Why We Hate Winter in Chicago

This bitch is clearly asking for it.

Yesterday, December 22^nd, was the winter solstice, and thus the first day of winter.  For our readers in southern California and coastal Florida, winter is a season of the year in which temperatures are extremely cold and there is often snowfall.  You may not be too familiar with it, since you’re all raging assnuggets and the rest of the nation hates you.  Anyway, winter in the Chicagoland area is especially atrocious, so – seeing as we’re lucky enough to spend our winters there – I’ve compiled a brief elaboration on the trials and tribulations of winter in Chicago.

Snow – Okay, we all love the first snowfall.  Why wouldn’t we?  It’s fun and everyone has their own traditions.  I, for one, make an attempt every year to write the first stanza of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” in the snow with urine (I’ve never made it past “dreary”).  Ultimately, however, snow is like an emotionally vulnerable prostitute – it’s great until you realize it’ll never go away.  Thanks to Chicago’s two to three month streak of below freezing temperatures, the snow never melts.  It just stays there.  Like a fucking douche.

Imminence of Another Cubs’ Season – After winter comes spring, and with spring comes baseball season.  For many, this is cause for jubilation, but for the resilient residents of Chicagoland (many of whom are Cubs fans), it means nothing more than another six months of unmitigated despair and self-loathing.  Yes, the spring weather might begin to hover up into the 70s and 80s (it also might not), but there’s no way in hell you’re going to haul your ass over to Wrigley Field to see your team lose to the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Okay, maybe not the Pittsburgh Pirates, but any other team.  The point stands:  the inevitable heinousness of the Chicago Cubs ruins spring for everyone.

Obligatory Alcoholism – There are certain problems that have a very limited scope of solutions.  The bitter lakeside cold is, without doubt, one of those problems, and the only real solution is a three-pronged attack – staying indoors, dressing in layers, and drowning your sorrows in the cheapest, grimiest vodka available.  Now, I hate alcoholism as much as the next guy (despite its hand in the auspicious death of Joseph McCarthy), but when the number of degrees outside repeatedly fails to exceed the number of well-written Nickelback songs, the resulting pent-up aggression needs an outlet, and sadly, that outlet tends to be the liver.  It’s not like I want to get inappropriately intoxicated three times a week, it’s just a necessity.  If I die early, I fully intend on shifting the blame toward the Chicago climate.

This guy landed #1 on the list.

Genital Hibernation – A few weeks ago, I drew up a list titled “Things I Don’t Want Inside of my Body.”  Saddled between #6 (George Takei) and #8 (a petrushka doll), you’ll find #7:  The entirety of my junk.  There is literally nothing more uncomfortable than genital hibernation – and that’s coming from a guy who watched “Superbad” with his parents.  If you’ll kindly pretend for a moment that the theory of creationism is even remotely plausible, consider this: If Adam and Eve had lived in a place like Chicago during the winter, Adam’s primitive package would’ve retracted so far that he would’ve had to wait until May or June before figuring out how to populate this fucked up planet.  With all this in mind, I’d like to add that skinny-dipping on the reg doesn’t alleviate the situation an awful lot.

The Lamentable Improbability of Snowpocalypse Part 2 – Last February, the gods of the Chicago climate (who, might I mention, outdo even the Greek gods in their levels of crude and dickish practical jokes) threw us a bone by granting us “Snowpocalypse.”  Snowpocalypse was a badass blizzard that froze much of Lake Michigan, forced people to abandon their cars on Lake Shore Drive, and left over two feet of snow on the ground in the metro area.

The Greek Gods discussing their jealously of the twatrocious Chicago weather gods

And yes, I do realize that I just went on a brief tirade about how much I hate snow, but once the amount of snowfall reaches the optimal level, the benefits outweigh the costs. (Good god, when did this become an example from a Macroeconomics textbook?)  In the aftermath of Snowpocalypse, classes were cancelled at Northwestern for the first time since the Pax Romana, copious amounts of snowball fighting transpired, and dumbasses like me were granted the opportunity to walk on Lake Michigan and power-trip about it.  Unfortunately, this magnitude of a storm doesn’t grace the Windy City every year, and the likelihood of it happening again is minimal.  It looks like we’ll just be stuck with the run-of-the-mill clinical depression this winter.  Happy holidays.

5 Reasonable but Merciless Alternatives to the Death Penalty

This past Wednesday, millions of Americans were outraged over the execution of Troy Davis, a man convicted – with inconclusive evidence – of murdering a police officer in Savannah, Georgia. As the fairness of the death penalty is really drawn into question, we begin to ask ourselves: what other alternatives might there be to execution?

Watch yourself

5. Compulsory Residence in a Fundamentalist Conservative Colony
One possibility worth considering is the establishment of a prisoner colony. The automatic choice for location would be Georgia, given that it started as a prisoner colony, and has arguably been one ever since. The colony would be governed by an entity known as “The TetraDouche” – a council consisting of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Perry. While prisoners would not be executed in the colony, they would be forever subjected to other atrocious fundamentalist policies, such as mandatory readings of the Gospel each time a prisoner gets an erection.

Fortunately, a week with Justin Bieber was ruled far too inhumane

4. Court-ordered Jonas Brothers tour
This option would force the convicted criminal to follow the Jonas Brothers on a national tour – not only to sit through their inconceivably rancid concerts, but also to travel with them on the tour bus. Some investigatory research has indicated that more Americans fear a Jonas Brothers tour than fear death, so not only would this alternative be more humane than execution (okay, that’s debatable), but it would be more effective in crime prevention. Furthermore, there is a decent chance that it would result in said criminal physically assaulting the Jonas Brothers, an outcome no one can deny secretly desiring.

They're the same fuckers responsible for Wiz Khalifa too

3. Lifetime Season Tickets for the Pittsburgh Pirates
I can only begin to imagine how inexplicably atrocious it is to be at a Pittsburgh Pirates home game. No one would willingly spend an entire evening sitting in a hot stadium seat while the raging cocklord sitting next to them drunkenly heckles the unsuspecting Blue Jays fans on the grounds that “Canadians can’t partake in America’s pastime.” What’s worse, it’s the Pittsburgh Pirates, so there is literally no chance that you’ll ever get to see the home team win. Ultimately, the only positive aspect of this punishment would be the opportunity to feast on the woefully sub-par concession stand food, which is only sold for 15-20 times the amount it costs to produce. And to put the icing on the cake, you’re living in Pittsburgh, so the likelihood of getting dateraped by Ben Roethlisberger is substantially greater.

Wait, is this a Wildcard?

2. Community Service at The Keg of Evanston
You might be thinking, “But the KOE is a jolly place! I love going there!” However, imagine being at The Keg and not being allowed to consume alcohol. Or popcorn. Suddenly, your run-of-the-mill Monday night fuckshow has turned into a night full of unmitigated self-loathing whilst observing others in their endless debauchery. On top of that, you’d be forced to engage in community service – picking up empty cups, preventing multi-generational couples from hooking up, politely asking obese Hispanic men to remove themselves from the stripper poles, etc. After 10-15 years of spending every Monday and Saturday performing these tasks, there’s no doubt that a criminal would truly regret the crime they committed.

A life sentence of beer pong and using Snickers wrappers as condoms

1. Pledging Sig Ep
Although it has been ruled unconstitutional on the grounds of “cruel and unusual punishment” by the Supreme Court, many still support this method of alternative castigation for perpetrators of heinous crimes (OH MY GOD WE JUST MADE LEGITIMATE USE OF THE WORD HEINOUS! HOLY BALLS! IT FUCKING HAPPENED!). Yes, engaging criminals in this form of punishment would involve activities that, under certain definitions, qualify as “torture,” but the long-term penalty would be much worse – a 25 to life sentence of unchecked doucheification. This result, while being worse than death for many criminals, is indisputably more just from a moral standpoint. Even Julie Andrews, a role model for many, firmly asserted that the fairest punishment for murderers and rapists is “an inevitable lifestyle of supercalifragilisticexpialidouchiness.”