Guest Post: A Golf Hypothetical

Today's guest post comes to us from Jamie, a friend of The Couchwarmers. It was sent to me Sunday night, so by the time you read this, he will have already either failed miserably or partially succeeded in his attempt to become the most famous golfer ever in the history of the sport. He also poses an interesting hypothetical at the end, which I know will stir up some lively debate in the comments. Jamie, it's all yours:

Tomorrow at 7AM at the Golf Club of New England I will tee off for my first competitive round of golf since my father dragged me to our local country club to enter a junior event when I was eight years old. Growing up, my parents were avid golfers, but I tended to concentrate on the more “popular” sports (e.g., soccer, basketball, and baseball). My golf exposure was limited to the random times I would play with my Dad, where I would close my eyes, swing as hard as I could, and hope I would make decent contact.

Bear vs. Shark: The Final Verdict

In a match that was decided by a single vote, the winner is....The Shark!

Shark     51%
Bear       49%

Down goes Bear! Down goes Bear!

And just like the last time, The Couchwarmers are in total agreement with this verdict.

Last Call For Bear vs. Shark

We can all agree that the abomination of God shown on the right might be the world's most perfect killing machine. However, bearsharks only exist in our collective imagination. Therefore, for the past few days, we've had you vote.

Consider this your last call to vote if you haven't yet. Voting closes tonight. This race is close. Extremely close. So every vote counts. Make your bear growl or equally-as-intimidating shark noise heard.

Ridiculous Hypotheticals: Bear vs. Shark

In case you missed Part I, here's everything you need to know. Basically, we asked you guys if a bear and a shark fought to the death, who would win? We gave you a chance to voice your opinions before we put it to a vote, and the emails were everything we had hoped for. Also, I was bored, so I created my own interpretation of "bear vs. shark in neutral territory," as you'll see in the picture above.

Without further ado, the arguments:

Erin's Take on Bear vs. Shark

This Bear vs. Shark submission comes to us from Erin, a friend of The Couchwarmers. Due to both length and thoroughness of research, we feel that it requires its own post. We strongly encourage you to read on before coming to a final verdict:

Ridiculous Hypotheticals: Bear vs. Shark

After a mildly successful Ridiculous Hypothetical #1, The Couchwarmers are happy to bring you the second installment in what we hope will become a recurring series here. This one goes back to a scholarly debate that would come up somewhat frequently while I was at school. After graduation, I brought this question to some friends at my job. Several new rounds of heated deliberation followed.

While we all had our opinions though, this question has never been decided scientifically (you know, by website voting). Therefore, I think it's about time we settled this one once and for all. Today's question:

If a bear fought a shark in neutral territory, who would win?

The explanations and ground rules:

Toilet vs. TP: The Final Verdict

The results are in. Thanks to all of you who voted. And in a close match, the winner is....

The toilet!

Toilet               55%

Toilet Paper     45%

The Couchwarmers would just like to go on the record as saying that we wholeheartedly agree with this decision. Toilet paper is a luxury item; toilets are a necessity. As anyone who's ever been hiking before can tell you, there are perfectly suitable replacemements for toilet paper.

Ridiculous Hypotheticals: Toilet vs. TP

In case you missed Part I, here's everything you need to know. Basically, we asked for you guys to weigh in on if you could only have toilets or toilet paper for the rest of your life, which would you take? We gave you guys a chance to voice your opinions before we put it to a vote, and the emails were everything we had hoped for. Without further ado, the arguments:

Ridiculous Hypotheticals: Toilet vs. TP

And now, The Couchwarmers are happy to present to you an idea more than two weeks in the making. An idea with a lot of potential to be a recurring thing, we hope. But it's also an idea that requires audience participation, so we'll consider this a test run. If this one works, then we'll keep going with it. If not, then we'll ditch the idea. No pressure or anything.

A few weeks ago, we matched up the toilet and toilet paper in the first round of our invention bracket. For those of you who are new to the Couchwarmers, the premise was simple: we gave you two inventions, and you picked the one you considered more essential -- that is, if you were forced to choose between using only one of the two for the rest of your life, which would it be? Therefore, in this matchup, we were specifically asking whether you would rather go the rest of your life without the use of toilets and the plumbing that goes with them, or being able to wipe with toilet paper or any similar product.

In the end, toilet ended up defeating toilet paper 58% to 42%. But what surprised us the most was that we kept hearing from people about this matchup even after it ended. People who voted for toilets were adamant that their choice was the better one, while those who voted for toilet paper were just as steadfast.

So here's where you come in. It's up to you to email us, letting us know your preference and the best argument you've got for your choice. Basically, this is your chance to convince the other side that they're wrong. We'll take the best arguments from each side, post them, and then let you guys vote to determine the winner of this ridiculous hypothetical.

If nothing else, the most frequent compliment we've gotten here is that our blog is a good time-killer. So if you're sitting bored at your desk or in class, take a few minutes and help us settle this thing once and for all.

The 2004 Draft, Revisited

Seeing as how The Couchwarmers NFL Draft Live-Blog Extravaganza is now just a little more than a day away, I thought I'd whet your appetite with a post about a previous NFL draft that also happens to have some current relevance. Going into the 2004 NFL draft, there were three consensus top quarterbacks: Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, and Ben Roethlisberger.

Most of us still remember how draft day went: Manning refused to go to the San Diego Chargers, who had the first pick. They drafted him anyway, but shortly thereafter, traded him to the New York Giants for a package that included Rivers, who had been picked fourth. A little while later, the Pittsburgh Steelers drafted Big Ben eleventh overall.

Overall, all three of these quarterbacks have had both varying levels of success and disappointment in the league. But watching all of the Roethlisberger suspension coverage today at the gym got me thinking: Knowing everything we know now, and keeping past histories and looking at predicted future performance -- at this moment, which quarterback would you want on your team? Let's take a look at the arguments: