Best Chess Piece?

Lowbrow Answer: The Rook
Look at you. All thick and stout with a flattop haircut. You're the chess version of a Duke Lacrosse player. You're the piece most likely to date-rape one of the female pawns: "Come back to my square later, baby, we'll have some boxed-wine and Captain Morgan."

And you can only move in straight lines? What are you, six? You move like a donkey wearing blinders, only you aren't wearing any blinders. You're the opposite of having Cerebral Palsy; your body works just fine but your mind is an idiot.


Middlebrow Answer: The Bishop
He hangs out right next to the king and queen, which means he's kind of important by association. It's like how those people you always see in the background of pictures of the president are the ones who are really running shit. He's religious, however, which immediately loses him points. The highbrow elite don't spend Sundays in church, they spend Sundays outside the church, making fun of those that are inside.

Moving diagonally is kind of awesome, because it means the bishops are the only pieces that stay on one color square for the whole game. None of this mingling with the masses shit. I'm perfectly happy on just the black squares, thanks. Although, is it ironic to anybody else that the bishop is the piece that looks the most like an erect penis? I smell a lawsuit.


Highbrow Answer: The Knight
This dude is so highbrow that he doesn't even believe in normal geometry. No straight lines for me, thanks, I'll just move in "L's". He doesn't stand next to the King and Queen because fuck the King and Queen. They can take care of themselves; he's got women to bone and non-linear movements to make.

Oh, and jumping other pieces? No problem. You really think he's going to let the proletariat keep him from going where he pleases? If only life were like that. The highbrow elite could have special cars that let them leapfrog the idiots. Then we would always get to work on time for our jobs as sit-around-and-think-of-highbrow-stuff-and-publish-books-that-nobody-will-read-ers.

Best Place to go when you Die?

Lowbrow Answer: Heaven
The problem with Heaven is that it's full people who are either really boring or totally insane. Just think about all the Evangelical Christians that will be up there with you. Or those kids you knew in college who spent all day playing Warcraft and used ping-pong tables to actually play ping-pong. Boooring.

And I don't care how nice Heaven itself is. I don't care if you spend all day watching action movies, eating buffalo wings, and getting fellated by Joan of Arc. It's all about the people you're with. Kind of like how a Caribbean Cruise would be horrifying if you were on a boat full of Dick Cheneys.


Middlebrow Answer: Hell
Whether you were fucking too much, drinking too much, or killing too much, at least you had fun on earth. Sure, fire and brimstone might be kind of intense, but you'd probably get a great tan. Plus, pain is kind of sexy. It's like how you used to get a boner when that nun in 4th grade would smack you with a ruler.

And if Heaven is full of boring people, just think of who you'd meet in Hell. Hitler, Charles Manson, Judas, those Velociraptors from "Jurassic Park." There'd be no shortage of good conversation down there. I can't wait to play "Risk" with Franco, Atila the Hun, and Pol Pot. Now THAT would be interesting.


Highbrow Answer: Nowhere
You believe in an afterlife? Please. Name me three top-level philosophers or cultural theorists who weren't atheists or agnostics. See, you can't do it. Believing that our souls go somewhere after we die is like trying to argue that The Barenaked Ladies are an awesome band: you just sound like an idiot.

If you think this one through logically, it basically means that you become a plant. Your body rots in the ground, eventually becomes soil, and then becomes some natural florae. High. Brow. You can go off to heaven and fly fighter jets all day, I'm just gonna chill here as a fern and contimplate the meaning of life.

Best Soda?

Lowbrow Answer: Mountain Dew
I try to avoid ingesting anything whose color does not occur in nature. Although, on second thought, I think large portions of Chernobyl were neon green after the meltdown, so I guess the color of Mountain Drew isn't entirely fabricated.

I love that the marketing strategy for this stuff is four morons doing extreme sports and then telling you to "Do the Dew." "Do the Dew" sounds like something a liquid ecstasy-peddling drug dealer would advise, and do I really want to drink something that's going to make me more like the spikey-haired Arizona State dropout that's standing alone on a plateau wielding an orange mountain bike? How the hell did he get up there in the first place?


Middlebrow Answer: A&W Root Beer
Started in 1919, this root beer was originally the "house wine" of the A&W restaurant chain. It was made by hand and served on tap. Getting root beer on tap is one of those things you dream about when you're an eight-year-old kid, along with chewing 100 pieces of bubblegum at once and watching an angry dinosaur eat your school.

While it's tasty indeed, this shit is peddled by The Great Root Bear. Sorry, but anytime you humanize an animal to sell your product, you're going to lose points. What species of bear is it anyway that wears an orange sweater and cap, and is always carrying a mug of root bear? I feel like he wouldn't survive very long in Northern Alaska. Although, he's probably always warm and rarely thirsty.


Highbrow Answer: Moxie
This shit is disgusting. It's basically carbonated motor oil. Created in 1884, it's older than Coke or Pepsi and is the grandfather of all carbonated beverages. And like most highbrow things in this country, you can only really find it in New England. Ahh, good ole New England. Home to Harvard, Clam Chowda, Yale, MIT, Yankee Swaps, Robert Frost, and Moxie. Impressive, eh?

Still not convinced? Then consider the fact that Calvin Coolidge, E.B. White, and Ted Williams were all avid fans of the drink. How's THAT for celebrity sponsorship. Any drink that prides itself on the affections of an early 20th century president is definitely highbrow. I can just imagine other companies turning to historical figures for their marketing. Nike could create a line of running shoes based on Moses' travels in the desert: "Just Jew It."

Best Pet?

Lowbrow Answer: A Dog
Owning a dog is like having a child that never gets older than two. Newsflash: two-year-old children suck ass. They run into stuff, they poop in your yard, and they can't be left alone. I don't get it. Is having a golden retriever bring you back a tennis ball every time you throw it really that rewarding? If I threw a tennis ball and he brought me back a 17th century oil painting, then maybe I'd be impressed.

I'm also not down with the whole eternal optimism thing. You come home, the dog is happy. You turn on the TV, the dog is happy. Your father's face melts off in a horrible mining accident, the dog is happy. Sorry pooch, but the world is not full of smiles and rainbows and ice cream. It's full of suffering and disease and circus clowns with AK47's. Have the sense to be depressed once in a while. Dumb dog.


Middlebrow Answer: A Box Turtle
Reptiles rule. You don't think so? I'm sorry, are your ancestors dinosaurs? Is anyone on your family tree three stories tall with jaws that could crush a Buick? I didn't think so. These guys are low maintenance, they look pretty, and they spend most of their time chilling in the sun. Man, that actually sounds pretty good. I should start dating a Box Turtle.

Box Turtles are, however, a little wimpy. If shit goes bad, they just hide in their shell and hope it all works out? Fuck that. I want a pet that will fight for my honor when bullies call me names, not one that will retreat inside his shell while I get wedgied and noogied by the lacrosse team. Grow a pair, Box Turtle.


Highbrow Answer: A Slow Loris
This, my friends, is a pet. You can only really get them in Southeast Asia, so pack your bags for Jakarta. They're pre-evolutionary chimpanzees that hang out in trees and slowly eat oranges. And their defense mechanism is something called Dynamic Locomotion, which is when they move with the same pace and rhythm as the leaves around them to blend in and go unseen by predators. So, basically, they're Mini Monkey Ninjas. I want one. Or twelve.

They're also endangered, which makes having one illegal in most places. But having a pet Loris is like owning artifacts that were plundered from The Pyramids: you shouldn't really have it, but it's kinda cool that you do.

Best Way to Get Lunch at Work?

Lowbrow Answer: Bring it from home
What are you, eight years old? Did your mom pack that for you? What do you have there? A ham and cheese sandwich on white bread? And a Jello cup? How precious. Let's go play on the monkey bars after you finish those Dunkaroos. (If you just got nostalgic when I mentioned Dunkaroos, punch yourself in the face for me.)

The best part here is that your food sits in a Tupperware container all day so that when you finally eat your crappy sandwich, it smells like sterilized old people. Mmmm, tastes like geriatric care.


Middlebrow Answer: Buy it at a restaurant
At least here you don't have to do any work. You just hand your hard-earned dollars to some acne-faced prole making minimum wage and he'll whip something up for you. He might spit it in your food first, but hey, just think of it as an added shot of protein.

Of course, any restaurant in a business district will be packed during the lunch rush, so you're forced to stand in line with a hundred other people who are dressed identically to you and just as unhappy in corporate America as you are. And you get that same depressing feeling like when you show up at an orgy and everyone in the room, including you, is a little overweight. It's just sad.


Highbrow Answer: Don't eat lunch
Even the absolute best lunch foods are horrifying. Who invented this shit? It's all sandwiches or fried meat. Or both. You aren't some mushy-brained invalid; you're highbrow. You don't need a break three hours after you get to work to surround yourself with morons munching away on personal pizzas from Papa Gino's and talking about whether the Boston Red Sox made the right decision to pull David Ortiz from the lineup. Kill me. And the Red Sox.

And what's with lunchtime turning everything into a salad? Potato salad, macaroni salad, seafood salad. Don't we just eat food anymore? Do we need to dress it up in salad every time? Look, let's say I'm getting into bed with a naked girl. Sure, some kinky role-playing or lusty foreplay is fine now and then, but at the end of the day, I just want some simple, meat-and-potatoes fucking. Call me old fashioned.

Best Olympic Winter Sport

Lowbrow Answer: Men's Ice Hockey
Do we really need another chance to watch toothless morons run into each other at 45 mph? Already nobody watches the NHL, you really think people are waiting with baited breath for that awesome match between Estonia and Belarus? I doubt it. Maybe they could spice it up a little and use a live puppy instead of a puck. Then I'd watch. Or at least maybe set my TiVo.

Keeping Ice Hockey in the Olympics is like putting a goat skeleton in a natural history museum. Sure it makes sense, but if we're going to the natural history museum, we're going to see the Velociraptors and tyrannasaurs, not the lame goat skeleton. Fucking goats with their gross cheese and crazy facial hair.


Middlebrow Answer: Bobsledding
Hey guys, I have an idea. Let's dress up like condoms, stick a big ice skate in our asses, and shoot down a long frozen tube as fast as we can. It'll probably feel something like being birthed by a polar bear. Oh, and if we crash, there's a good chance our necks get broken.

Okay, I can talk shit about Bobsledding all I want, but we all know that it's kind of awesome. It's like every 11-year-old boy's dream: to ride in a rocket with your three best friends. That and seeing a boob. Just one is fine. They're only eleven, they aren't greedy.


Highbrow Answer: Biathlon
Combining weapons with sports is the best idea I've ever heard. Let's add land mines to the NFL or use hand grenades instead of baseballs. Then maybe I'd feel like professional athletes' inflated salaries were deserved.

This sport started in 1861 when Norway's Trysil Rifle and Ski Club began training soldiers to ski and shoot as a form of national defense. So let's just get this straight. In 1861 America, we're blowing the crap out of each other in the first year of the Civil War. In 1861 Norway, they're skiing all day and then shooting at targets. Now that's highbrow. I gotta move to Scandinavia. Get myself a little hut in the snowy woods where I can read Engels all day and masturbate to lurid pictures of Arctic Foxes.

Best Flightless Bird?

Lowbrow Answer: Turkeys
Was somebody making a joke when these things were invented? Huge fat body, little tiny bald head, and a goatee made of skin. Consequently, I'm pretty sure "Skin Goatee" is the name of Jenna Jameson's latest project. The turkey did get a bit unlucky with the whole Thanksgiving thing. Imagine if there were a holiday that was basically dedicated to eating you. Probably sends your life insurance premium through the roof.

And what's with the gobble? It sounds like somebody trying to play a trumpet underwater. Of all the scary animal noises in the world, from growls to roars, the turkey gets the gobble? That's some genetic misfortune if I've ever seen it. Kinda like being born with only one eye or having Paris Hilton as a sister.


Middlebrow Answer: Penguins
Instant points for always wearing a tuxedo and for hanging out in an environment that can get as cold as 1800 degrees below zero or some crazy shit. I admire your class in the face of certain death. Reminds me of death row inmates who insist on brushing their teeth and combing the hair for their big day.

Here's the bad news, fellas. You all look like butlers. Or limo drivers. Or waiters, depending on the restaurant. You also spend most of your time sliding around on your belly and swimming, which basically means you spend all day in a water park. Highbrow people spend all day lamenting the fall of humanism, not plunging down The Geronimo at Surf Coaster.


Highbrow Answer: Silkies
Look at this thing. Have you ever seen a more arrogant-looking animal in your life? I want to beat it up right now and I've never even met one. Its feathers are soft and silky (hence the name), it has blue earlobes, and it's one of the only birds in the chicken family with five toes instead of only four. I can just see it strutting around the forest, mocking the other animals by waving its five fingers and reciting Proust.

The silkie was first discovered by Marco Polo, who wrote about "chickens with fur-like plumage" during his travels in the 13th century. Badass. Being in Marco Polo' s journals is kind of like being in the Bible. Middle school-age children will be forced to read about you for the rest of time.