Note: The following five reader letters are in response to Michael Andor Brodeur’s list, “Fake Massachusetts Towns”.

From: Katie Studley
Date: Fri, April 13, 2012
Subject: Braintree is a REAL town in Massachusetts:

Just FYI :)

— Katie

From: Dan Carmine
Date: Thu, April 12, 2012
Subject: Fake Mass Towns

Guys, Braintree IS a real town in Massachusetts!

— Dan

From: Marcy Newton
Date: Thu, April 12, 2012
Subject: You’re wrong

Your Fake Massachusetts Town List would have been funnier if you hadn’t accidentally included an actual Massachusetts town. Braintree is a real town!

Sincerely,
Marcy

Your editor’s response to the above three letters, plus the numerous tweets we received that were in the same vein:

Yes, Braintree is a real town. That’s part of the joke. I’ve been to Braintree, several times. Have relatives buried there even. And I used to frequent the Valle’s Steakhouse on Route 3 before it became a Hilltop Steakhouse and then a car dealership.

— C.M.

From: Ariel Berman
Date: Thu, April 12, 2012
Subject: Another fake Massachusetts town

Sadwich

— Ariel Berman

From: Matt Wall
Date: Thu, April 12, 2012
Subject: In Massachusetts town category, some explorations of Cape Cod

Speaking as a sort of native of the place, I cannot begin to tell you how exasperating it is to have to explain this to visitor, repeatedly, so present this guide to locating Cape Cod towns as an additional public service.

First off, let’s get oriented. If you hear locals refer to the “Upper” “Mid” and “Lower” Capes, it is quite simple: The Lower Cape, of course, is above the Upper Cape, which is at the same latitude as the Mid Cape. You take the Mid-Cape to get to the Mid Cape and Lower Cape, but it barely brushes the Upper Cape, much of which is off-Cape anyway. (Speaking of which, you can take 6A North or South on either the East or West of the Canal, to get to 6A East or West, but the Mid-Cape is really the way to go these days.)

East Dennis is North of Dennis, and Dennis Port, West Dennis is to the South of East Dennis, and South Dennis is to the North of West Dennis, which is also to the North of Dennis Port. Yarmouth Port is where there is no Port but South Yarmouth (which is South of Yarmouth, but at the same latitude as West Yarmouth) has a Port. South Yarmouth is to the North of West Yarmouth. The Yarmouth-Dennis high school is in Yarmouth, as is Dennis Pond, but Old Yarmouth is in Dennis. Ed Gorey’s house is still in Yarmouth Port (inland) but is not nearly as interesting since they cut down the hedges and took out four of the five toilets he had hoarded, and certainly less interesting than when Ed was around the house.

South Orleans is to the west of East Orleans (but there is no West Orleans), East and West Falmouth are both to the North of Falmouth and to the south of North Falmouth (and there is no South Falmouth), and Old Falmouth Port is now Woods Hole while old New Falmouth Port is Teaticket. Good luck pronouncing Teaticket.

You can get a ferry to Nantucket at Hyannis, but not Hyannisport (where there is no port), which is technically part of West Hyannis, which is to the south of Hyannis. West Bay is immediately to the south of North Bay, in West Hyannis, which is technically Osterville but actually Cotuit, which is West of North Bay and south of West Bay.

You can also get the ferry to Nantucket at Harwich Port, which you get to by first going through Harwich Center, then Harwich, which are to the east of Northwest Harwich, which is due east of North Harwich. East Harwich is to the north of them all, most especially North Harwich, which is as far west as you can get and still be in a Harwich.

West Chatham and North Chatham, somewhat confusingly, are to the West and North of Chatham, respectively, but you simply cannot get into Chatham because of the traffic.

Oh, and one might add that the North-South running Cape Cod Canal actually runs West to East (remember this when taking 6A East or 6A West to the North or South on the East or West sides of the Canal.) Which you should know, of course, since Wareham, while off-Cape, is on the Cape, as are East Wareham and to many people’s surprise West Wareham (even though it is technically also in Rhode Island), as is Sagamore also off-Cape and on the Cape, but not Sagamore Beach, which is off-Cape and not on the Cape.

Enjoy your visit!

- Matt Wall

From: James M. Rose
Date: Thu, Mar 29, 2012
Subject: Scalia pizza

You have Justice Scalia on the wrong side in your piece “The Supreme Court Issues a 5-4 Decision on Where to Order Lunch” by Eric Hague. As I have written on my blog, Scalia prefers pizza. In an article published in California Lawyer, Scalia was asked the following question and, surprisingly, answered it candidly:

Q: You more or less grew up in New York. Being a child of Sicilian immigrants, how do you think New York City pizza rates?

SCALIA: I think it is infinitely better than Washington pizza, and infinitely better than Chicago pizza. You know these deep-dish pizzas—it’s not pizza. It’s very good, but… call it tomato pie or something… I’m a traditionalist, what can I tell you?

— James

Mr. Hague responds:

I believe Mr. Rose has mischaracterized Justice Scalia’s nuanced views on pizza. In an article in the Cardozo Law Review (“My Pizza with Ninó,” 12 Cardozo L. Rev. 1583 (1991)), Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kosinski relates an episode in which he dined with the Justice at the latter’s favorite D.C. pizza place. Judge Kozinski was unimpressed by the restaurant’s pizza, so during a subsequent lunch, he ordered a takeout pizza for Justice Scalia from what was supposed to be one of Washington’s best pizza spots.

According to Kozinski, Scalia literally refused to eat it.

So while I do agree that Justice Scalia enjoys a good slice, I’m almost positive that he wouldn’t have anything to do with a Domino’s pizza.

— Eric Hague

From: Lorna
Date: Sat, March 24, 2012
Subject: NEW NATURAL BASKETS

Dear Sirs or Madam,

Good day.

We can supply with you various kinds of natural handmade products:

1. Willow products

Willow gift basket, willow picnic basket, willow bread basket, garden basket, pet basket, willow washing basket, willow cabinet and so on.

2. Straw products

Straw bags, wheat straw basket, corn straw basket, seagrass basket, paper straw, basket and so on.

3. PE/PP storage basket

PP strip basket, pp bags, laundry basket and so on.

4. Wooden boxes

Wooden gift box, wooden wine box and so on.

5. Cloth Crafts

Cloth box, cloth and willow box and so on.

6. Rattan Furniture

For details, you can go through our website to find your favorite.

Best regards,
Lorna

From: Jeremy Miller
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012
Subject: Re: ROLLER-DERBY PSEUDONYMS FOR LITERATURE MAJORS

Dear Sir or Madam,

I play roller derby on a recently formed men’s team in Ithaca, NY. I have been searching for just the right derby name for months. “MacDeath” is perfect. Sadly, two of your authors thought of it before I could. I wonder if you could put me in touch with J. Steven Davis and/or Katherine J. Hannon? I would very much like to use the name, but not without permission. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

— Jeremy Miller

From: Christopher Capozzoli
Date: Thu, Mar 8, 2012
Subject: a letter to mcsweeney’s

Dear McSweeney’s Internet Tendency,

First off, thank you for your years of tedious and oftentimes thankless dedication to the internet. The Internet can be a cold and lonely place, but there is hope with outposts such as McSweeney’s to maintain some semblance of order.

From time to time, I consider submitting short stories and little comments to McSweeney’s, though this is not one of those. I wanted to tell you about my day, because you invite those of us surveyors of the Internet to do so. My name is Chris and I live on an island called Manhattan, which is a crowded and loud place. I grew up in The Woodlands, Texas, which is a landlocked place that is open and quiet.

Today, when I returned home from work at NYU, I realized someone had broken into my car.

This person, whoever they may be, didn’t take anything. There was nothing in my car to be taken anyhow. They didn’t even break the window—they did it the old fashion way, with a wire through the window to unlock the doors. I had a Toad the Wet Sprocket CD under the passenger side seat, which held the musical musings of my hopes and dreams. The person didn’t even take that. My hopes and dreams apparently have no street value. Though nothing was taken, they left a horrendous mess of paperwork that had been in the glove compartment.

And so, for the sake of my car, I feel somewhat violated. Still, nothing was broken, nothing was taken, and so for that I am thankful.

In reality, all is well and I feel quite fine. It was a lovely day in New York City, with the temperature up around seventy degrees with a soft breeze. I hope it’s as lovely, if not lovelier, in San Francisco!

Thanks for your time,
Chris Capozzoli

From: Sloan Schang
Date: Wed, Mar 7, 2012
Subject: Greetings from China!

Dear McSweeney’s,

My room in this Beijing guesthouse has a standalone shower unit in the bathroom. It’s tubular and glassy, like a sci-fi suspended animation capsule. It’s one of those deals where there are about 25 water jets staring at you from all sides, promising the kind of pulverizing cleanse I’ve never actually had the pleasure of receiving, because the goddamn things are always broken. True to form, only one jet works in this particular shower and it’s a little left of center, which is a problem only because the glass door happens to be missing a panel directly opposite this jet. To remedy this, the guesthouse has cleverly installed a drain in the floor of the bathroom to receive the water that sprays everywhere when the shower is turned on. I certainly wouldn’t have thought of that. The shower also has a little control panel inside that looks as if it’s meant to control a built-in radio. The thread of disappointment continues when I figure out this doesn’t work either, although I did get some joy out of pressing the on/off button and watching it all light up momentarily until I realized that dear God this shower is actually connected to electricity. In the process of groping around behind the unit to find the plug, which I disconnected without incident, I also found a sticker written in that now familiar hybrid of Chinese-English that is one of the wordsmith’s great delights while traveling in China. It said:

1. When you feel be choked with the roller door closed entirely, please move the door and keep chink when you are having a shower bath.

2. Those (Drinker, Hypertension Person, Feeble Person and Pregnant Women) are FORBIDDEN to have shower bath in room.

3. Children must have shower bath with parents company outside the room.

4. When you are stivy or vomit in the room, please go out the room immediately!

The real pity of the thing is that there was no second sticker to explain what the symptoms of “stivy” are, so I may never know far enough in advance if there’s any danger. I mean one minute I could be fine, working up a nice lather, and the next… stivy. “He was so young,” they’ll say, “to have gotten stivy.” And naked like that, in a Chinese shower! What would his poor mother say? There is a popular saying that it takes at least fifteen years of training in the Chinese language and one year of remedial English study to be able to write fluently in Chinese-English. I’m certain this is true, because although I can read it well enough now, I cannot even begin to dream up something like what I saw in a liquor store the other day—a precise replica of a Johnny Walker bottle, branded with the name “Red Labial.” The volume of it all is overwhelming, like having too many smart things to laugh at in a Woody Allen movie. I’m not complaining, mind you. I’m not making fun, either, because I do genuinely appreciate the effort at stringing together some Roman letters in this foreign sea of swirling, complex pictographs. In so many cases, the Chinese language is simply too poetic, too rich in ancient metaphor to translate neatly into English. The sign in the Shanghai subway that reads, “You should help others with wisdom and courage when you find the pickpockets” should inspire in me some much needed civic bravery, but instead I just elbow my wife and take a picture of it while some kid lifts a 50 Yuan note out of my back pocket. Similarly, the efficiency potential of instructional English is lost entirely when the sign for a hands-free bathroom faucet is printed in the style of a Confucian philosophical statement. A sensitive tap, one needn’t touch it. Same meaning I suppose, with a bit more personal introspection. If one touches the sensitive tap, even when one needn’t touch it, what exactly are they over-compensating for? In complete contrast, there’s tons of stuff that’s clearly been translated word for word from the Chinese to English Dictionary, rendering it completely useless. I saw a billboard the other day that attempted to explain one of the enticements of an upcoming festival event. It read:

The promoted cycle we will bestow 500 “The Night Scene To Appreciate The Liquor Water Monetary Equivalent Ticket” will obtain the tourist will allowed to receive 30 Yuan characteristics liquors water jacket meal in the scenic area assigned location, will limit 500 everyday, will deliver up to!

I realized at the moment of reading this that I still have so much to learn. And I can’t speak for other tourists, but I can’t ever get enough of the museum signs that say, “Do not stroke the works.” Not touching something in a museum never sounded so dirty nor so appealing. One stroke couldn’t hurt, could it? C’mon. Just one stroke. Just one.

Very yours in sincerity,
Sloan Schang

From: MAtt Baer
Date: Fri, Mar 2, 2012
Subject: Death Star Trash Compactor as a tactical consideration

It is important to remember that the Death Star is a military vessel, and that even an interstellar base of such size may find itself in a situation requiring stealth. Since the Death Star undoubtedly produces large amounts of refuse, a clever enemy might be able to reconstruct past movements and project imperial intent. A sort of disgusting trail of bread crumbs.

This is why the Empire needs to consider seriously the tactics of waste disposal of the Death Star, firstly by reducing the matter ejected (via the worm creature), secondly by storing the material and releasing it only occasionally, and preferably irregularly (so as to make the path markers harder to find), and lastly by reducing the size of the dumps via compaction (so to make the radar signature smaller).

I hope this helps clear matters up.

— MAtt

From: Tim Hundsdorfer
Date: Thu, Mar 1, 2012
Subject: Death Star Trash Compactor

How did such drivel pass through a peer review process?

The system is implausible, but not because of the reasons cited.

The first problem is the implausibility of such an inefficient and wasteful system to begin with. Sure, the Empire has sufficient technological resources to create a massive space station  and propel it through hyperspace, but rely on a waste system which can best be described as “medieval.” Given the extreme logistical problems of providing a million people with water, it defies imagination to believe that the Empire’s waste- water reclamation systems are inferior to NASA’s. And the very idea of ejecting human waste into space in a liquid form can only come from minds lacking sufficient imagination to explain the efficacy of a “light sabre.” Space is COLD. If you eject liquid waste into space, pardon my lack of finesse, your ship will quickly be coated in frozen shit. Because matter gravitates toward mass, you would have to forcibly eject waste away from the Death Star. Given that it is as massive as a moon, crap would have to be projected away at considerable velocity to escape the Death Star’s gravitational pull. It’s quite clear that with it’s formidable technological advances, the Empire would have a reclamation facility on the Death Star to obviate the need for massive transfers of water to the station. Is that gross? Yes, but we all live downstream from somebody.

Vents to the brig from trash compactors would seem to be both a security breach and an unnecessarily complicated engineering project. If you have vents that lead to a waste facility (whether this is utilitarian or spiteful, as some other reviewers have suggested) and the facility is periodically ejected (compacted or no) you have to have a way to seal off the vents to prevent a hull breach, which, one assumes, would be a serious problem, regardless of the technology level.

The idea that the compactor is not a spatially compacting cube is lubricious. If you are going to compact anything, having a space where you could allow a space maggot to live and (evidently) thrive would only create a space to relieve the pressure of compaction until it was full, which, considering the size of a Death Star, would not take very long. If the compaction system were not closed, there is no reason to compact the waste at all as it will simply disintegrate into the vacuum of space, again, simply sticking to the side of the Death Star unless it were projected at escape velocity.

However, in all of this we are assuming that a certain level of diligence and planning characterized the construction of the Death Star. If we have learned anything from defense contracting here on Earth, we know this is hopelessly fallacious. In all probability, the waste system was the result of a subcontract awarded based on contributions to Imperial Senate elections. Sure, they could have developed a closed loop system free of vermin that was not connected to any detention facilities, but why bother to develop systems like this on a facility that is, essentially, going to blast planets to smithereens and create an interstellar wasteland anyway? We all know about the technical deficiencies inherent in the Death Star anyway, re: vulnerability to small craft, necessity to wait until clearing a line of sight and, evidently, a rather static firing mechanism. So it seems probable that the Death Stars garbage compactor is every bit as plausible as a $200 million fighter jet that can’t fly in the rain (aka F-22).

The workman’s comp liability from having bridges over chasms with no handrails is far more implausible than a primitive trash compactor.

— Tim Hundsdorfer

From: Tim Streisel
Date: Thu, Feb 23, 2012
Subject: Re: Death Star Garbage Compactor

Not that I am authorized to speak for the Empire, or his Imperial Majesty, George Lucas… but I would like to offer rebuttal to the points made in your argument about the plausibility of the trash compactors on the Death Star.

Issue No. 1 deals with the vent that Princess Leia finds. You argue that there is no reason to vent the stench of rotting material in such a manner. I remind you that the vent lead to the detention blocks, and could have been installed out of pure spite, in an attempt to make the inmates lives just that much more uncomfortable. The Empire was big on spite, ya know

Issue No. 2 assumes that compaction efficiency is the priority. However if the priority is speed of the compaction cycle, then movable opposing walls make sense.

Issue No. 3: Many types of equipment use linkages that vary the speed/force through the motion cycle. It seems that the compactor walls could have that type of linkage, as the force needed for compaction would grow as the walls move inward and more trash is compacted. The slowing down of the compactor you seen may very well been designed into the system. I notice that the compactor never jammed or stopped till R2 halted it.

Issue No. 4: Remember that R2 did indeed halt the compaction cycle, so we have no way of knowing if the other two walls or ceiling/floor would move as the next stage of the cycle. Most car crusher work with a 2 or 3-stage cycle like that.

Issue No. 5: The design/size of the floor is never shown, but based on what is shown when Luke is pulled under the water, the case can be made about the floor being a platform that is smaller than the area of the room. It is possible that all refuse, once compacted is allowed to sink to the bottom of the pool of water for disposal or processing. If designed properly, any piece small enough to pass through the gap between wall and floor would be small enough for downstream processing equipment to handle.

Issue No. 6: The Death Star is a military base. One system is more reliable and uses less manpower to operate and maintain than two. On a civilian installation, where quality of life is the priority, separate systems make sense, but not for a military one.

Issue No. 7: The Empire obviously could care less for the distinction between organic and inorganic waste. Its primary sanitation objective is to remove any and all waste from the facility. You also assume that the Empire actually put the worm into the system. It could very well be a product of some larva that was discarded and pupated in the waste system. This is not unheard of here on Earth.

Issue No. 8: Sanitation ships equals recourses and manpower to run them, for little or no gain over simply jettisoning garbage. If the Empire had even the slightest glimmer of a ecological movement in its ranks, it would be very simple to arrange the jettisoned garbage into a decaying orbit around a star.

Issue No. 9: The Death Star would surely make a tremendous amount of waste. And true, space is infinite. But manpower is not. Compacting the trash means fewer jettison cycles. That would also be the reason for speed to be the priority for the operation of the compactors (hence the two moving walls) rather than compaction efficiency. The unknown question is whether or not operating/maintaining the compactors uses less manpower than running more jettison cycles.

As far as creating hassles for the Empire… You rebel scum!

Go Empire!

Tim Streisel
Imperial (no kidding), Missouri

From: Michael Lewis
Date: Sun, Feb 19, 2012
Subject: Death Star trash compactor

Hi, I’m only writing this because as of this minute, I have literally nothing better to do. I stumbled across your article by accident, and being a Star Wars fan (albeit one grounded in reality) I felt it warranted a read. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but, I wanted to make 2 points:

1) I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that while Star Destroyers dump their garbage before light speed, it’s possible that the Death Star has to recycle its material due primarily to its massive size (if I remember correctly, a Star Destroyer is 1.6 km long, with a crew of 50,000, and the Death Star is 128 km across with a crew of over a million people—I’m proud that I even kind of know that). It seems like resupplying the Death Star would be a massively inefficient undertaking (the Empire’s attitude towards the environment aside, they are pretty efficient, as you said). Also, given the somewhat ‘secret’ nature of the Death Star, they probably wouldn’t want to impose a predictable resupply schedule on it, so as to prevent possible strikes against it. You could argue that the Battle of Yavin would shoot a hole in that theory, except that Grand Moff Tarkin willingly put the Death Star at the Rebellion’s doorstep, so I still maintain that a routine resupply schedule would’ve been a detriment to the safety of the Death Star (then again, so was having an easily accessible exhaust port, but that’s a whole other thing).

2) Regarding the creature, while I’m not entirely sure why it’s there either, I’m gonna guess at two things:

• A) If the Death Star does reclaim as much of its material as possible, then it would make sense to have an organism in there aiding with the reclamation and sanitation of the water in there (the same way they use bacterial slime to clean drinking water – gross, but it is a possibility maybe?).

• B) With regards to its being crushed by the walls (which, yeah,totally should’ve been one-sided), there is that loud clanging sound, which, now that I think about it could’ve been the walls starting up, but I always thought it was a gate through which that creature entered the compactor opening and closing, thereby provided the necessary escape prior to crushingness.

And now that my virginity has apparently grown back, I shall go play Bioshock until my eyes bleed.

Keep writing. I enjoyed your article,
Mike

From: Jessica Lahey
Date: Thu, Feb 16, 2012
Subject: Re: Half a Life

Thank you, thank you.

To whomever made the layout and editorial decisions on "Darin Strauss’ Half a Life.

I am an English teacher and writer, and I TRY to explain to my students that factors such as diction, syntax, and FORMATTING can affect the meaning in a piece of writing, but it’s always been hard to find an example of successful and brave formatting. I usually have to rely on examples of lame concrete poetry.

And then, THEN, I was able to show them and read excerpts of Half a Life to my young wards, and they were so impressed. 8th graders, impressed by formatting.

Bravo. And bravo.

Best, and again, thank you.

— Jess Lahey
(jessicalahey.com)

From: M Ryan Purdy
Date: Mon, Jan 30, 2012
Subject: Business Days

Dear McSweeney’s,

Twelve years ago, I submitted this list to you, which ran in your fine publication.

Well, even though a lot has happened over the years, I just wanted you to know that I stand by what I wrote.

Thank you, and take care of yourselves.

Yours, etc.,
M. Ryan Purdy

From: MyHumanCompassion
Date: Sat, Jan 28, 2012
Subject: Book

Greetings:

I need to publish my memoir book on healing and eventually get on a talk show—I would like to know more about publishing through your company.

Please feel free to contact me at [phone number redacted].

Thank You,
Daniel

From: Randy Thompson
Date: Thu, Jan 26, 2012
Subject: Order

Hello,

Am Mr Randy Thompson and i will like to order Hair Dryer  1200 Watts from your company, can i have their price and the method of payment you do accept, I wish to start business with your good company so i look forward for your valued reply ASAP.

Have a nice day !

Best Regards
Randy

From: Tommy Bronsted
Date: Wed, Jan 25, 2012
Subject: I love you.

There. I said it. When class get’s boring or I’m not feeling too great—I go straight to McSweeney’s. It makes my day time and time again, and I just wanted to thank you so much for keeping it going. You guys are my heroes. I realize you don’t write all the content on McSweeney’s—but that’s part of the reason why I think it’s so great.

You guys are enablers—you take good writing and deliver it to people like me who wouldn’t have found it. I can’t get enough of this.

So I love you guys.

Alright. Bye.

<3

From: T. Feeney
Date: Fri, Jan 20, 2012
Subject: Gorilla Girl

Is the whole thing over? Am I too late? Or was it all a joke? I should have known. I mean really, gorilla@mcsweeneys.net? Why would you seriously set up a separate email account for this nonsense? Well, since I actually took the time to respond to your questions and was immediately rebuked by the Mail Delivery Subsystem, I feel compelled to send it to you here.

Mr. Eli Horowitz, et. al.,

I realize that this is an old topic. Sorry, I’m just catching up on lots of Small Chair stuff. In addition, I’m only about 1/4 through the Art issue of The Believer and just yesterday managed to get through the letters of McSweeney’s #38. I know, I’ve had #39 for a few weeks now. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here are my thoughts:

Did Ryan W. Bradley write this story? I would like to think he did. Given the fact that the other two of only three responses to your Gorilla Girl query have not panned out, I figure why not? But it is highly suspect that his computer happened to crash at about the same time, giving him no actual copy of his work. Plus aren’t kids these days using DropBox and the “cloud” and shit like that for everything? Maybe he was too drunk. I would put the odds of him having been the actual author of the story at about, well, 1 in 3.

Is it possible to write twenty-five coherent pages and remember nothing? A week ago I would have said no. I know from experience that alcohol impedes fine motor skills to such an extent that physically constructing a simple sentence, whether the medium be pen and paper or keyboard or even speaking into Voice Record on an iPhone, is often downright impossible. However, last weekend I had an experience that makes me think that it might be probable to not only formulate cohesive thoughts but, given the right amount of time and steady state of inebriation, pound out as many as twenty-five pages.

See I was in an online forum posting in a thread about the NHL. And I was drinking. A lot. Truth be told I was in the middle of what some call a blackout. I am not proud of this. It just turns out I don’t remember about three hours of this particular evening. The topic at hand in the thread had turned to the names of teams and one poster, after chiding me about the name of the particular team of which I am a fanatic, stated the following,

“Well… at least it’s not the Hurricanes. Or the Wild. Or the Thrash… oh, right.”

My reply was,

“Thanks for substantiating my theory that the local farming lobby is behind this.”

Now when I saw this much later, I immediately thought that I had been hacked and somebody else wrote that sentence using my account and avatar. I even edited the post to state as much. While it doesn’t appear to be addressing the post to which it was in reply, on close examination you may note that given the proper context, it is a fairly coherent sentence. Aside from the fact that I don’t know what any local farming lobby would have to do with the naming of professional hockey teams (indeed I’m am not even aware of the existence of any local farming lobby whatsoever), I can’t for the life of me figure out how that got into my head. The only answer was that I had arrived at a point of intoxication whereby I was able to think and communicate but was not exactly lucid.

So basically, yes, it is possible to write twenty-five coherent pages and remember nothing. Have you suggested asking Ryan W. Bradley to get hammered and try to remember some details of the story in that manner? You know, state-dependent learning and all that? You might want to run that by your legal department first.

If he didn’t write it, who did? Someone else.

If our generation is a giant pouncing feline, what kind of feline is it? Maybe an ocelot? I have to wonder exactly what you mean by “our.” Do you mean you and I? You and Ryan W. Bradley? All three of us? How old are you anyway? Not that I’m really asking, that would be rude. I suppose your age may be irrelevant. I’m pretty sure that myself and Ryan W. Bradley are not of the same generation. I say this because he is in college, probably in his first or second year because he lives in the dorms. I was in college twenty years ago and had already upgraded to apartment style living because what self respecting junior would live in the dorms?

What exactly is the cutoff for a “generation” anyway? I’ve been told that I am part of Generation X, although some of my older friends say that I am not because they believe one had to be born prior to Woodstock to claim that particular generation. I was born some months after that event.

In any case, I suppose Ryan W. Bradley’s generation could be an ocelot. Though ocelots are not exactly giant, I would go for Maine hunting cat over an ocelot. But my generation isn’t either. We are a fucking tiger!

Hope this helps!

— T. Feeney

From: Dr. Patrick Price
Date: Fri, Jan 20, 2012
Subject: Regarding sacrifice to Quetazalcoatl

Stone blades are sharpened by chipping tiny fragments from the edge via a technique called knapping. A whetstone is use to sharpen a metal blade by realigning the cutting surface and filing away the roughness at the edge. The memo was very entertaining otherwise.

— Pat Price

From: Anna Dechert
Date: Sun, Jan 8, 2012
Subject: Additional emoticon

Dear McSweeneys,

I’d like to introduce you to my personal favorite in new emoticons, the winky-frown:

;(

While I understand that this probably won’t be added to any lists, I hope that you can use it around the office for those moments when a frown is too harsh and a wink is too flirty.

Cheers,
Anna