Today In “My Life Is Fun Sometimes”
Posted on December 13, 2020 Posted by John Scalzi 39 Comments
Some fellow on Twitter decided to impugn my manhood by comparing me (negatively) to John McClane, the hero of Die Hard. So, as one does, I checked in with Steven deSouza, the screenwriter of Die Hard, for his thoughts on the matter.
The results were, shall we say, satisfying.
This is now canonical. I am the Hans Gruber of burritos.
That made me laught out loud. Not many things make me laugh out loud. Well played, HAns.
Fun. Regarding burritos and broken glass, it may be a choice of where the pain is located.
You most assuredly are — in fact, you’re the deadliest of terrorists when it comes to burritos.
It may be surprising to that anonymous man on Twitter, but of all female friends I can remember having this conversation with (some of whom have been categorized as Hot Women Any Guy Would Want To Sleep With), literally everyone agrees that if a man pees sitting down instead of standing, that is 100% a feature and an attraction, so I don’t quite see how this is an insult exactly. (admittedly, of all female friends I have had spider-related conversations with, at least half would prefer a romantic partner who will deal with the arachnids. I haven’t lived in cockroach-prominent locality, so that in particular has never been a random 2am group conversation; spider export/killing preferences is about as close as I’ve heard.)
That said, based on dating site photos and text, most men who are dating and in search of women (it’s possibly disproportionate over the full population of men since the ones with a clue are substantially more likely to not have to be on the online-dating market) seem to have very strange, very action-movie-based (instead of reality-based) ideas of what women will find attractive…
“My Life Is Fun Sometimes” TM
Hans Gruber is the best bad guy. I love when he invents a bunch of random dissidents he wants freed based on an article he read in Time Magazine. You would totally think to do that, and then find a way to subtly brag about it to your cronies but they just don’t ‘get’ you.
This IS fun, thank you!
That’s hilarious
I feel sad for the men who think that peeing standing is the epitome of manliness. I think it’s also an indicator that they don’t usually clean the bathroom – if they did, they’d most likely start peeing sitting.
A kind of related thing is the toilet lid and its position. I feel that it’s just smart to keep it closed all the time it’s not in use. When flushing the closed lid keeps things nicely in the bowl, which again helps with the cleaning. It’s also much harder to drop things into the bowl when the lid is closed.
A casualty of Twitter war.
Cause of death: canon fire.
Thank you! I’ll be here all week.
Peeing while standing is like throwing the garbage in the general direction of the bin. Newton’s laws beat your claim of aiming precision.
If you live alone and don’t mind (cleaning up your own) messes, fine. If you
– don’t live alone
– don’t do the cleaning &
– don’t sit down to pee
you have just answered the AITA question you’re probably too self-centered to even ask.
Seems the butthurt SWM contingent is taking time out of their very busy schedule to lobb insults at their object of envy.
Critical acclaim, financial success, respect in your field and a spouse who doesn’t require an air pump or electrical outlet?All that and their guy, despite much howling, gnashing of teeth and filing of meritless, treasonous lawsuits, has been voted off his own reality show by 80, 000 people who, to their minds, don’t really count as people.
Toddlers going to toddle, I guess. 😊
By the way, is anyone else noticing that Gmail, YouTube and other Google platforms/tools are out right now?
I just tried to listen to the song on a previous entry and got nothing.
Tried to go directly to YouTube and got the “something went wrong” error message.
Got curious and tried to access my emails and got the “temporarily unavailable” error message.
Is this just me?
Correction, “80, 000, 000” people.
Can’t let sloppy writing/editing validate the “theory” of the election.
“Some fellow on Twitter decided to impugn my manhood by comparing me (negatively) to John McLane, the hero of Die Hard”
It’s always been odd to me that your usual detractors choose to insult you by impugning your masculinity. Among the Puppy crowd, there’s not a single individual who would be considered “masculine” by any traditional definition. Their self-anointed leader least of all. Is this what they call “projection”?
Of course, all of this raises the question: What the hell is in your burritos?
what ISNT in his burritos ?
Always chuckle when some pale, pasty, 90 pound string bean knucklehead says someone ELSE isnt masculine enough.
This might just have made my day.
As someone who isn’t a man but has a bunch of men in my life (family, friends, colleagues, the occasional partner): the ones I know are awesome! They’re funny, supportive, open-minded, kind, creative, and receptive.
I have never had any idea how any of them use the bathroom, and that’s fine. I am not a doctor or biologist, so only in the case of “the occasional partner” do I need to know anything about anyone’s genitalia.
I tend to avoid the ones who are preoccupied with demonstrating over-the-top conventional hegemonic masculinity (as above) and/or showing contempt for women (also as above, twice in a row). This is for two reasons: a) I don’t trust them to treat other humans well, and b) when it comes to romantic/sexual attraction, I don’t find conventional hegemonic masculinity a turn-on in any sense. It’s too contemptuous, angry, stringent, and unhelpful.
Fortunately, I’ve never been much concerned about my manliness, so I’ll put it out to the Internet for posterity: I generally pee sitting down. It’s cleaner.
I would also happily try a Scalzi burrito. Does that make me a terrorist by association?
That made my day! Thank you. Though I must admit that the “burritos” you’ve unleashed on the internets most likely violate the Geneva Conventions. My diet is creative, to say the least, and I’ve seen concoctions here that killed my appetite. Some of them would probably kill “Diamond Jim” Brady’s appetite!
As for peeing standing up, it’s an overrated experience.
Thank you for giving me a reason to recall Alan Rickman today.
You actually got to pull a Marshall McLuhan “You know nothing of my work”! You are living the dream.
As someone who once happened upon Scalzi in a men’s restroom at a convention, I can confirm in a general way that, he can, indeed, urinate standing up when he chooses to do so. (That’s just how urinals work).
However, anyone who thinks the tendency to empty one’s bladder whilst upright is a measure of anything or, at least, is a superior measure than the ability to (1) make quality burritos or (2) receive a prompt and personal reply from the writer of Die Hard has some seriously messed-up priorities.
Speaking of idiocy on social media:
http://jennytrout.com/?p=13049
John McClane is emotionally stunted, and has lost his wife because he can’t communicate with her. It takes Hans Gruber to inspire John to be a better man.
some moments are just sublime, aren’t they!
Now I am determined to have burritos for dinner with our annual viewing of Die Hard.
Now I have Cilantro and Queso. HO, HO, HO.
“I love when he invents a bunch of random dissidents he wants freed based on an article he read in Time Magazine.”
I rewatched it last week and somehow it’s even funnier that he read about them in Forbes.
I now need to rewatch Die Hard, which I have heard described as the perfect Christmas movie — not because it takes place at Christmastime, but because it involves a family obligation which gradually spirals into a nightmare.
Also, I’m amused by the suggestion that manliness is somehow embodied in having an iron-clad stomach since I will put my Iowa-born and raised MIL up against any and all of your burritos.
When I reached the age at which I could more or less guarantee having to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, peeing sitting down became a great boon because I don’t need to turn on the bathroom light to see what (where?) I’m doing.
But I still want those detonators!
Peeing standing up is handy when you’re out in the woods or somewhere like that.
Peeing standing up with bare legs is a revelation, and not a pleasant one.
That must have been great fun!
I had a similar experience once which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was working in defense procurement when a Pentagon bubba told me how he thought my proposed actions were great but that he reluctantly was disapproving them because he “knew” that the General with ultimate approval authority would disapprove so he was going to save me time and trouble (giving himself cover for doing what he wanted to do from the beginning). Unfortunately, he didn’t also know that the General had been my first-year roomie back at the Academy, we had already talked about what I wanted to do, and he fully understood and agreed. It was a fun call when I picked up my phone, called the General’s office, asked to speak with him, and was immediately put through. I put the call on speaker and explained how Mr XXYY was concerned that what I wanted to do would be disapproved and wanted to ease his mind. I think Mr XXYY realized he didn’t have a full grasp of the situation when from the start it was a “Joe” and “Bob” call, with each of us addressing the other with nicknames…
We should ask Athena if the burritos have, or are, the benefits of a classical education. I think it more likely that she’d make a smart remark about knowing how a TV dinner feels, except that she’s too young to have experience with the old-style foil TV dinners that one put in the oven (after slitting open the foil over the pudding) for 45 minutes to an hour…
I think “The Hans Gruber of Burritos” should be prominently figured on your business card.
Now that I know, via the twitter bits accompanying this, that Harry Creek is somewhat modeled on this Die Hard guy, and given that Android’s Dream is my favorite Scalzi book, looks Iike I need to watch Die Hard and find out what that’s all about.
I think Harry Creek and John Mclane are both modeled after the biblical Job. Some days you just can’t catch a break…
I call bullshit on the cockroach thing. With four cats in the house, you’d see only dismembered insect parts, at best.
A few decades ago, two books came out, “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche” and “Tough Guys Don’t Dance”. The ” tough guys” title was from an Al Capone quote. One of !y uncles, “Real men eat what they feel like, and tough guys don’t worry about Capone’s opinion.
Worrying about how you pee, or what real men is pretty much the sign of weakness.
I had a first aid instructor years ago who strongly recommended sitting down to pee at night, because if one is of the age where peeing has started to require straining, that straining can cause one to pass out. What’s safer, he asked, passing out sitting down, or passing out standing up, face first into the hard, unyielding toilet bowl?
Avoid late-night EMS calls, pee sitting down.
SCALZI: (picks up gummy worms, open burrito steaming on the counter)
MCCLANE: (panting, puts radio to face) C’mon John, you made your point, put the gummy worms back in the bag.
SCALZI, into radio: Thank you cowboy, I’ll take that under advisement.
MCCLANE: (ties C4 to office chair) Take this under advisement… (throws it into flow shoal)
Feels like a real life version of the Marshall McLuhan bit from Annie Hall.