the buffalo from the buffalo wild wings commercial should be kicked out of the restaurant

road house situation

I try to be understanding. I try to be tolerant. I know everyone has their own thing going on and not everyone has the same personality and value system I do. It’s one of my favorite parts of life, actually, sometimes, noticing how everyone is different and seeing how they interact with the world in their own way. But there are limits to that. There has to be, just for the sake of maintaining a working society where people feel safe and free to live their lives. This is why the buffalo from the Buffalo Wild Wings commercial should be kicked out of that restaurant. 

It’s a matter of respect, really. The other people just want to eat some chicken wings and drink some beer and watch the game. They are paying customers, too. They deserve to enjoy their meal. They do not deserve to be assaulted by a massive winged hellbeast who speaks with the voice of a human, even if it is the mascot of the entire business. I’m sorry but that is just unacceptable. Look at this. 

It’s not just the customers either. That waitress there is just trying to do her job, seating other customers and trying to earn some extra money on a busy weekend. This is a work safety issue. Her manager should be stepping in. OSHA should investigate. The entire system is failing these people. 

Harassment

Assault

Food waste

And none of that is even the worst of it. Look at this…

Okay, wait. Sorry. That’s a GIF of Conor McGregor from the new Road House movie. But the same theory applies here. Maybe the manager of this BWW should hire a disgraced hobo UFC fighter who occasionally blacks out and blows up boats when he feels an injustice has been committed. It’s an admittedly serious step to take but one I have seen work. Worth considering.

I mean, honestly. 

Someone call Jake Gyllenhaal. 

Or Reacher.

Call them both.

This has gone too far. 

STUFF I TYPED

ON ONE HAND: I did not write anything this week

ON THE OTHER HAND: I do have a really great update to something I did write so that’s good enough

Remember the bobblehead heist? I hope so. It just happened a few weeks ago and was also my favorite thing in the world. Well, the bobbleheads were recovered and the whole thing somehow went and got better, which I didn’t think was possible. Here’s what the Pittsburgh Penguins said about the news. 

The Penguins were notified last week that a special cargo recovery team negotiated the return of the stolen property to a secure warehouse located in Ontario, California. The truckload arrived in Pittsburgh today and is expected to be delivered to PPG Paints Arena within the next week.

Okay, two things:

• I need, desperately, to be involved in a high-stakes bobblehead negotiation one day and I will take the bar exam again if I have to

• I need to know more 

Luckily, the CBS News affiliate in Pittsburgh was on it.

"They were due to arrive at the arena," said Kevin Acklin, president of business operations for the Penguins. "They didn't arrive. At first, we heard that there was some engine trouble, and then it sounded like a group of extortionists had stolen the bobbleheads, maybe along with some other merchandise, and they were negotiating with the trucking company to release them."

Two more things:

• Somehow I did not even consider extortion to be the motive here and I owe all of you a heartfelt apology for my lack of imagination

• You cannot possibly imagine how many times this week the phrase “a group of extortionists had stolen the bobbleheads” shot into my brain out of nowhere 

There’s more.

"We weren't directly involved in paying any ransom again," Acklin said. "It was on the supplier to recover them and deliver them, and they did that. Now, I'm not sure 100 percent if they paid anything for that. My guess is that they probably did, and they have insurance for this kind of loss."

Please take a few minutes this week and explain this whole situation to someone. A stranger, if you have to. I can’t think of a better way to make a friend than regaling someone with a tale of bobblehead-related extortion. 

STUFF I CLICKED ON

— a lot of celebrity profiles right now are packaged and written kind of aggressively — “Bucky Lasagna Has Had Enough Of The Haters” or whatever  — so it was nice to read about Sean O’Neal heading to Texas and just having a lovely time with Jesse Plemons and his family 

— please read the middle section of this blog by Josh Gondelman for a very good Conan O’Brien story

— the third season of Euphoria is in shambles which is a shame because it kind of sounds like it was heading toward a plot I can best describe as “what if Zendaya but Columbo?”

— I am not a birder but I did love this birding blog by Ed Yong and I especially loved this sentence: “These recent years have taught me that I’m less when I’m not actively looking after myself, that I have value to my world and my community beyond ceaseless production, and that pursuits like birding that foster joy, wonder and connection to place are not sidebars to a fulfilled life but their essence”

— I enjoyed this blog about the rise of sports gambling by Jay Caspian Kang for many reasons but mostly because it touched on my primary complaint: as someone who loves sports and does not care at all about gambling, it is massively annoying that all sports coverage now features like a five-minute section where some sweaty and excitable dork shouts at me about betting my whole car payment on a series of parlays from a room with enough screens that it could serve as NASA Mission Control in an emergency 

— I know I just posted screencaps of Angela Bassett from the new season of 9-1-1 last week but I need you to understand that this is maybe the greatest line reading I have ever seen committed to film

— moonshine cave

— okay look this is serious but it is also literally the thing that sent Jason Statham on a murderous rampage in The Beekeeper

— I hope the bobblehead thieves steal the SunChips special solar eclipse chips

— crooks drilled through a wall to steal $1 million worth of jewelry from a store in a New Jersey mall, which is definitely something, but all I can focus on is this sentence from the story: “Fred, a mall customer who declined to give his last name, said crime doesn't usually happen in the mall area”

— Seymour Weiner

— Flaco the Owl died with rat poison and STDs ravaging his system which is really kind of sad unless you, like me, choose to believe without any evidence that he was just going wild at a series of secret raves for escaped zoo animals 

— Punxsutawney Phil had some babies 

— a teen figure skater won first place at a recent event with a free skate program set to the Succession theme song, which is exactly the kind of thing we should be using this music for now

— my buddy Ryan had my buddy Andy on his podcast — the same one he had me on a while ago — to talk about his Faturday food reviews and battle with cancer and I am very mad at both of them because I found out about it on social media like some sort of damn civilian

Okay, that’s it for this week. Please share and subscribe and do not assault the waitstaff at a sports bar.