Jan:

Let’s get acquainted. You’re a journalist at the New York Times, a former newspaper. Assigned to cover vaccine rollout, you decided to figure out why some people aren’t getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

I’m Chris. I’m from Greeneville, Tennessee. Born and raised.

And after this hatchet job you wrote, you and I have a problem. Continue reading →

“Vince McMahon is going to jail for dealing steroids,” my friend Andy told me one day at school.

We were kids. Neither of us knew what steroids were. We knew drugs were bad, and the guy who everyone said ran the WWF was being accused of dealing them.

What no one knew was the acquittal of Vince McMahon in what would later be called “The Steroid Trial” helped shape the face of professional wrestling for decades to come. Although it’s easy to look back now and see this as a monumental fuck-up of a federal case, few people realize Vince had an old rival holed up in Stamford, Connecticut in case of a guilty verdict to smooth over the transfer of power within the top American wrestling promotion at the time. Continue reading →

Prefatory note: my hacker contact, BlueDragon72, who totally isn’t TechDirt’s Tim Cushing, sent me this today. I think y’all will like this. –CLS

May 1, 2021
FROM: Templeton, Roy ([email protected])
TO: Belichick, Bill ([email protected])
SUBJECT: QB Problem

Dear Coach Belichick: Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Another debate has broken out at SJ! Fault Lines alumni Mario Machado and Christopher Seaton are ready to slug it out to the following question: “Resolved: It is in the best interests of the American public to pursue a “national divorce.” Chris will take the affirmative while Mario argues the negative. Chris’ argument follows, and you can read Mario’s here.

Abraham Lincoln warned us back in 1858, “A house divided cannot stand.” One hundred and sixty-three years later and we still haven’t wised up to what he really meant.

Our national division’s brewed for some time. If one wanted to put a pin at the precise moment in history where the country fractured, an argument can be made for the moment Hillary Clinton declared half of us “a basket of deplorables.” Continue reading →

The mood at the Knoll was different. That wasn’t necessarily good.

For starters, Jesse Custer left town three days earlier, citing a desire to attend a “religious retreat.” That was bullshit and everyone knew the Pub’s proprietor was headed to Vegas, but no one bothered the lapsed minister over it.

Tulip O’Hare, Custer’s long-time girlfriend, tended bar while Cass watched the door. Cass tried repeatedly to get Tulip let him have a go behind the bar. Tulip rejected the Irishman every time.

Rule one, Tulip thought. Never let Cassidy behind the bar. He’s at the door for a reason. Continue reading →

I took up lock picking recently.

The idea came in a moment when I was cleaning out the kids’ toy room and came across a pick set I’d ordered a couple years ago but never really used. So I watched a couple of YouTube tutorials, read a manual, and started working on “bypassing pin tumblers.”

It was hard at first. Really, really hard. And because I’m a stubborn son of a bitch and won’t let something go until I get it, I kept a pick set and practice padlock with me all the time. Continue reading →

The following is an article from a British tabloid. I want you to soak in the headline. Bask in its glory. Then read the piece and come back here.

Mars Bars up arse champ branded a cheat for using the small multipack ones

1. This was from May of last year and none of you had the decency to send it to me when we really could’ve used the laugh? I’m ashamed of y’all. Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Another debate has broken out at SJ! Chris Seaton has called the question:

Resolved: in the interests of public health, safety, and reviving a struggling economy, the United States should require vaccine credentials for all citizens 18 years of age or older.

Chris will be taking the affirmative, and I will be taking the negative. Chris’s post follows, and I do my lame best here.

As you’re reading this, America is well over a year past “two weeks to slow the spread” of COVID-19. Many small businesses are gone. School children haven’t seen friends or teachers in person for over a year. We’re not to leave our homes without at least two face diapers over our nose and mouth. Our current way of life isn’t sustainable. Continue reading →

“Hey kiddo,” I called to my son on Monday of this week, “Spider-Man is on TV. Want to watch?”

My son, a huge Spider-Man enthusiast, put a tablet down to watch “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” a movie I found during a search on Hulu to try and bond with my son. Over the next three days, I subjected myself to the single most godawful movie ever created.

And you bastards are going to suffer with me. Continue reading →

MARCH 18, 2021
4:45 AM

Deputy Ernesto Miranda and Patrolman Ray Stevens quietly entered the dimly lit bullpen of the Mud Lick Sheriff’s Department. Both men were, to put it charitably, extremely hung over.

It wasn’t as if this was unexpected. The night before, both men attended the Grassy Knoll Pub’s “Irish Day” celebration, where the citizens of Mud Lick, like many Americans, used the holiday to get stinking drunk and pretend to be Irish.

Miranda moved through the office quietly, turning on lights, booting up his desk computer and starting a pot of coffee. Stevens, a new transfer, crashed into a file cabinet. Continue reading →