A Game Of ‘Clue’ Turns Into Open Warfare
Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we’re talking juicers, the Spock market, airplane seat prep, and more.
Your letters:
Brendan:
What’s the worst board game? It has to be Parcheesi/Sorry, right? Just sitting there randomly rolling dice/picking cards to advance a piece with no say in anything that happens.
Monopoly is the stock answer here, but also a tired one. Plus, anytime you stunt on Monopoly now, you get a handfuls of schmucks replying, “That’s because you’re not playing the game right! STOP PUTTING MONEY IN FREE PARKING!” blah blah blah. Shoot me in the moneybags.
No, my personal answer is Exploding Kittens, which is a card game and not a board game. But whatever, it’s fucking torture. We got that game many years ago because it had a funny title and because hey, who doesn’t love that it was created by the guy from The Oatmeal? Anyway, the rules were impossible to parse, the jokey premise grew stale five seconds after opening the box, and playing a single game somehow took us 100 years. Our kids despised it. You gotta work hard to devise a game called Exploding Kittens that kids can’t fucking stand. So take that deck of cards and shove them up your ass, Matthew Inman.
Now, let me use the subject of board games to tell you a little story. It’s Friday night and I’m at home with my wife and our two sons. During dinner, the older one says, “Let’s play a board game after this.” Well, my wife and I are never gonna turn down a chance to get our kids off screens for an hour or two, so we get all hyped that the 17-year-old brought up the idea of Family Game Night. I cry out, “I know! We’ll play Clue! Everyone loves Clue!”
I grab the Clue set from my office and lay it out on the table. All of us are a bit rusty on how Clue works, so I get out the instructions and begin reading them out loud to the other three. This lasts two minutes before they get tired of all the dadsplaining. My wife says, “Let’s just play and then we’ll figure it out as we go.”
We start the game, and things only get worse from there. I have to redo the three cards in the case file because I forgot if I put two rooms in there instead of just one. One of the kids keeps using the secret passageway to go from the kitchen to the study over and over again so they can make suggestions on every turn. Then my wife gets impatient because she can only show one of her cards to our son when he suggests that Colonel Mustard did it in the study with knife.
“I have two of the things he suggested,” she says.
“You’re only supposed to show him one!” I tell her.
“Eh.” She shows him the two cards anyway. In fact, she shows them to all of us.
“You’re only supposed to show the suggester the card!”
“That’s not how we played it when I was a kid.”
“Well, you bleedin’ played it wrong when you were a kid!”
“We should have all our cards face up the whole game.”
“THEN THE GAME WOULD BE OVER!”
“Whatever.”
Somehow, we continue playing the game for another long, combative 20 minutes. By the end, everyone is in a shit mood and we agree to just move our pieces to whatever rooms we want, because rolling to dice to get to each one is a pain the ass. I don’t remember who the murderer was. Probably a hungry hungry hippo.
Jeff:
What’s one song you wish you could listen to for the first time again?
“Tilted” by Sugar. The first time I played it, I knew it was the greatest rock song I’d ever heard. And guess what? It still is! So if I had the chance to go back to 1997 and hear it again for the first time, I’d jump into the DeLorean without hesitation. I was in my dorm room that night, drunk and playing Super Mario World. Perfect circumstances.
(I’m going to one of the Sugar reunion shows this year. I once personally asked Bob Mould if he could play “Tilted” at one of his solo shows, and he said his voice was no longer up to it. I’m hoping—nay, demanding—this reunion compels him to destroy his larynx for me anyway.)
Jay:
Juicers suck, ammirite??! My wife recently received one through some incentive program at her work and I ended up buying 30 bucks worth of fruits and veggies for about five bucks worth of juice. Not to mention how big and loud this juicer is, and all of the space it now takes up in our pantry. And the fruit turds that come out the other end??! I hate it. And don’t get me started on air fryers.
I do not own a juicer, nor do I ever intend to. That’s because I live in a place where the produce is, for the most part, dogshit. If you live in Peru, or some other country where all the fruit tastes as if cultivated by God himself, then you can make a juicer work. But with this bag of navel oranges I got from Safeway for $6? Fucking hopeless. This is why America pivoted from juice fads in the previous century to smoothie fads in this one. You don’t need fresh fruit to make a smoothie work. You just need half a jar of honey and a big wad of peanut butter. OMG THIS TASTES SO HEALTHY!
Ryan:
Twenty years ago or so, there was an interactive internet site called the Spock Market. It tied into the re-airing of Star Trek on some cable channel. You got X amount of points when you signed up, which you could then “invest” in the market. If Spock cried, Spock stock went down. Red shirts live, red shirts stock goes up. I regret to inform you that me and my roommate at the time were in the top 100 in the world out of tens of thousands. If they recreated this experience today, what would be the best show for it and why?
So this is basically a drinking game, but nerdier? Yeah that sounds like Trekkie shit, all right. I have zero doubt that both Kalshi and Polymarket will open markets like this sometime within the next three months. I have never watched The Traitors, adored by virtually everyone on the Defector staff, but I have little doubt that show would be ideal for that kind of HSX-style wagering. If you’d prefer I choose a scripted program (or one that’s more scripted than the average reality show) for Ryan’s question, my answer is Boardwalk Empire, so that we could all bet on who gets whacked every week. Boardwalk Empire was created explicitly for those of us who didn’t think The Sopranos whacked enough characters. I love it so.
Mulling over Ryan’s question, it occurred to me that I haven’t really weighed in on the rise of prediction markets, so let me briefly do that here. FUCK prediction markets. Fuck Polymarket. Fuck Kalshi. And fuck all of the people who run those companies and believe that literally everything that happens in this world should be reduced to a betting endeavor. Not only is it purely evil—hey, let’s legalize insider trading on the Iran War!—it’s also lame as absolute shit. That remains one of my chief complaints of the entire Trump era. Everyone and everything involved with it has been so profoundly uncool. I am not a cool person. Just ask my kids, especially on game night. But somehow I’m much cooler than all of these sorry-ass motherfuckers. Compared to Pete Hegseth, I’m Joey Ramone. I’m begging someone out there to make America cool again.
Adam:
What’s your strategy for arriving in an airplane seat? I do water bottle and AirPods in the seat pocket. But if I need an extra layer of clothing or a book, I have to somehow muscle the bag up from between my legs. My wife says I need to bring less stuff and go minimalist. But I need my coping mechanisms to mitigate the indignities of air travel, so this isn’t an option. What’s your gear strategy as a tall guy on flights?
I rarely use the seat pocket because I’ve left too much shit in those things after deplaning. One time, I lost my Kindle. Another time, I left my notebook in there. That notebook contained all of the notes I’d taken down for a full GQ feature. That story was the reason I was making the trip in the first place, and now I’d fucked it all up. My memory bank, plus my trusty voice recorder, saved the day that time, but the scars linger. Once you lose something in that seat-back pocket, you never trust that pocket again. I need whatever I put into that pocket to stick out of it, otherwise it instantly vanishes from my mind.
Thus, my flight strategy is fairly similar to Adam’s above. After I stow my roll-aboard in the overhead bin, I put my laptop bag under the seat in front of me and then scavenge from it as necessary. I always keep my Kindle (or whatever print book I’m reading) in that bag, plus my laptop, my notebook, my sunglasses, my car keys, my hearing aid charger, my over-the-ear headphones, plus a T-shirt that I always roll up and place behind me for extra lumbar support. That’s a lot of shit to pack into a laptop case, and it gives my feet little in the way of wiggle room. But once we hit 10,000 feet and I can take out my laptop and headphones, it’s manageable. In fact, my system has served me well across decades of business travel. And compared to other passengers, I’m practically a monk. I’ve had people next to me jam full backpacks down there and shit. I can’t fly like that. I need some space left over for my body, and I’ll stoop to checking my bag if I have to get it.
But never again with the seat-back pockets. Those things are the Bermuda Triangle of white-collar transit.
HALFTIME!
Todd:
Just curious if you’re seeing any results yet from the Wegovy?
For those who haven’t been with us previously, I’ve been on GLP-1 agonist meds for nearly two years now. I haven’t lost a ton of weight, mostly because I overdid it on cannabis all throughout that time. You can, indeed, defeat these drugs via the power of munchies. But ever since I cut back on the weed, the Wegovy has proven more effective. I have no plans to go off these drugs anytime soon, because their apparent health benefits only seem to be on the rise, which is a nice development in an otherwise dogshit world. Also, the next wave of inhibitors will be easier to self-administer. Already, you can get them in pill form. I asked my NP about making the switch at our last appointment (also in part because Wegovy carries a higher risk of blindness than its competitors). But she told me that, unlike with a once-a-week shot you can give yourself at any time of day, you must take these initial pills every morning, and you can’t eat breakfast until 30 minutes afterward. I couldn’t roll with that shit, so I’m sticking to the shot for now. I like that pricking myself with a needle makes me feel tough as nails.
While we’re on this subject, I keep wondering what Charles Barkley’s target weight is now. He’s openly on GLP-1s like me, and they’re already starting to have the Al Roker effect on his appearance. But I don’t think he’s bought new clothes to accommodate the change, because all of his on-air suits now look like they’ve been tailored by David Byrne. Someone in wardrobe, please get this man some clothes that fit him until he’s reached his goal weight. I want Chuck to look his best whenever he’s on my television screen.
Derek:
On the opening lines of “Who Am I?” Snoop Dogg raps, “From the depths of the C…” I always assumed he was name-dropping Compton, because he and his West Coast crew did that all the time. But the other day I was showing my father-in-law the music video to that track (he hated it), and when I put on the subtitles so he could understand what Snoop was saying, that said, “From the depths of the sea…” As in, Snoop Dogg is emerging from the ocean like a leviathan or something. Who do you think is right? We don’t always have to believe the subtitles, do we?
A cursory search says, unanimously, that my dear friend Snoop came from the depths of the “sea.” But you could easily argue he meant it both ways, given that you can see him throw up a C while performing the song in an old concert video. That’s the beauty of poetry, amigo. You get to decide what it means to you.
Personally I’ve always heard that lyric as “From the depths of the sea.” It just sounded natural to me. Snoop IS emerging from the ocean. He IS a leviathan. You think that the Snoop Doggy Dogg is gonna use his debut track to proclaim himself a mere mortal? Never. So that’s how I’ve always read the line, and likely always will. But it doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition.
More pressing: Why are you showing that video to your father-in-law? Snoop turns into a dog and eats his girlfriend’s dad at the opening of it! Are you trying to intimidate the ol’ boomer? In that case, you didn’t succeed.
Ben:
Saw an ad for Carshield with Screamin’ A Smith yelling at me. I immediately put it on the list of companies I won’t throw my money at. Are there any products that you boycott or don’t buy because of the celebrity endorsing them? Maybe they’re a sleaze like Andy Dick, or annoying and phony like Peyton Manning. Surely you have a list, right?
Not for that, no. My wife and I have casually boycotted companies like Amazon and Target, but that’s because those companies are evil. But I don’t think I’ve ever stopped patronizing a corporation because it had an annoying spokesperson. They’re ALL annoying, and I skip past the ads on my DVR anyway. I would tell you that I’ll never get State Farm insurance because, just like you, I despise those commercials with all of my heart. But if I got a good quote from them on my car insurance and the insurance agent was like, “They’re fine to deal with” (from what I’ve been told, this is not the case with State Farm), then I’d happily compromise my ad values to save some cash.
This approach doesn’t always sit well with me. For an ongoing example, I always buy Oatly oat milk when I go to the store. The Oatly carton has, by a healthy margin, the most embarrassing copy ever written on it, on every side of the box. It’s the apex of “Brands are your friends!” copy, and it makes me want to drive to Oatly headquarters and bludgeon their entire marketing department, in the hall, with the wrench. But the milk tastes better than most other brands, and it comes in a bigger carton than Chobani oat milk. So I’m stuck with Oatly for the time being. But I swear to God, the second that Chobani begins selling full quarts of oat milk, I am DONE with BIG OATLY for good. Fucking hate that carton.
Craig:
What do you think it will be like on that glorious day? Setting aside for the moment exactly how it goes down. When he finally goes, how will the news break? How long is the moment from being declared dead to home page on TMZ? If you have the sort of job that keeps you off TV, how long until you find out? Does your cubicle neighbor’s Apple Watch go off with a news flash? Does every American’s phone go off simultaneously with a pre-written message blaming Biden for mortality and THANKING US FOR OUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER? On a scale of the night Obama won in ’08 to kissing random strangers in Times Square on VJ day, how long until everyone on planet Earth is in the street dancing their collective asses off?
Craig is referring to the Vikings winning a Super Bowl, of course. Or possibly the death of Trump. Probably the death of Trump.
Anyway yes, that day will be a great day of celebration, from Santa Monica pier to the Statue of Liberty, from the Boundary Waters to the Mexican border, from the islands of Hawaii to the Strait of Hormuz. Everyone will get drunk and laid on that wondrous occasion. And then, after the euphoria has subsided, you and I will have to get cracking. Because I got one false celebration of Trump’s demise in 2020, and I refuse to let his actual demise be another hollow victory. We’re gonna have to scrub that pile of shit’s name off of everything, exile his family to the Arctic Circle, lock up all of his bloodthirsty minions, burn the Supreme Court to the ground, rename his ballroom in honor of RuPaul, and purge the Democratic party of every last Fetterman and Schumer. Turns out that maintaining a healthy democracy takes hard work. But given what we’ve experienced the past decade, I’m more than willing to do whatever work is needed. I am so fucking sick of having this asshole in my life. So once he’s gone, I’m gonna bust my ass to make sure he stays gone. Once that’s assured, the party can keep on rockin’ and rollin’.
Monte:
Are NYC teams the only sports teams that have an official nickname standing in for their actual club name? The Mets are the Metropolitans, the Giants are the New York Football Giants, the Knicks are the Knickerbockers. I mean, even the Astros are not officially the Astronauts, they are just the Astros. Is it simply because NYC is NYC? What’s up with that?
Let’s not lump the Giants into this question, because A) I hate it when people call them “the New York Football Giants” just to be cute, B) plenty of other teams have elongated, “official” names adorning their letterhead, and C) they’re still the Giants, not the Giantolomews or whatever.
Otherwise, Monte is onto something here. I did a quick survey of the other big four men’s leagues, and only the A’s go by their nickname in nearly every official capacity. That means that New York really is that precious about its sport team nicknames. I don’t mind, mostly because New York is one of my favorite cities. But it IS irritating that the Knicks get a fancy given name when they have this raging fuckhead as their owner:
Basic security measures have been curtailed, former Garden employees allege. For example, there was a “rule” that bomb-sniffing “K-9” units were not to be seen whenever [James] Dolan or [Madison Square Garden security chief John] Eversole “walked near the venues,” Munn noted in his filing. The directive came from “Mr. Dolan’s disdain for dogs,” Munn added.
You’re telling me that James Dolan plays horrible music, can’t run a basketball team properly, AND hates dogs? Someone please knick this man in the bocker. I fucking hate him.
Brian:
I was flipping around channels this week and came across Family Ties. It made me wonder what would it be like to have them as neighbors. Personally, I think they are a little too self-righteous and that Alex is an obnoxious twit. Would it be better than living next to the Seavers from Growing Pains or the family from Mr. Belvedere? If you could have any sitcom family as a neighbor, who would you pick? It doesn’t have to be an actual family (e.g. Golden Girls).
If it doesn’t have to be an actual family, then gimme the Friends crew so that I can see Jennifer Aniston walking out of her house on a daily basis. Plus, who knows what crazy hijinks I might watch those six crazy kids get into every week!
Here is where I confess that I never liked Family Ties, not even when I was a little kid and would watch basically any sitcom that was on TV. But I watched the shit out of Growing Pains, so I’d pick that family as my neighbors if I had to. They seemed really nice, plus their show has a better theme song.
Email of the week!
Pete:
I live a block and a half away from one of the eastern borders of Detroit. The police here are notoriously racist when it comes to any encounter. I once had a group of high school seniors stopped by those cops on their drive to my house for a post-graduation BBQ. I myself often get stopped by the police while walking; several interactions where I’ve asserted my 4th Amendment rights.
One day, my dad made an unholy amount of chili with venison. It tasted a tad gamier than the normal chili he makes, but it was fine. At about 1:30 AM the next morning, my wife woke me up and told me that I had to leave because the farts coming out of my body were unbearable. Since I couldn’t go back to sleep after smelling myself, I decided to go for a walk. On said walk, I was also farting a lot. As I made my way to my street, I saw a police car drive toward me. The cop stopped, rolled down his window, and said that he didn’t mean to be rude, but he wondered if I had been farting as I walked, because one officer said that he thought that something died.
Crop-dusting the cops is an ideal way to protest them. Next time we take to the streets, let’s ALL eat our venison chili beforehand.
