do not speak.

Along those lines, one I run into in my workplace: "[Mandarin words] deployment [Mandarin words] downtime [Mandarin words] migration [Mandarin words] [project I work on] ..."
posted by invitapriore at 1:04 PM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


Literally the entire rest of the game is a hundred years of elaborated strategic maneuvers for advancing ten yards in four tries.

Three tries.
posted by GuyZero at 1:08 PM on January 20, 2016


Literally the entire rest of the game is a hundred years of elaborated strategic maneuvers for advancing ten yards in four tries.
That, and a bunch of rules about what you're allowed to do in the name of trying to advance ten yards in four tries and trying to stop someone from advancing ten yards in four tries.

Three tries.
No, four tries. Strategically teams have decided that for the 4th try they should give up and just move the ball as far away from them as possible making it harder for the other team to move the ball back. They do this by kicking it. But sometimes teams don't kick the ball and try to reset the count back to 1.
posted by Green With You at 1:10 PM on January 20, 2016


Three tries.
No, four tries.


That might be a Canada joke.
posted by Etrigan at 1:12 PM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


Every professional football game I've ever attended in person, it's been three tries.

The local teams here in the US seem to have an extra down because they don't know how to pass or something I guess.
posted by GuyZero at 1:14 PM on January 20, 2016


That might be a Canada joke.
Ha! I should have guessed it was a joke. Since the person being told the rules in layman terms specifically said they were in the United States I was being very US-centric.
posted by Green With You at 1:14 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


I actually don't particularly like football even, but as a Canadian I am legally obligated to know that the CFL is even broadcast in the US on ESPN2 and ESPN3.

Which, in a nutshell is my response to the author of the linked piece - in addition to just not listening to rando talk about rado stuff that you hate, if someone actually tries to talk to you about football you can simply redirect the conversation into something everyone hates like the minutiae of CFL vs NFL rules and then everyone hate the conversation, so mission accomplished.
posted by GuyZero at 1:20 PM on January 20, 2016


If this guy applied just a little more empathy all around, this piece could have been great. The opening paragraph has this wonderfully elegaic tone; I wish his insights there had informed the rest of the essay.
posted by sammann at 1:27 PM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


Emjaybee, I'd LOVE to overhear your kid at dinner!

Since we're both in DFW, who knows -- maybe it'll happen someday.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 1:29 PM on January 20, 2016


The Underpants Monster: "I asked several different people to try to explain football to me. Not a single one of them would even try to do it in layman's terms. "

I have had the fun of explaining games to a child. You need to keep it really simple:
Football: "You get 4 chances to move the ball past two of the big white lines. If you do it, you get to try again. If you don't, you have to give the ball to the other team."
Baseball: "You take turns hitting the ball when it is thrown past you, then you run around the circle before someone touches you with the ball. If you can't make it all the way, but you can stop and stand on one of the bags, you are safe. Try again the next time someone else hits the ball."
Basketball: "Throw the ball through the hoop. If it goes through, the other team gets it next. If you miss, anyone can grab it."
Hockey: "Hit the black rubber disk with your stick. If you hit it into the net, you get a point. You can't hit other people with your stick or you get a time out."
Soccer: "It's pretty much just like hockey, but on grass, and you do it by kicking a ball with your feet."

Everything else is details. If you decide that you care, you can start learning the details. If you decide you don't care, you can at least understand the basic mechanisms of the game.

Alternatively, when the subject comes up, you could just try saying "Oh, {sport game}? Yeah, I don't really follow that, I am more into {something not sport game}" and drop it.
posted by caution live frogs at 1:37 PM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


Someone please explain cricket in this style.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:22 PM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


Green With You: "That, and a bunch of rules about what you're allowed to do in the name of trying to advance ten yards in four tries and trying to stop someone from advancing ten yards in four tries."

And honestly, one of the things I think appeals to nerds about football is how hard teams work to game the rules, and how sometimes a "perfect" strategy is converged upon that takes the best advantage of the rules, and then that part of the game gets boring, and the NFL generally makes a rule change to introduce a little more instability back into the game. (For example, the kicked extra point after a touchdown had become so routine that the NFL moved the placement of the kick back, so that it's just a teeeeeeeny bit harder and teams might try for the two-point conversion more often and might miss the one-point kick more often.) A lot of nerdy types who spend a lot of time on sussing out how the new edition of D&D works get pretty interested in how NFL teams try to converge on an optimal strategy and then how the rules have to adjust to disrupt that strategy so the game remains interesting.

In terms of explaining the general strategy to newbies, I generally explain that there are fast guys (who carry your ball downfield, or chase the ball carrier) and big guys (who protect your quarterback or try to disrupt your play), and you can choose to put more fast guys on the field, but then your quarterback is more vulnerable to the other team's big guys. Or you can put more big guys on the field, but then you have far fewer options for gaining yards. Most people, with just that tiny bit of explanation, immediately start being able to make basic sense of the shape of the plays, where the fast guys try to escape the immediate scrum and are chased by the opposing fast guys, and the big guys try to protect/disrupt the play's set-up. (Most people already know you can pass or run; I generally explain that behind the line of scrimmage you can do almost anything you want with the ball, but once you're into "enemy territory" mostly only one guy can hold the ball, and just wait for a crazy multiple lateral play to actually happen before I try to explain laterals.)

If you've ever set up a WoW raid, or played Axis and Allies, or Risk, or D&D, you get the difference between your high-speed precision units and your low-speed but indestructible "tank" units, and how you try to array and deploy them in a battle to anticipate and defend against your opponent's similar array of unit types. Football's the same sort of strategy battle game!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:06 PM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


it's crazy how it took this guy until he was a grown man to have the revelation that people and life are boring most of the time!
posted by scose at 3:12 PM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


A lot of nerdy types who spend a lot of time on sussing out how the new edition of D&D

One of the most entertaining things I've ever read in my life was a long, wandering off-topic discussion in a Seahawks live game thread about whether the NFL catch rules were more bizarre and difficult to understand than D&D First Edition grappling rules, or vice versa.
posted by KathrynT at 3:17 PM on January 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


I haven't tried genuine New York or genuine Chicago pizza, but I'm pretty confident the NY pizza would win for me as Chicago deep-dish seems kind of like a mad quiche. Which I am all for, but let's not call that pizza. Best hot sauce is easily the special gourmet chipotle sauce I get from my special deli but if we're talking Tabasco vs Tapiato, both of them are bullshit but Tabasco Habanero Sauce is the least bullshit of the two.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:27 PM on January 20, 2016


Not bad, but way too long. Doesn't the Internet have an editor?
posted by QuietDesperation at 4:05 PM on January 20, 2016


Not at Medium, no. Make of that what you will.
posted by rhizome at 4:23 PM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Lost me at the hot sauce. Skimmed the rest until I determined this was a person I could never have a conversation with.

An acquaintance once said of "Friends:" "I can't watch a show where I want to punch all of the actors."
posted by rhizome at 4:25 PM on January 20, 2016


QuietDesperation: "Doesn't the Internet have an editor?"

Tim Rogers gets a +7 on saving throws against editors.
posted by Bugbread at 4:59 PM on January 20, 2016


Okay, but would that be a save versus Paralyzation, Poison, or Death Magic? Or versus Petrification or Polymorph? I don't see it as save vs Spell or Breath Weapon, and it's definitely not Rod, Staff, or Wand.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:14 PM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


"If you've ever set up a WoW raid, or played Axis and Allies, or Risk, or D&D, you get the difference between your high-speed precision units and your low-speed but indestructible "tank" units, and how you try to array and deploy them in a battle to anticipate and defend against your opponent's similar array of unit types. Football's the same sort of strategy battle game!"

Importantly, there are not unending eons of advertisements in D&D though.

Unless your DM is literally the worst, I guess.
posted by Tevin at 5:16 PM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


"Ok, guys, Flogressive offers you 200 gold if you clear out CitiBank Dungeon."
posted by tobascodagama at 5:22 PM on January 20, 2016 [9 favorites]


Crystal is better than either Tabasco or Tapatio. Talking about sports is a fun way to pass the time. The precious turd who wrote the linked article can go fuck himself.
posted by jonmc at 5:35 PM on January 20, 2016


The most "that guy" That Guy I have ever read on MetaFilter, perhaps

Earlier today, briefly I looked that guy up on the Wikipedia and learned he "graduated from Indiana University Bloomington in 2001 with a degree in East Asian Languages and Cultures." and thought, 'Hunh, he'd probably get along great with that guy who wrote that whiny screed about being a disillusioned Japanophile that was going around a while back.'

As it turns out, that was six (!) years ago - meaning I have an terrifyingly good memory for people who annoy me - and he was That Guy.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:56 PM on January 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


I'm not great at names, though.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:02 PM on January 20, 2016


Huh. I really liked this piece.
posted by gaspode at 8:26 AM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


Importantly, there are not unending eons of advertisements in D&D though.

But then, I don't do laundry, pay bills, and all other sorts of minor chores during D&D. It's precisely because of all the ads that watching football is some of my most productive time.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:42 AM on January 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


Someone please explain cricket in this style.

The bowler tries to bounce the ball off the pitch and make it knock one of the little bars off the three poles behind the batsman. The batsman tries to stop that by hitting the ball with the bat. If the ball does knock off a little bar, or would have done if the batsman's leg hadn't got in the way, or somebody catches it after it comes off the bat but before it hits the ground, it's the next batsman's go.
posted by flabdablet at 10:41 PM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Is it really that hard to just ignore people?

Yes.

Especially if they're eating.
posted by Rash at 1:58 AM on January 24, 2016


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