misfitS pOLITICS
We talk. We write. We entertain. Or so we think.
|
Welcome back to "Ask Alex", where I answer all of your stupid questions with even dumber answers. Have a question you need answered? Tweet it, email it or submit it here and I will get to it (maybe) next week.
-------------------------------- Twice in a row now, this has been a bi-weekly column. I hope to not make a habitof it, but I make no promises… I have, like, a job and stuff... For your regular update on “Where is Alex, and who is watching her children?” I spent last week at the beach with the girls, mostly (pretending to be) working while they were in camp, and then this week I was home and my husband was with them. I will be back at the beach at the beginning of next week, not, as any sane person would have done, heading to Paris with my sister to hang out with her boyfriend and his family (long story...you should ask me next week). So, let’s talk about Missouri, cats, trolls, kale, Misfits and Nantucket, shall we? Submitted by: Harry Bergeron Hi, Alex, I couldn't think of the Capital of Missouri the other day, and drew a series of blanks when I tried to look it up on Google. Google wanted to sell me maps of Missouri, vacations in the Ozarks, tickets to Branson, Tshirts, cars and homes instead of providing the Capital. It finally dawned on me that Missouri might well be too careless, forgetful, poor, or backwards to actually have a capital! Would you look into this potential scandal? And if they do ever get a capital, should they call it "Missouriopolis?? That worked out just fine for Minnesota. Thank you for your kind attention to this peculiar matter. Missouri does, in fact, have a capital - the mostly forgettable Jefferson City. And while Missouriopolis has a nice ring to it, that would NOT mirror the state of Minnesota, where St. Paul (not Minneapolis) is the capital. The parallels you were looking for, of course, would be either Oklahoma City, OK or Indianapolis, IN. Jefferson City is notable for a couple of reasons, though. First, it is one of 4 state capitals named after Presidents (Lincoln, Madison and Jackson, although Jackson was only a general when they named the city after him), and one of only four state capitals that does not have an Interstate Highway (Juneau, AK; Dover, DE; Pierre, SD). This, of course, means that Honolulu, HI does have interstate highways, which is probably worth a little bit of thinking. I also just learned that Pierre, SD is not pronounced like a french guy, but rather as “Peer”. Wikipedia says so, and Wikipedia would never lie. Since South Dakota named its capital after a Frenchie and North Dakota named its after a German, I am somewhat surprised that we have never seen a Great Dakota War... As to your question about Missouri being too careless, poor, forgetful or backwards to have a state capital, I think you are being kind of hard on the Show Me State (note: worst state motto). It’s a little larger than average, ranking 18th of 50 states in population, and a little below average in most qualitative factors: 36th in per capita income, 39th in education, 28th in obesity, 40th in life expectancy. In other words, it is sort of a shitty state, but it’s nowhere near the bottom of the barrel (hey West Virginia and Mississippi...you’re up.) You know where it punches above its weight, though? Major professional sports championships. Mostly on the strength of the St. Louis Cardinals 11 World Series Championships, the state of Missouri has won 16 Championships, which is substantially more than its relative size would predict. You know what other state punches above its weight on that list? Mass-a-fucking-chusetts, bitches!!! 17 NBA Championships, 9 World Series, 6 Stanley Cups and 5 super bowls means that we’re trailing only New York (which has 58 Championships) and California (42), and managed to do it with only four franchises! It took New York 13, and California 14 to win all of those rings. On a per-franchise basis, Massachusetts is pretty well the king of sports, and don’t you dare @ me because the only other State that is even close is Illinois (29 from five teams including two that went 88 and 108 years between wins respectively.) I mean, if we are being really honest, we totally cheated...we got to use Bill Russell and Tom Brady and Bobby Orr. There are only six cities that have won championships in each of the four major sports, which seems like not very many. New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. There are also a handful more that have won in all three sports in which they play (Pittsburgh, Cleveland, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore). San Jose is the largest US city, by population, to have never won a championship, checking in at about 14 times the size of the smallest city to ever win one - the 1922 and 1923 NFL Champion Canton Bulldogs. It’s almost ten times the size of Green Bay, which has won 13 NFL Championships and currently fields the NFL’s second best quarterback (you should be very proud, @molratty)! Biggest underachievers? Texas and Florida seem to be low on that list based on their population size, but their populations (especially Florida) are young enough that they don’t really have long histories to rely on. There are nine franchises in Florida, but the oldest (the Miami Dolphins) is only 51 years old, and seven of them were founded after 1988. Given that, 9 Championships is actually not so bad. It is a similar story in Texas, which has 15 Championships, dominated by the Dallas Cowboys (6) and San Antonio Spurs (5). No...the real winner for being losers has got to be Georgia. And really, given the most recent foray in almost-winning, I hate to kick you when you are down, but this is starting to get pretty embarrassing. The Falcons were founded in 1965 and the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966. The Hawks began playing in Atlanta in 1968 and then two hockey teams came and went, the (now Calgary) Flames from 1972-1980 and the (now Winnipeg Jets) Thrashers from 1999-2011. That totals up to 171 seasons played and a grand total of ONE championship (the 1995 Braves). Rather than beat up on the poor peach-staters any more than I need to, I will just maybe leave this here. Here then, in closing, is a Jesse Kelly-style list of State Capitals by cultural/political/financial relevance and national/international importance: 1. Boston 2. Atlanta 3. Phoenix 4. Denver 5. Indianapolis 6. Austin 7. Sacramento 8. Salt Lake City 9. Oklahoma City 10. Nashville ----- 41. Concord 42. Dover 43. Carson City 44. Frankfort 45. Augusta 46. Helena 47. Juneau 48. Bismarck 49. Pierre 50. Montpelier Submitted by: Bo Cat If my human does not change the litter in my litter box, is it permissible to pee in her bed as a demonstration of my displeasure at her inability to maintain a proper litter box? What time is a good time to ask to be let outside? I was thinking maybe like 3 AM, but she doesn't seem to agree. Can you help? Full disclosure: I hate cats. I mean, I really, really hate cats. I am deathly allergic to most of them, which doesn’t help, but I also think that I just plain don’t like them. You know why? Mostly because cats hate people, and what kind of nerve do they have to hate people who feed, house, clean up after and protect them? This is limited to domestic cats, since I think wild big cats are pretty fucking awesome. I’ve documented my completely rational and not at all unhealthy fear of jaguars, and I’d love to be a lioness...that would be pretty boss. And, fun fact time...the unofficial scientific designation of “Big Cats” (also, Alex just invented the term “unofficial scientific designation”) includes the four largest species of the genus panthera - panthera tigris, panthera leo, panthera onca (jaguars) and panthera pardus (leopard). These four share certain physical traits that other large felines (including the other species of the panthera genus, uncia, the snow leopard, along with cheetahs, cougars, bobcats, lynx and others) do not have, the most notable of which is a unique larynx formation that allows them to roar. Which is really kind of the most important part, right? Anyway, I’d love a pet ocelot, but domesticated cats are basically just fur-generating parasites that prey on the sympathies of lonely old crazy women. If it isn’t keeping you mice-free, that cat is really bringing nothing to the table beyond an appetite and a detached disdain for any humans it meets. (Memo: if you have rats, you can not get a house cat...they will kill the cat. You could, however, get a mountain lion. That will solve your rat problem quickly, but you have to be willing to kind of give up on ever using the basement again.) You know who doesn’t hate people? Dogs don’t hate people. Dogs love people and will happily show that affection regularly. Your dog is the only person in your house who will always be happy to see you. For as long as there have been civilised human beings, there have been domesticated dogs to assist in hunting, herding, protection and general companionship, and there is no better testament to their usefulness than the fact that humans don’t eat dogs unless they have no other reliable sources of widely available protein. Really, if you learn one thing from Guns, Germs and Steel, it is that a societal decision to NOT eat large, domesticable mammals is a sign of extraordinary usefulness. Looking at a 1,000 pound horse that very, very few humans eat regularly kind of gives away the “Civilization’s Most Useful Animal” mystery… (And if you have never read the book, you should. It’s fascinating in a super-dork kind of way and it’s got a million eye-opening observations.) And dogs do so much for us, too! They sniff for bombs and drugs, they work with police and ride fire trucks. They herd sheep and cows and chase away predators who would eat livestock. They show blind people around!!! They may be saving the cheetah population. Is there anything cooler than seeing-eye dogs? Think about how amazing that is...a dog can learn enough about helping a person navigate their life as to largely free the person from being dependent on other people. And all the dog wants in return is a warm bed, food and the right to go into restaurants where his fellow dogs can’t! This also reminds me of the time I saw ten little lab puppies on one long leash wearing orange vests that said “Please don’t disturb us, we are guide dogs in training”. Cutest thing I have ever seen? Definitely top five. In conclusion, change your own litter box, you freeloading pee sniffer. Or learn to shit outside like a dog would...I mean, you’re not dumber than a dog, are you? You can figure it out. Submitted by: Kurt Michaels What is the proper etiquette for dispensing with Twitter trolls? Do you block, mock, mute, refute, ridicule or something else? What was your greatest victory over a troll? I generally like to mock them. Jokes about the size of a male trolls genitals are always a good place to start...usually hits pretty close to the mark. Or jokes about their sad living situation and lack of female attention, cuz these guys usually live in Mom’s basement and definitely don’t have girlfriends. At least real girlfriends. Trolls tend to be really easy to insult because often their low opinions of themselves are what drove them to be trolls in the first place. Really, my most common response is to just ignore them. I have muted a couple who just wouldn’t shut up and were cluttering my notifications. Generally, they have no interest in making a point, they just want to get a reaction out of you. Reacting just feeds the beast, and there is nothing to be gained by it. I believe I have only ever blocked one person on Twitter, and it wasn’t because he was a troll. It was actually someone that I spent a lot of time interacting with and “knew” quite well. In the end, I blocked him because I felt like he had taken advantage of my better nature and wasted a lot of my time without ever really having any desire to make the changes necessary to fix the problems that he complained about. If you enjoy complaining about being miserable more than you desire not being miserable, at least have the common decency to admit it. Interestingly, I am blocked by a relatively large number of people with whom I have never once interacted, or had like one really innocuous interaction a long time ago. Deray blocked me. A couple of the Buckleys have blocked me, likely by association, even though the only interactions we ever had were quite pleasant. The since-departed most annoying one blocked me because he thought I subtweeted him. Blocking someone who has never once interacted with you because you think she is subtweeting you takes a pretty special level of self-importance, but he is pretty well known as a true legend by that measure. Funniest part is that the tweet was actually directed at a former Misfit:-) There is one person that blocked me for reasons I don’t know and that bothers me...but c’est le vie, it’s Twitter, I guess. Also...if someone at Twitter could let us easily see who has blocked us, that would be really helpful. Maybe get to work on that, @Jack? Submitted by: Schultzie Can I get Stockholm Syndrome from eating kale? If you are eating kale, you probably already have it...why else would you be eating dirt-flavored construction paper? You have clearly been kidnapped by kale and psychologically tortured into sympathizing with your captor. Or maybe you have been kidnapped by rabbits and you are sympathizing with them by liking rabbit food? Do you find yourself hopping around your backyard, popping out large numbers of kids and eating carrots, too? Those would be telltale signs… I dunno...I could go either way on this one. Just to be safe, you should eat an ice cream cone. Submitted by: Groupie I need to learn more about the Misfits. Please sort them all by:
Thanks a lot! Height: You’ll probably be surprised to know that Rex is over 7’0” tall and both @CDPayne79 and @Vixenrogue are about 6’9”. This is why we usually dominate in the Blog Wars Basketball tournament. She may look like she is normal height, but @molratty is actually only 4’3” tall, and is shaped roughly like a bowling ball. It’s quite a sight! Real answer: Rex and Marc are both about 6’0”, so they are probably tallest. @Blazermc88 is the tallest of the Beckys, and I think I am the shortest. JR is pretty tiny, too, but she is taller than me to begin with AND she is so oppressed by the patriarchy that she wears Trump heels at every moment of every day so she looks more like 5’7” to anyone who has ever met her. Either that or she works professionally in some field that requires women to never, ever remove their heels under any circumstances...hmm... Weight: Even though she is shorter than my seven year olds, Mo weighs somewhere near 350 pounds. Seriously...salad, Mo. Just once in awhile. And then there is the pregnant Misfit who is super gigantic these days, but that may still be a secret, so I won’t say who it is (spoiler alert: it’s @2009superglide). And again, JR and I are the tiniest Age: This is somewhat irrelevant because we are all a part of a sunlight-averse cult of immortal wiccans. Also, we’ve been told that we all act like children on occasion, or at least teenagers (#MisfitMischief, #MischiefAfterDark, tonight!!!). Rex is the oldest, and the only Grandparent of the bunch. I’m actually not sure who is second oldest...Marc maybe? He, Daryl, Mo and @RebeccadeWinter are all in the same age bracket (at least as I think about them!!!). After that, Dan, Musket and @CDPayne79 make up the back end of Generation X, before you get to me and JR. @GentlemanRascal is the youngest of the boys, followed by Kayla and finally, the juniorest Misfit: @_CCHayes! She may still be on her learner’s permit. Residential Elevation: Well, this is an odd question, but it one that I am prepared to answer!!! I should acknowledge that this is not terribly precise because I am not actually using anyone’s address.This is all based on the Google-reported elevation of the city or town in which each person lives (except my own, which is my address). Rex: 13’ Marc: 48’ Rebecca: 48’ Alex: 50’ Kayla: 243’ CDP: 463’ JR: 489’ Dan: 541’ Rascal: 810’ Daryl: 890’ Musket: 4,268’ CC Hayes: 4,820 So, surprisingly, while there are five of us that basically live on the coast (or near enough), only one is really near sea level, and two of us are WAY, WAY up in the thin air. Also worth noting that this is a totally different answer than the one you would get for “Which is the highest Misfit”. Moving right along... Income: What is “income” really? Is it just the money we earn from our jobs? Or is it all of the non-monetary rewards we garner from our life experiences? Is Rex’s income limited because he is retired, or is it in fact infinite because he owns the freedom of retirement? Daryl and CC may not gain much money from being in school, but how do we measure the value of knowledge and wisdom? And what does CDP even do? No one knows...NO ONE KNOWS!!! Here I will list some amounts of money. Some of them may be my estimates of various Misfits’ incomes, and some may just be random numbers: $100,000 $85,000 $38,000 $800,000 $54,000 $675,000 $27,000 $145,000 $75,000 $70,000 But I am not telling you who is who or which one of those is a real estimate. You’ll need to guess! IQ: Funny you should ask this...we had a former member who loved to talk about his IQ, as if it were something that is measured in the same way that height or weight is (note: he was also short and fat). According to his version of his self-administered test, he was like the smartest person in the upper midwest and always had trouble in school because they didn’t have things that were capable of keeping someone of his intellect adequately engaged. But, since pure intellect will always win out, he is due to be promoted to behind the bar at Applebee’s any day now. Funniness: Kayla says that she is fine being last in IQ as long as she can be top three in funniness. I strongly doubt that she is anywhere near last in IQ, but she is a safe bet to be top three humorist. @Marcannem96 is probably the funniest, but Musket and CDP are really funny, too, and truthfully we can all be pretty funny if the mood strikes. Daryl wins any Dad-joke contest... # of Children/Grandchildren: Rex is the runaway grandchild winner, since he is the only one with any. There really isn’t anyone else who is particularly close...the next oldest children (Rebecca’s, Marc’s, Musket’s) are still in college and (hopefully) not working to make any of them grandparents imminently. On the children front: Marc has 3, Rebecca has 3 and Mo, Musket, Dan and I all have two, although those underachievers needed two pregnancies to do it. CC, JR and Kayla all have one and CDP, Rascal and Daryl just get to sleep in every day and wear clothes without (someone else’s) chocolate stains. And one of us is about to have another:-) Education level I think Mo is the champ here, since she is a JD, which makes her a Doctor...a Doctor of Laws! Beyond that, we have a bunch of graduate degrees, which mostly just means that we wasted time and money in school while Marc was busy golfing... Submitted by: Daryl What is there to do on Nantucket other than writing limericks? This question made me giggle-snort...maybe Daryl’s best corny joke yet. Also, for those that were maybe curious, based on all of the data available, men on Nantucket do not, in fact, have genitalia large enough that, in concert with their flexibility, they are capable of self-fellating. I mean, I can’t say that I have done a scientific study or anything, but,...you know what, I am just gonna move on from this. Seems like as good a time as any to wrap it up here...until next week!!!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
MisfitsJust a gaggle of people from all over who have similar interests and loud opinions mixed with a dose of humor. We met on Twitter. Archives
January 2024
|
RSS Feed