Wake up, America: it’s time to face the reality that porn addiction is a crippling disease, and one that affects millions of people in this country—at least I hope so, or else I’m pretty fucked.
For starters, it’s clear that porn abuse is a widespread problem based on these vague statistics I’m about to reference and hope are true. For instance, they’ve done studies that show that 85% of people now watch porn more than 8 hours a day. Crazy, right? They’ve also done studies that show that 90% of those people have a specific fixation for Marge Simpson Hentai that they haven’t been able to shake since a certain blue couch cushion incident when they were fourteen. I know, what a sad portrait of society! What’s even sadder is Harvard’s most recent study that showed 99% of men in their 40s aren’t able to sustain an erection without their partner reluctantly going “Hi Homey,” in the most convincing Marge Simpson voice they can muster. I mean, I’d certainly call that a problem. But at least now we don’t have to feel so alone in it. Right, guys?
Okay, I’m starting to get the sense some of you are doubting the statistically proven fact that porn addiction is an extremely common issue that affects all of us equally. Well, it fucking better be! Why else did I just ruin this 6-year-long relationship? Do you really think I’d ruin a 6-year-long relationship for something that was completely my fault and not society’s?
Okay, fine. Let’s just entertain the fact that I have a so-called “problem with porn” that has left me single, lonely, and “banned from the Universal Studios Simpsons Ride for life.” What is there to do about it? One solution would be to take personal accountability, to stop watching porn, to go to therapy, and to work on forming healthy relationships with women. Again, that’s just one solution. Another equally viable solution would be to just call it a “widespread epidemic” and wait for people to agree.
The second option seems like the most practical to me, and I hear 9 out of 10 people think so too. At the end of the day, who am I—or any of our girlfriends, wives, parents, and sponsors—to sit in judgment of what I am claiming the majority of people in this country are doing? As I always say, societal problems by definition have no solution. In the mean time, there are more pressing issues to attend to, like the hot and horny singles desperate to fuck in my area.
Despite the name of the Hockey team, Nordy is as tame, domesticated and teetotalling as they come, and he goes home to a nice warm glass of milk and gets a good night’s sleep after every game, and hates the thought of violence. So he’s nowhere to be found during the carnage of a hockey riot.
Not only is Thunderbug an insect, who is naturally weaker due to his cartilage based skeletal structure, but he has also been historically known to have been taken down by a bunch of silly string, so there’s no doubt that he would easily be taken down during a drunken brawl with a bunch of muscular, intoxicated hockey fans.
The only way this dude would be able to gain the upper hand over you would be if you were near any body of water, say on a boat or raft at sea. But once he’s out of the water, there’s no way you wouldn’t be able to keep distance from him, unless of course he had some type of aquatic mech suit designed to help with land fighting, but that’s just a bunch of science fiction baloney (for now).
How could a Bernese Mountain dog be anything but friendly, even when drunk, and if there were any disagreements, drunken or otherwise, would quickly fade to a bunch of overly eager hockey fans petting this good boy. Yes you are Bernie, yes you are.
Penguins are typically on the short side, and since they haven’t yet been introduced to the wonders of booze, they would most certainly fall down drunk even off half a beer, and Iceburgh is no exception. So any drunken fight would be over as quickly as it began.
This guy is from a galaxy far, far away and since he grew up on a different planet, he would be struggling just to stand up in earth’s high gravity, or he could use it to his advantage, we just don’t know. But one thing’s for certain, and that’s the fact that this dude has multiple tactical disadvantages due to his physical form (just look at those hockey stick ears) which would lose him the fight in the first ten minutes of period one.
Just look at the size of this dude, and compare him to your average human. The only way that this guy would possibly win a drunken fight is if he had rabies and bit you, which rats do have a large chance of carrying, and if you happen to get bitten you should get your rabies shots asap, or suffer a fate worse than death.
Same reasoning as Fin, but since he’s a shark, he could easily become more vicious than a killer whale, and would have the capability to actively hunt the team after they all took a team drunk piss in whatever lake they were vacationing at, which would lead to an eventual bloodbath.
Why the hell a hockey team would even consider a less fitting mascot is reason enough to throw hands, let alone deal with this strange looking mascot. He looks way too happy for how angry a sport hockey is, and even a former coach ripped out his tongue, but he does have some pretty sharp looking teeth, so he could easily bite your head off, so this fight could go either way.
Youppi is possibly the friendliest guy on this list, and he’s great to get shitfaced with, just don’t bring up anything related to Quebec, and oh boy are you opening a huge can of worms with this dude, just as he is opening a big can of whoopass on you. But keep things apolitical and you will have a legendary night on the town in Montreal (every night on the town in Montreal is legendary, but this dude just brings things to the next level)
Why the Red Wings chose an octopus and not any type of bird on fire is frankly a noggin scratcher, but that’s not the point. This guy would have ranked lower on the list, since he is aquatic, but Octopi are known to have toddler level intelligence and ferocity. Also, since this dude is from Detroit, you just know he’s packing heat, and has 8 limbs that can carry out just as much of a thrashing when he’s shooting off rounds in a temper tantrum.
At surface glance, Charlton has all the makings of a trained fighter, being a gigantic polar bear who one would assume had “Goon Training” from Matt Sundin himself. But we’re forgetting that the Leafs haven’t won a game, let alone any booze related brawls since 1992. With that track record going against him, Charlton would know better than to fight, I mean just look at how cuddly he looks.
Whatever a Gila Monster is, it just doesn’t sound all that threatening, plus we all know Vegas is all show and no action, unless of course you are an unsuspecting tourist, in which case you may get baited into a fight with a “Gila Monster”.
Known for their herbivore diet and generally benign demeanor, there is very little to lead us to believe this moose would be any threat unless you step between a mother moose and her babies, but Mick is a dude and he would probably just curl up and sleep off a night of drinking. This moose is from Winnipeg though, one of the crime capitals of Canada, so we can’t assume that this dude is all peace and love, and the next time the Jets lose, there’s no doubt Mick would but heads with a random stranger or careless motorist on the 401.
Hogs aren’t known for aggression, and with their fatty composition, you’d assume that their lack of stamina would lend to them being easily bested in one on one combat. But if Stormy joins forces with the feral hogs ripping through the midwest, and feeds them their body weight in liquor, we may have the second American Civil War slightly ahead of schedule.
Have you ever needed an album that would be perfect for chugging beers AND fistfighting your uncle? Well, look no further than the auditory ankle monitor that is “Advance and Vanquish”. It sounds like a bunch of denim-clad barbarians burned down a high school and threw a kegger in the ashes. The album is a blast, but don’t play it in public unless you’re at a hog roast. You can imagine why.
Christian hardcore was at its annoying peak in the early aughts. “The Funeral of God” had the quintessential hallmarks of a quality Christian hardcore except the title sounded juuuust atheist enough you wouldn’t be teased mercilessly by your friends for liking it. Legend says that if you put your ear up to a youth pastor’s forearm tattoos, you can still hear “The Funeral of God” in its entirety.
In 2003, your roommate was all-in on tech metal. He couldn’t go a single day without mentioning the time he saw Into the Moat or showing off his Ion Dissonance vinyl. Then 2004 happened. At first, Zeke liked DragonForce ironically, but after months of playing “Sonic Firestorm” 24/7, he magically had hair down to his ass. Relisten to this album with caution because Zeke was right. 20 years later, DragonForce’s brand of glamorous power metal is still too infectious to resist.
This technical metalcore album is awesome because they sound exactly like BTBAM without any of the, “In this house, it’s okay for men to have emotions other than horny or pants-shitting anger.” But since you’re older and want to become your municipality’s next comptroller, consider using “Between the Sheets” in your campaign to court the all-important Millennial former scene kid vote. You’ll lose by a landslide!
Premonitions of War’s “Left in Kowloon” was featured in a mid-2000s teen comedy about a plucky bunch of nerds trying to score drugs so they could hook up with their sexy high school guidance counselor. The band–playing a bunch of drug dealers–reveal they only sell narcotics to finance their dream of becoming a hardcore band. In the final scene, Premonitions of War plays a rockin’ house show while high school students mule methamphetamine into a wealthy suburban neighborhood. This album is the reason the scene loves Judd Apatow!
This album thrashes so hard, it’ll make you suspicious of the American government. The picking is fast and clean and really makes the listener wonder how long it would take to build a badass bunker in the woods. This newfound paranoia will go perfectly with your all-camo shorts wardrobe. Uncle Sam can’t kill you if he can’t see your thighs!
This album sounds the way a hangover feels. The only way to deal with the pain of hearing Suffocation’s blistering death metal is to eat biscuits and gravy and drink beer until you pass back out. In every way, “Souls To Deny” will ruin you. Don’t listen to this album unless you have the next day off.
Who said EPs don’t count on an album of the year list? I don’t remember specifying that.
Fun fact: Cattle Decap almost released “Humanure” with a scratch-and-sniff cover. Mercifully, the FDA, CIA, and Comics Code Authority declined to authorize the release of a product that smelled like the band’s fan base.
This is the kind of music you kill your favorite goat to. It sucks you have to dismember your son’s best friend to feed your family, but… it’s kinda fuckin’ awesome when you get that first hit of arterial spray, right? YAAAAAHHHHH!!! Pete was cool as fuck, but now that Necrophagist is blowing out the barn speakers, all bets are off. “THE BEEEEAAAAST WILL BE WIIIIIIIIIISE, FEEEEEAAAAAST: AN EYE FOR AN EEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEE!!!!”
The best part of this record is how it sounds like everyone making the album had radiation poisoning. It’s weird that an album that sounds so objectively bad is so goddamn good. “Everything Is Alive…” is a classic, but I’m guessing the band is still disappointed no songs were featured in the 2004 cinematic masterpiece “The Incredibles.”
“Terrifyer” is special because you can play almost the entire 21-song album in a 30-minute lunch break at your dental office. If there is a band people mostly associate with dentists, it’s Pig Destroyer. And if you need another reason to blast grindcore at work, a study I just conducted proves that listening to Pig Destroyer while you pull teeth is very fucking awesome.
I don’t get this one. “Art Damage” sounds like somebody killed the wrong Blood Brother and thought we wouldn’t notice. Truthfully, this album is only on the list because I can’t afford to lose another MySpace friend. There are so few left!
Does listening to this band automatically make you a feminist? Not immediately. But the more I listen to Behemoth, the more I love doing makeup and shopping for cute leather outfits. Since “Demigod” came into my life, my hair, makeup, and skin are fiercer than they’ve ever been! Becoming a ravenous, permanently-online Behemoth fan has truly given me my best life!
According to the Mastodon subreddit, listening to “Leviathan” 150 times will automatically grant you the English department chair position at any university. Academia could use more professors with weird body smells and infected toes, so jam this album about a sexually-charged whale hunt as loud and as often as you can. The superiority of American academics depends on you!
Were you bullied for wearing a white studded belt, girl jeans, and a size Youth Large shirt that barely covered your belly button in 2004? If so, your favorite band was probably Unearth, and the person making fun of you was most likely a 42-year-old white man with SLAYER carved into his forehead. The 2000s were a confusing time, but this album isn’t. “The Oncoming Storm” has gnarly breakdowns, a tornado destroying Des Moines, IA on the cover, and it like barely, sort-of, completely plagiarizes “Slaughter of the Soul”.
Jacob Bannon killed someone and got away with it. Hear me out. In 2001, Converge released “Jane Doe” with a decapitated woman’s head on the cover. And just when the sick thrill of putting a murder victim’s face on merch wore off, Bannon put her severed hand on the cover of the next album. You really think two consecutive albums with dismembered body parts was an artistic choice and not some sort of sick human trophy case? Mark my words, Jacob Bannon is a cold-blooded killer.
If this album had a job, it would run a junkyard. Or be the GM of a very chill Midwest cat cafe franchise. But running a junkyard full of old guitars, tattoo guns, and BMX bikes sounds kinda kickass, right? “Panopticon” goes from heavy to dreamy which is exactly how it felt when I got tetanus working in the Hydra Head junkyard. Looking back, that was a really dangerous job, and I’m pretty sure the only reason Isis broke up had something to do with their OSHA repeat-offender status. So don’t listen to this album unless you’ve had a Tdap booster in the last decade.
This throat punch of electronica-infused tech metal unleashed Greg Puciato on the masses. This thick-veined, pit bull of a man washed over the scene with a savagery unseen since the Ultimate Warrior wrestled Hulk Hogan for the Heavyweight title. “Miss Machine” may not have been able to wear bedazzled spandex around its barely-covered steroid nuts, but it absolutely body slammed me out of a few K holes. I had a frightening lack of responsibilities in 2004, okay? You’re canceled if you judge me. Doctors say ketamine is good for you now!
This album is so heavy it briefly makes you forget how utterly fucked humanity is–a true artistic breakthrough! Early aughts arts and culture were homosapien’s apex, and I say that knowing “3750” was recorded in a trash can by a bunch of feral dogs. Sure, in 2004 America was an invading force in multiple countries, but don’t Arrested Development and Michael Phelps’s 8 medals count for something? If those cultural touchstones don’t make you long for a time that’s been overly-simplified and reduced to its best parts, this greasy, 11-gigaton bomb of an album will surely remind you it was all downhill from there.
Learning to play along with the songs you love is a great way to connect with all the emotions you are holding back as hard as you can. Who knows, maybe you’ll get good enough to start a cover band and show everyone how awesome your cover of “Brain Stew” by Green Day sounds. Guitar comes in at number 10 on our list because other than having sore fingertips if you actually take the time to practice, the only thing you’re going to hurt is your ego when you realize your teenager doesn’t want to listen to a 43-year-old man play songs by Mom Jeans while crying at their birthday sleepover.
Frisbee Golf, it’s like regular golf, but for dad’s that like weed. Sure tell us how challenging and exhausting it is, we all know why you’re there though. Great for going out and enjoying the weather when you haven’t left the house for 12 days since you work from home and only eat DoorDash. You’ll make friends with plenty of people who exclusively drink craft beer, wear five-panel hats, and definitely don’t smoke grass like some kind of loser. Your biggest injury risk comes from the tendinitis, also known as Golfer’s Elbow, you’ll get from exclusively throwing the frisbee as hard as you can to impress everyone trying to just enjoy the park. This doesn’t sound very serious but if you’re going to win that 420 foot drive contest you better start investing in stem cell injections, hippie.
Joining a beer league is a great way to make friends, stay in shape, and let out some aggression on people who most likely got divorced last month too. The freedom you feel flying around the ice at top speed while you hit anything you can with your stick will be a much more legal alternative to trying to fight Dr. Ben in the parking lot at his office. If you decide to play Hockey you are going to have to accept that you are going to get hurt eventually. You might think the injury risk here is something cool like getting hit in the face with a stick or a fist, but you’re more likely to end up with a bruised tailbone from falling on your ass since you didn’t actually learn how to skate first. You’ll be fine.
Joining a gym is a great way to improve both your physical and mental health. Exercise can help you to focus your mind, and the high you get from a killer workout will make you feel almost as good as the amphetamines that lace your pre-workout do. Let’s be real though, your legs haven’t seen a workout since you were in college and you don’t want Deb to see you walking funny and accuse you of drinking again. The only muscles you’re going to work out are the ones you can show off with your homemade “No Fear” tank top. Overall, this one is fairly safe. You’ll spend a year seeing improvements until you blow your ACL playing pick-up basketball instead of doing leg day because you “don’t like hamstring curls.” You’ll have to get surgery and will probably never do squats again (like you were going to do them anyway).
Pickleball is one of the fastest growing hobbies for adults since cornhole hit the tailgate scene. Kind of like tennis, kind of like ping pong, and kind of like exercise, Pickleball is a fun way to meet people and work off some of that “irritability” you may be experiencing. There’s nothing like completely dominating a 63-year-old couple who “just wanted to have a good time” on a Sunday morning to get your mind in the right place to handle your upcoming week. Play with caution though, if you don’t roll your ankle and have to use crutches for 3-6 months there is a good chance you’ll need stitches when you catch a racquet to the face for screaming at your partner for getting a THIRD FOOT FAULT IN THREE SERVES, JESUS CHRIST CAROL.
When you’re fit, you’re active, and you’re ready to clear your mind by only thinking of one thing day and night, then CrossFit is for you. CrossFit – also known as “Cross” by these psychos, I mean athletes – will exhaust you enough not to think about Deborah and Dr. Ben going on that vacation next month. CrossFit is generally a safe hobby if you take the time to do the exercises correctly, but let’s be honest, you’re just there to do a couple deadlifts and drink a protein shake. In the 3-6 months you spend doing it you’ll get in the best shape of your life, but you’ll inevitably need surgery after you tear your shoulder doing those weird pull ups.
Paintball is a fun and exciting way to inevitably get arrested for punching a 13 year old. A serious sport of intense simulated combat, paintball is basically Call of Duty LARPing for ROTC kids and dads trying to bond with their kids now that they have unsupervised visits. You will have a blast maxing out your credit card limit on the best upgrades and equipment money can buy, but will face a sharp reality when your lack of cardio causes you to overheat and throw up in the middle of the battlefield while a pack of teenagers ignores you trying to yell “HIT” between heaves. This one will cause you more mental pain than anything when you wind up with a felony after you catch one of the little punks and punch him right in the jaw. Who’s hit now, Billy.
The UFC, Joe Rogan, and Staph Infections, what do they have in common? That’s right, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu! One of the fastest rising martial arts in the nation, BJJ is a self-defense martial art that focuses on the use of grappling and submission holds rather than striking. You’ll love how great it feels to roll around trying to choke someone out, which you have totally never envisioned yourself doing to any medical professionals. While many hail it as one of the fastest ways to get into shape and build confidence, this one will most likely tap you out via staph infection – the unspoken darkness of the BJJ world. Often spread due to poor hygiene, you’ll be at risk every time you and your sweaty buddies decide to roll. While relatively common in the sport, staph infections can have serious and painful long-term effects, and could even kill you, so take a shower you greasy knuckle dragger.
If you loved playing “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” as a kid and still watch Thrasher videos on YouTube then you might think getting back into skating as an adult is a good idea. You’ll have street cred with high schoolers and you’ve always dreamed of being the old-head chilling at the skatepark, just make sure you’ve already met your insurance copay for the year. Skateboarding is one of the more dangerous hobbies you can pursue, and will take one month MAX before you’re calling your ex to let her know you’re in the emergency room because you watched Dog Town and snapped your leg trying to kickflip in the garage. Be careful or the only thing you’ll be shredding are the pictures of you and Deb on your vacation to Gulf Shores last summer.
While you most likely won’t get physically hurt, therapy comes in at number one because you’ll be forced to finally talk about what hurts the most, your feelings. Decades of bottling your emotions has most likely led your mental health to looking like the pit at a Wonder Years show – full of the sad and angsty screaming that makes people ask if you’re still taking your medication. Going to therapy and talking about your feelings is going to hurt more than any other hobby on this list, but let’s be honest, if you see one more picture pop up of Deb and Dr. Ben at your daughter’s soccer game you’re going to get arrested for taking it out on the next barista that spells your name wrong.
