Point/Counterpoint: Would You Drink Hydrating Beer With Less Alcohol?

“I only invented Science in the hope that someday I could use it to help get people drunk.”

~Isaac Newton

smiley beer

In this 24-hour news cycle world we live in, the announcement of a new cultural phenomenon or technological product causes a flurry of knee-jerk reactions.  Sometimes, these viewpoints look flat out stupid in retrospect, while occasionally the people howling about their hatred of change are spot on with their assessments.  We never know when we’re going to fall on the right side of history, which is why we tend to try to land on the drunk side of things and wait for the dust to settle before giving our two cents.  Every so often, however, our office staff becomes divided on their love or hatred of a new and exciting development in drunk technology.  At that point, we tend to get a representative from each side of the argument, and pit them against each other in an intellectual cock fight.

Don’t  worry, we don’t actually harm any roosters, we’re using the word “intellectual cock fight” metaphorically.  No, once we’ve picked a winner and a loser, we take the loser and set hungry, angry pit bulls on them.  Don’t feel bad, though, our insurance benefits are amazing here.

We bring this up because we’re in the midst of one such intellectual conundrum.  A group of Australian scientists have announced that they discovered a way to make a hydrating beer.  By adding electrolytes, and removing some alcohol, they made a beer that helps lessen that dehydrated hangover feeling the next morning, which could revolutionize the beer drinking experience, except for one nagging issue.

That’s right.  They remove alcohol?  The shit is that?  We’ve been split on it all week, so we’re going to offer this subject to public discussion as we once again bring out our point/counterpoint series.

Point/Counterpoint:  Would You Drink Hydrating Beer With Less Alcohol?

beer drown

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America’s Unusual Single-Item Restaurants

“What do you mean you only have baked potatoes?  Are you an Irish farmer?”

~New York Restaurant Patrons

hummus place

Since the turn of the century, the restaurant business in America has constantly evolved.  We don’t remember 1999 too well because alcohol and constant internet stimulation has pretty much decimated our ability to hold onto memories to a degree that would make people really sad and go, “Aww” if we were old instead of just young(ish) and irresponsible.  But, if memory serves (it doesn’t) back in 1999 people only ate at Taco Bells giving out Star Wars Episode 1:  The Phantom Menace action figures, and if you wanted to impress your date right out of her flannel shirt you’d take her to a nice French Bistro and try to tell yourself that the shear amounts of butter being used was enough to forgive the food for it’s French origins.

Since then, there’s been a foodie revolution in our country, which has brought us wonderful culinary delights as well as pretentious shit that makes us roll our eyes.  And one of these trends, for better or worse, is single-item eateries, restaurants that only serve one specific dish.  Sure, opening an eatery that only sells, say, overpriced baked potatoes might not be the most sound practice, but some places manage to find enough excitement in their ability to do one thing really well that they thrive.  Even if you can’t fathom how enough people could manage to support a place that solely exists to give you pudding.

But hey, if you’re in New York you might as well be doing something other than waiting in line at 4AM to get a fucking doughnut, so sure, we’ll help you out by telling you some of the more unique and unusual single-item restaurants out there.  Technically in America, but let’s be real, this concept totally spent the last 8 years radiating outwards from New York.

America’s Unusual Single-Item Restaurants

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Goddamn it Japan, You’re Doing it Wrong: Cheetos

“No…no….NOOOO!!!!”

~AFFotD Food Critic John Goodman

hot sauce cheetos

As we’ve established on numerous occasions, Japan approaches American-based junk food and beverages the same way Lennie approaches puppies in Of Mice and Men.  We’ve even let you know about the terrible, unspeakable things that Japan likes to do to our potato chips.  Of course, that’s just the beginning.  Japanese food sort of adheres to a subset of Rule 34.  By that we mean to say, we could type some random combination of disgusting words and it’ll exist in Japan, and be terrifying.  Don’t believe us?  Let’s see…uh, octopus soda.

…Oh dear God, what have we done?

So with that in mind, it’s time for us to take our periscope of terrifying food abominations towards Japan’s interpretation of the delicious Takis rival, Cheetos.  Which, as always, leads us to exclaim…

Goddamn it Japan, You’re Doing it Wrong: Cheetos

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AFFotD News Item of the Month: Jack in the Box has lost their GODDAMN MIND

“What in the living hell?  What is going ON here?  This is terrifying.  I want it all.”

~AFFotD Food Critic, John Goodman

jack in the box

The American fast food industry has a rich history of creating unhealthy Frankenstein meals, possibly as part of a sadistic plan to fatten up the populace enough that Soylent Green becomes a financially viable food product.  Ever since Taco Bell created “Fourth Meal” and White Castle whipped out their “What you Crave” slogan as a not-so-subtle way of telling you “these sliders taste like sex when you’re drunk or high,” fast food chains have gone in two directions with their meals.  They either cater their menu to daytime customers, the kinds of people who might want to nibble on a nice Egg White McMuffin on the way to work, or just have a Whopper with fries for lunch, or they realize, “huh, for some reason our locations around colleges are empty during the day, and then have lines out the door at three in the morning” and start offering food that sounds like it would be fucking delicious when you’re hammered.

Here’s a quick sobriety test for you.  Did you know that Burger King sells tacos?  If you said, “Oh God, that sounds disgusting” you’re probably only a few beers into your day.  If you read that and thought, “Man, I would love to try that right now” you must be pretty hammered.

Apparently Jack in the Box has decided to fully embrace this concept in a way that borders on insanity, which is why our nation is about to be presented with the Jack’s Munchie Meal.  And because it will take about six shots of whiskey and a familial history of mental illness to truly demonstrate everything going on with these $6 “man how drunk was I last night?” meals, we’re bringing back our News Item of the Month feature to really delve into the true eyes of corporate fast food madness.

Behold.

AFFotD News Item of the Month:  Jack in the Box has lost their GODDAMN MINDS

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[REDACTED] Writes An Article For Buzzfeed

“Goddamn it, [REDACTED].

~AFFotD Editor-in-Chief, Johnny Roosevelt

buzzfeed

[Editor’s Note:  For those readers unfamiliar with his work, [REDACTED] is AFFotD’s investigative journalist who may or may not have been driven to insanity because of our assignments.  His name has been redacted to protect his identity, since his first assignment was to eat at a Vegan restaurant, and his family and friends would never have been able to look him in the eye after hearing that he has put meatless sliders in his mouth.  Since then, we’ve made him review awful rap videos, watch and livecast women’s soccer games, and write about, well, whatever the hell this sport is.

Recently, [REDACTED] managed to sneak into our offices early in the morning where he drank a whole mess of our moonshine and decided to post an article about Buzzfeed.  Sort of.  We think?  He kinda lost us as he got progressively drunker by the end of it, but the main point we’re trying to make is somehow he found a way to post the article in a way that we can’t take it down and can’t edit it.  So, it’ll be stuck on the site, and we’d like to take this moment to first and foremost apologize for any inane ramblings you’re about to be subjected to, and would like to remind you all that the opinions and viewpoints of [REDACTED] in no way reflect those of AFFotD.com.  They’re just the sad trappings of a man who has long since gone insane.  We should feel sorry for him, but the moment we let our guard down, he pulls shit like this, so it looks like we’re gonna have to find another awful music video starring a now-deceased stand-up comic to force feed him.]

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Five Americans Hilariously Drunk At College Football Games

“Go beer, let’s win some vomit!”

~College Game Day Crowds

gameday crowd

College is a special time in an American’s life where getting shitcanned drunk every night makes you a party rock star, and not someone who ever has family and friends set them aside to say “we’re really worried about your drinking, you say you do it as research for that website you write, but all of your friends who write at that job are degenerate drunks and we don’t want to see you continue this tailspin that you’re in.”

Of course, of the many college traditions that have been meticulously documented in dozens of educational documentary “National Lampoon” films, there is one that remains timeless, and is as acceptable at age 80 as it is at age 20- getting sloppy drunk to watch 19 year old football players get paid nothing to beat the ever-loving shit out of each other.  Students and alumni alike can gather on game day, drink, and scream, “KILL HIM KILL BREAK THAT 19 YEAR OLD BOY’S LEG AND TAKE AWAY HIS FUTURE LIVELIHOOD WE’RE DOWN BY THREE” in harmony (well, the kind of harmony that tends to involve a lot of “getting into fights with fans of the opposing team”).

As we approach the one-month mark for the 2013 NCAA football season, we’d like to take a step back and appreciate some Americans who knew how to respond to a loud, bustling, social situation with remarkable composure and baaaahaha no we’re just pulling your legs, here’s a list of some hilariously drunk college football fans.

Five Americans Hilariously Drunk At College Football Games

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The Five Spiciest Meals in America

“OH GOD IT BURNS GET IT OUT OF ME OH GOD JUST TAKE A KNIFE AND CUT IT OUT OF ME!”

~AffotD Food Critic John Goodman

 al gore breathing fire

If you do a quick Google search, you’ll find that many people outside of this country assume that Americans don’t like spicy food.  Ignoring the fact that American cuisine has been embracing spiciness with increasingly fanatical zeal for the past seven years or so, or that we are responsible for a little thing called Cajun food, cultures that embrace “flavorful” cuisine operate under the assumption that Americans were raised eating bland, lifeless food.  Of course, anyone who has ever stared in wide-eyed horror at the slew of fried foods state fairs have to offer knows that that America doesn’t have any problem doing insane, irresponsible things to our meals, and that line doesn’t stop at spiciness.

No, if America has one culinary trait that trumps all others, its our love of taking normal food and making it recklessly unhealthy or uncomfortable to eat.  There’s a reason why we had a show called Man vs. Food that literally consisted of, “Let’s take Adam Richman and make him eat impossible to eat things that restaurants actually sell to customers every day.”  So, yes, of course we love spicy food.  And not only does America like spicy food, we like stupidly spicy food.  Literally dozens of Americans will purchase chili peppers 10,000 times spicier than Tabasco sauce, and will film themselves eating them, because this is America goddamn it and besides, stomach lining grows back.  Right?

Naturally, AFFotD needed to put this myth of bland food to rest by showing you the spiciest dishes being served in America.  Some of you are going to immediately hunt down these dishes to eat them, and you will be so angry that you did that, and our staff will laugh so hard at your misery.  That’s only part of the reason why we’re doing this.  The rest is, you know, uh, spicy food is delicious and America does spicy right.

The Five Spiciest Meals in America

pepper on fire

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The Grossest Oreos To Hit American Shelves

“Eww?  Right, that should be my response?  Eww?  I still want to try them.”

~American Oreo Consumers

oreos

Oreos are great.  We’ve discussed in some length the history of the company, and some of their more interesting products (here’s looking at you, Football Oreos) in the past, but we feel like we have to really bring that point home because sometimes it’s hard to remember exactly how good Oreos are.  Whenever an American sees a full glass of milk, they instinctively try to twist open an Oreo even if they’re not even holding one.  That’s called conditioning, and it was invented by a bell-maker named Pavlov.  Though, despite the fact that Oreos are a timeless classic, the past few years have seen a slew of “Limited-time” flavors appear that range from “not chocolate and cream” to “no, seriously, why are you making Oreos that are flavored anything other than chocolate and cream?”  It’s gotten to the point that we at AFFotD feel it’s time to step in and take a hard look at some of the odd varieties of Oreos that people have flocked to Target to buy.  Every single one of them shouldn’t work…and honestly, probably don’t.  But you have to at least give Nabisco credit for trying.  Even if they’re tampering with perfection.

The Grossest Oreos To Hit American Shelves

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Harry Randall Truman: Unsuccessful Volcano Dodger

“Volcano Schmolcano.”

~Harry Randall Truman

 harry randall truman

Harry Truman was born in 1884.  He served in World War I before going into politics, where he became the 33rd President of the United States.  He held that office from 1945 to 1953, and he died at the age of 88 in 1972 in Kansas City, Missouri.  Harry Randall Truman was born twelve years later in West Virginia, also served in World War I, and went on to live a pretty similar life to his presidential namesake, only instead of leading the free world, he lived in a cabin near Mount St. Helens with 16 cats and got buried under hundreds of feet of mountain debris after stubbornly refusing to leave his home during the nation’s deadliest volcano eruption.  So, they’re pretty much the same dude.

And while there are hundreds of books about President Truman, there’s less literature on Harry Randall Truman, the man who became famous for a few months for saying, “Fuck you, volcano, come at me, bro,” until the volcano, you know.  Came at him.  Bro.  So let’s take a moment to recognize a proud American who loved his home while failing to fully comprehend how volcanoes worked.

Harry Randall Truman:  Unsuccessful Volcano Dodger

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The Ten Longest Films Ever Made

“Man, and I thought Lord of the Rings was too long…”

~American Film Critics

lady clock

We like our movies like we like our sexual encounters—brief, anonymous, and preferably ending with you sobbing uncontrollably while watching Ryan Gosling kiss another woman.  Whether we’re watching Nicholas Sparks play out his latest sexual fantasy of star-crossed lovers being separated for 50 years by dire circumstances only to die of cancer the day they’re supposed to meet again, or someone gave Michael Bay $150 million to be the pyrotechnic version of Bamm-Bamm Rubble, American films are the world’s primary source for laughter, entertainment, and taking a brief respite from our bleak, miserable lives to watch Brad Pitt casually eat something while pretending we’re his friend.

There was a time when epic sagas were the norm in Hollywood, which is why Ben-Hur is over three-and-a-half hours long, and also why most of us never saw Ben-Hur once we were informed that the film was 212 boobless minutes.  Nowadays, we like our movies shorter, more action-packed, and Anne Hathaway naked-ier.  Yes, we’ll sit through the occasional three hour opus, but that’s about as long as we’re able to physically sit still without our ADD kicking oh hey look there’s a bird.  Besides, we can’t waste all our free time watching a single movie.  We have things to do.  There are bars literally just outside the theater, taunting us.

Yes, we know how to squeeze $200 million into a handy 90-minute package, but we’re America.  We invented, perfected, and then perverted everything you know and love about modern cinema.  Other countries don’t quite get the hint, which is why you see places like China making 14-hour films.

And that’s not even one of the ten longest films ever created.  Since we at AFFotD are public servants, we’re going to save you the trouble of knowing which impossibly long films to avoid by listing off the ten films with the longest running time.  And since we can’t imagine a world where people make day-long movies without something terrible and dark having happened in their childhood, we will also inform you what life-ruining tragedy must have happened to the countries of the world that would actually sit through these exercises in torture.

The Ten Longest Films Ever Made

 Die hard

Because if you’re going to stare at a movie screen for 14 hours, you’d better damn well be watching all the Die Hard movies.

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