Author: Pete

Confession time. After trying really hard – probably more like medium-level hard; like morning-bus-ride-to-9th-grade hard – I admittedly don’t understand Reddit. I’ve typed in the URL (computer speak for long combinations of letters and numbers that display websites). I’ve scrolled down the screen. I’ve even looked through the little groups at the top – are these “sub-reddits”? It doesn’t make any sense to me. All the bigwigs at Robot Butt are on my case about it. “Pete, did you get a Reddit account yet?” “Pete, why are you such a moron?” “Pete, can you not open Microsoft Excel, either?” In…

Let’s start this by saying that Googling “Pizza news” shouldn’t produce such pain and sadness. Googling anything with “pizza” in the phrase should only produce joy, fraternity, and maybe a stomach ache. However, today’s foray into pizza news led to the sad announcement that this season’s Little Caesars Pizza Bowl is canceled. If you didn’t already know – which you probably didn’t because no one outside of the Midwest cares – the Pizza Bowl always featured a Mid-American Conference team, including the world’s greatest university, Ohio University, in 2009. Last year’s game between Pitt and Bowling Green was actually pretty good. Some…

Not a small amount of us millennials – you know, those twenty-something losers that can’t do anything productive for society – remember those sibling battles over the three-pronged mini pizza stand that came in the middle of your family pizza pie. The death matches where someone would always end up crying. The ones where your older sisters would say something along the lines of, “Hey twerp, you better not touch that pizza stand” or “You’re never gonna be on Guts” or “Your couch forts suck dick.” As intense as those memories may be, does nostalgia over childhood things take priority over…

This summer, General Motors has recalled 29 million cars, 17 million of which for ignition problems. Sure, that’s bad, but what made it even worse was that documents posted by federal safety regulators revealed that GM knew about ignition switch problems that affected 6.7 million cars for 11 years. So in other words, GM was completely fine letting people drive its cars, despite knowing what kind of safety risks that posed. It’s reprehensible corporate evil of the highest order, so it made me wonder: what if other companies were as shitty as GM? “Sorry your toaster shot lightening bolts in…

Is Joaquin Phoenix a comedian? How about Scarlett Johansson? The movie Her elicits those honest questions. After all, there’s got to be something hilarious about someone falling in love with their computer. So, admittedly, this piece is a bit late to the party. That movie is a year old, which is to say it is way out of the realm of comedy website fodder. Nonetheless, it’s an enjoyable movie that explores some relevant and possibly horrifying social realities. It makes even the most ardent proponent of future technological developments doubt whether or not they truly want a loyal robot friend who is…

Hello. I’m the guy that lives below you. You know, in that tiny apartment building, the one with the stairs right next to our bedroom door? Right, those stairs you insist upon stomping up and down precisely between the hours of 5-6 AM and 11-midnight. Well I’ve got something I need to say to you: I hate everything about your existence. I hate that you spawned a child, who then grew to the age of three. I hate that he loses his shit every single goddamn morning when his mom leaves for work. Guess what I don’t do when my…

Art is subjective. A genius can paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And some bozo can drop a crucifix in a mason jar of his own urine. It’s all art, baby! Though I took two semesters of IART (Intro to Art) in college – where I had an enlivened argument with the professor over whether or not Michael Jordan is an artist (he is) – and I learned all about art as being “relative,” I think we need to maintain some basic standards: Ascetic value Creativity Originality Skill The area of art that gets no love from the esoteric…

Last Sunday’s seventh season premiere of Mad Men supplied loyal fans with just what they’ve come to expect from the cagey 1960’s drama – thrills to rival the best of the Fast and the Furious films (Tokyo Drift, obviously). Season 6 left us with the star, Don Draper, being indefinitely suspended from his job at Sterling Cooper & Partners. Sterling, Cooper and two other guys decided to resist another name change and, instead, get rid of the only member of the staff who can make a skinny tie look downright sexy. Though the suspension was somewhat unexpected, fans took solace…

For the past several years I have had this overwhelming desire to take up an alter ego that gives me the opportunity to combine all of the things that I want to be. We all have to dream every so often about living a life free of societal pressures – silly considerations like the judgment of your family or utterly freaking out your best friends or your fiancé suddenly calling off your wedding. Little things like that. Our fantasy personalities might include things like never changing your socks because that’s your favorite pair and your other ones suck. Or maybe…