Palace runs today, bitches! For our hardcore readers interested in the interworkings of our horse racing venture, here’s a sample of our direct correspondence with Westpoint Thoroughbreds to provide a little extra insight.

Glossary of Terms:

• Lupe: Our Trainer’s Name
• Furlong: 1/8 of miles
• Turf: Grass track
• MSW: Maiden Special Weight
• Maiden: Horse that hasn’t won a race yet
• Scratch: Drop out of the race
• Ship: Travel to another track (kind of like an away game)

Email sent on Saturday:

“Lupe entered Palace On A Lake in a 7.5 furlong MSW on the turf on Monday, September 8th at Philadelphia. The race is against the boys, but Lupe decided to enter her for a few reasons. Philadelphia is expected to get 3-5 inches of rain tomorrow and Sunday morning. If so, the race will likely come off the turf and be run at a mile on the dirt. Second, Lupe liked the added distance. Third, Palace has trained very well. Finally, if the race came up too tough then we could scratch and wait for the five-furlong turf race on Tuesday at Delaware.

“However, Lupe has handicapped the race and we are running Monday whether the race stays on the turf or not. Lupe said the field is very weak, and Palace On A Lake is doing very well. He also likes that we will not have to ship. Despite having to face the boys he really likes the spot for her and she is ready to run.”

Translation: Get your bets in. Luck will be a lady at 1:38 this afternoon.

Afternoon update: Palace finished 3rd after breaking to the lead for much of the race then losing some steam at the end. By “get your bets” in, we obviously meant bets for Palace to show. 

As Palace’s trainers have often told me, sometimes you don’t run your best race. And in case you haven’t noticed, I have a habit of not living up to expectations. This trend may have something to do with my sporadic employment record. You’ll be happy to know that in the Nugget Challenge I maintained the status quo.

On the day of the Challenge it was determined I would eat all the nuggets at a bar around 8PM so everyone who wanted to see the carnage would have the opportunity to watch. I felt great all day. I ate a bagel for breakfast around 9:30AM and a quesadilla for lunch around 1PM. I had about 6 beers between 1PM and 8PM. I thought it was just the right mix of food and booze to get me really hungry.

The challenge began as planned. I mowed down the first 30 nuggets, no problem. People at the table were already muttering about how easy this would be for me. But then at exactly 32 nuggets I hit a wall.

I can’t really describe the feeling; it’s kind of like your entire body saying: Fuck Me.

I knew I was in a shitload of trouble. I wasn’t really full, more completely nauseous. I tried to pull myself back together by migrating under some air conditioning and putting an ice pack on the back of my neck but neither seemed to help. I returned to the table to start again but could only force down 4 more nuggets before eventually admitting defeat.

I knew I had let everyone down. It’s the sort of feeling that really chews at most people but I’m used to it so it didn’t really take a toll on me. However, nobody could let it go. I got solidly ridiculed, especially by the females in attendance.

And just when all hopes of something awesome happening seemed lost, the Cockroach showed up at the bar. The Cockroach — for those wondering — got his name in college because he would eat the nastiest of leftovers not finished by others in order to save a few bucks on dinner.

(more…)

We’ll be releasing NextRound Groups to the public over the next few weeks and there’s really no better way to demonstrate how Team Cool & Tough slacks off from work on a daily basis than to conduct the occasional mock draft in our group. Going forward we plan to post these on a bi-weekly basis. Anticipate obscure topics, heavy chauvinism, flawed reasoning, gay jokes, creative profanity, and just enough comedy to pass them off as readable.

Since just about every member of Team C&T (sans Proto and Steve Irony) has been completely consumed by college football this week our first draft subject was College Football QB Ass Getting Potential…

Guidelines:

Draft college QBs by who you’d most want to trade lives with in order to capitalize on ass getting potential. Note: We’re not drafting QBs by how much coed tail we think they currently crush, but by their potential to victimize the female student body if they got their priorities in order. Try to include: Name, college, brief reasoning, and type of skeez most susceptible.

Loosely followed draft order: 1) SMac, 2) MDub, 3) TBone, 4) Toast, 5) Big Slim, 6) Maske.

Note: Several members of Team C&T were traveling this week and couldn’t participate. Most notable omissions are Booth, JB, and Big Sexy.

1) SMac -Mark Sanchez, USC Trojans

Two words: USC. Quarterback. He’s basically a junior Leinart and he’s about to hit the prime of his coed hitting career. An above average season and he’ll be a Playboy mansion regular, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be turning down network actresses left and right. Add to the fact that he’s a solid pro prospect and this guy is a lock for Mayor of Poon City.

Most Susceptible: Anything that walks.

2) MDub - John Parker Wilson, Alabama

I’m making the homer call here. Not only does JPW carry on the tradition of having bangs that make every sorority girl in Bama cream herself (see: Brodie Croyle and Tyler Watts), he was also the starting quarterback at Hoover High and is the brother of the quarterback of Hoover from Two-a-Days. He could seriously use the “Do you know who I am?” line and cause panties to drop on Alabama ladies from the 8th grade all the way to the retirement home.

(more…)

Yesterday JB shared with the rest of Team C&T the good times rumor of an NBC intern who spent her summer pooping pretty much every place imaginable in NBC’s 30 Rock building. The story may be completely baseless, but it’s a fun read about females with bowel control issues so we recommend taking a look.

If anything, we were reminded of some of the more uncomfortable times we’ve had to take a poop. We’d love to tell you these sorts of things don’t happen often…

1) At Your In-Laws’/Girlfriend’s Parents’ House. These people think you suck as it is, nothing quite like endearing yourself a little further by destroying their powder room with a shit of epic proportions.

2) While Getting a Massage. As if it’s not bad enough sidestepping the erection land mine, having to explain to the nice lady (yes, always a lady) who doesn’t speak much English — but is willing to touch your hairy back — that you’ve got a case of crippling diarrhea is all kinds of uncomfortable.

3) On a Charter Bus to a Date Function. We ran across this more in college. The combination of assorted booze, chicks you want to impress, a thinly veiled bathroom, and your buddies’ willingness to hurl you under the bus makes this an experience you’ll want to forget.

4) During a Job Interview. It’s surprisingly difficult to answer questions about where you see yourself in five years when a turtle is trying to poke his head out. Just one of the many reasons it took Booth so long to find gainful employment.

5) When Passed Out Drunk on a Friend’s Couch. You wake up, it’s dark. You don’t know where you are or how you got there or where the fuck they hide the toilet. The only thing you know for sure is you’re about to crap yourself. And then you do, in fact, crap yourself.

6) On the Subway. In a metal tube under the earth surrounded by a bunch of people who probably don’t have qualms with pooping on a train is pretty GD uncomfortable. Is it hot in here to anyone else? Is the ride always this bumpy? Is there a Gap at this next stop?

(more…)

This past Saturday I got talked into participating in a basketball tournament. It required me to play 6 three on three games in one day. I am in terrible shape, so needless to say I was pretty much a paraplegic Sunday morning. That coupled with being violently hungover did not make for a good start to my week. But don’t worry, things got worse.

When I got to work on Monday I was told that I have to go to Kentucky on business in a couple of weeks. The problem is I have no desire to go to Kentucky and I’m scheduled to be in Atlanta the weekend before the trip. This leaves me 2 options:

1) Fly home on Sunday as scheduled, hang out in the airport food court for several hours, and then catch the flight to Kentucky.

2) Stay in Atlanta and fly directly to Kentucky early Monday morning.

Option 2 clearly makes the most sense. The problem is if I fly directly from Atlanta to Kentucky I have to personally pay the $380 difference between the flight from Atlanta to Kentucky and the flight from where I live to Kentucky.

So essentially I either have to shell out 400 bucks of my own hard earned money to go to Kentucky OR I have to spend all day Sunday flying around the country to go to Kentucky. Both ways suck and I end up in Kentucky.

Yesterday could have easily become the second time I got fired from a job. I was livid my company wouldn’t shell out a measly $380 for my convenience. While I was deciding whether or not I want to lose my job over this Kentucky trip I received a call to my cell that I didn’t answer. It turns out the guys from Westpoint Thoroughbreds were trying to reach me to let me know that Palace on a Lake was entered into a race yesterday (Monday, August 11th) instead of today (Tuesday, August 12th).

(more…)

Remember when Saturday used to look something like this:

• Wake up in the morning (except back then 11AM was morning).
• Kick some sea donkey out of your bed.
• Pound a screwdriver or take a nice bong rip to bring yourself back to life.
• COUCH.
• Trip to local sandwich shop for enormous amounts of bread and cold cuts.
• Take a shower.
• Maybe Probably throw a beat (some people called your version “the stranger”).
• Inspect your sheets and destroy all remnants of attack donkey.
• Make promise to yourself to bring home a chick in your own weight class.
• Happy hour at 2PM.
• After party at 2AM.

Damn, life was easy.Now let’s spring forward to my present situation:

I wake up somewhere around 7AM with a wife who would rather let me Dutch Oven** her than run to McDonald’s and get me breakfast. Two kids run in demanding me to get out of bed, turn on cartoons, and fix them juice. In that order.

Is anyone out there familiar with wake up sex? I’m not.

BUT this last Saturday was not my typical Saturday, this Saturday was my daughter’s fifth birthday party…And apparently she is a socialite. We had 33 RSVP’s to attend the birthday bash at some ninja training facility for children called Rolly Pollies. Two of the kids couldn’t make it so only 31 five year-olds showed up (much better).

The party was an hour and a half, yet felt like six. Kids were crying, yelling, jumping, sliding, running, sitting, laughing, and picking noses, asking questions there are no answers too. It was my Vietnam…

I spent my time shooting hoops with big rubber balls, stealing toys from kids, and putting together a starting rotation of the female employees asking to catch a ride to poundtown. From there I ranked in what order the single moms would take a headboard beating. I felt pretty good about myself for keeping the married chicks out of the lineup, but then again they were all hags.

(more…)

So of course when a Wii game maker designed a virtual beer pong game named “Beer Pong” a bunch of unsexed losers with too much time on their hands got all bent out of shape. Due to the outcry from concerned parents and the Connecticut attorney general (who the 49 other attorney generals all refer to as a massive wet blanket) JV Games, maker of “Beer Pong”, changed the name of the game to “Pong Toss” and changed the pixelated cups of beer to pixelated cups of water, increasing the frequency of “Is there any beer in that cup?” comments drastically.

We don’t really get why you’d want to play a virtual beer pong game when it’s just as easy to play the real one — recently have your carpets cleaned? — but people need to find a better use of their time than this sort of protectionist bullshit. Ooooh, the liquid is clear, the game’s name is “Pong Toss”, we are the victors!

Your kids are destined to be fuck ups regardless, deal with it.

What we really want to know is if all of this could have been avoided by calling the game “Beirut”. Sure, it’s an inferior name with strange ties to Lebanon, but it may have saved a lot of headaches.

Thanks to not-at-all litigious reader Michelle for the tip.

The War Against Beer Pong [Time]

What He Does: RAG replies all to every mass communication email. Sometimes it’s a lame one-liner. Sometimes it’s to ask a meaningless question. And sometimes it’s just to confirm he got the email. Regardless of the reason he’s in EVERYONE’s inbox.

How It Affects You: Between corporate emails, your aunt forwarding right wing propaganda, and all the other junk you receive the last thing you want to have to comb through is this retard inquiring whether Columbus Day is a holiday. You’re not sure if he’s begging for attention or just fucking clueless, but either way you’re considering giving him a code red in the men’s room.

Level of Mind-Numbing Annoyance: 6 out of 10. The guy deserves a serious ass trouncing, but at least Al Gore invented the delete button.

Cool & Tough Retaliations:

• Mock his reply all with one of your own asking if you’re still required to wear pants to work. Sign his name to it. You may want to gauge the overall sense of humor of your coworkers first though.

• Set up an anonymous Gmail account and repeatedly forward him all his stupid emails with commentary like, “Nice one, fuckface” or, “I rubbed my balls on your mouse after I read this one.”‘

• Bang his wife.

• Sign him up for email alerts from NextRound.net. He won’t know what the fuck’s going on. Brendan Fraser faces?

(more…)

I work for a living. I get up at 6:30AM. I go to the office and I do lawyer stuff until the early evening. When I get home I immediately check my work email. Out of nowhere I am a pathetic, slightly chubby, responsible adult. As those of you who have gotten to know me might imagine, I look forward to lunch at McDonald’s more than any other part of my day. Recently when I got together with the rest of Team Cool & Tough for at a buddy’s wedding, the guys challenged me to eat 60 McNuggets in one sitting.

The Official Nugget Challenge: Toast would purchase 100 nuggets, and then Toast, JB, and Maske would pay me $1 for every nugget if I could finish 60. Then I would make $2 per nugget for each nugget I could eat after 60. Did I mention this would be per person? So I would get $180 if I could get the 60 nuggets down and then I would get $6 per nugget from 61 on. Awesome, right?

Well, I suck and bailed on the challenge for two reasons:

1) I can’t eat when I’ve been drinking. (We started drinking that morning at breakfast. They extended the challenge at 3PM. And yes, this is the only time in my life I’m not ravenously hungry.)

2) I ate lunch at 1:30, so the little appetite I did have that afternoon was gone.

But, the Nugget challenge was officially tabled until a future date. Don’t worry, with football season approaching it’s going to happen. We will keep you informed.

After I shook off my three day hangover from that weekend, I had an epiphany: I CAN EAT 60 MCNUGGETS in a single sitting. I have no doubt in my mind. On an average day around lunchtime I know I can consume at least 2,800 calories (and most likely a lot more). It’s kind of depressing to know there are few things I want more in life than to house massive quantities of food.

(more…)

The transition from college life to the real world is a cruel one, especially when it comes to the gratuitous use of profanity.

The Issue: You just spent four to seven years cursing like a sailor on meth, now you’ve got a job where they expect you to shave every morning and not answer questions with “fuck if I know…”

When Things Get Weird:

• When the sixty year-old admin overhears you refer to your computer as a worthless cocksucker.

• When your buddy calls your work phone and you repeatedly let him know what a pussy he is for not meeting you for a beer.

• When you tell the IT guy he can eat your ass in good fun. Except he doesn’t recognize the good fun.

• When you spill coffee on your shirt in the breakroom and unleash a never-before-heard combination of “fuckstick”, “shitballs”, and “c— puncher”.

How It Affects You: If you can’t reign in the profanity rather quickly you’ll either get shitcanned or forced to complete some HR courses on professionalism, each comparably miserable depending on how hard up for cash you are.

Only Ways to Adapt:

• Become the office mute (low to medium difficulty, you don’t want to talk to the losers in your office anyway).

• Train your brain to associate profanity with booze (medium difficulty, easier transition if you’re a borderline alcoholic).

• Flanderize yourself (high difficulty, debilitatingly lame).

• Only work for guys who are way shadier than you are. WAY shadier.