Would the Bangles get old?

You'll be part of a two-year mission to Mars in a windowless spaceship. Do you want to bring along your favorite book, your favorite movie, or your favorite CD?

So long Buffalo wings or the Buffalo Bills?

Pick one to give up at bars: eating food or watching television?

If you give up tv in this bargument, then assume no bars you enter will have a functioning television. If you pick food, you just can't eat any.

Questions that keep comic geeks up at night

If you like comic books, which I secretly do, you'll like this bargument posed by Dave Campbell in his comics blog, Dave's Long Box. He basically goes through his old comic book collection and offers commentary. Very funny stuff.

One recent entry has him setting up this superhero face-off:

Thor vs. Superman -- who ya got?

I wouldn't have thought this was worth arguing -- much less barguing -- but Dave points out some superhero trivia I'm proud to say I did not know. Such as: While the Superman of old was so strong he could reverse the orbit of planets and travel back in time (remember Lois Lane and the earthquake in Superman II?), the current Superman is much less powerful. Also, magic is a big weakness of Superman, and Thor's hammer uses magic to do damage. Thus, Dave thinks Thor would win.

I still put the smart money on Superman, but I guess we've got to go with Dave's expertise on this.

Hangovers or love handles?

That's the worst way to look at this bargument, of course. It's almost not fair to ask barguers to ponder giving up drinking, so advance apologies for this cheap shot. But today's bargument -- which you must answer now that it's been posed -- is:

Would you rather give up sweets or alcohol?

Answer in the poll, which you should find nearby.

There are Richard Dawson biographies selling better...

As I write this, Barguments the book rapidly approaches the one millionth sloth on Amazon.com, a level reserved for the most obscure books out there. It doesn't help that Barguments hasn't been releaesd yet, but pre-orders in the past have gotten it as high as the 60,000s.
Interestingly, Amazon.com just recently began offering alternatives on its Barguments page -- books and products you might like if you were thinking of ordering Barguments (whoever that person might be).

Some Barguments cousins, according to Amazon:
REHAB-- an adult drinking game
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, a collection of essays by self-described asshole Tucker Max.
And, oddly, Scattegories by Milton Bradley.

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa

For some reason in the last 48 hours I've felt the irrestible need to hear "We are the World." This morning, I spent 99 cents downloading it on iTunes. This was a mistake for several reasons, one of which being I could have just watched the video for free on youtube.


The best part about the video is the display of pop protocol then. Lionel Ritchie gets the first solo, followed pretty quickly by Kenny Rogers. Then Dionne Warwick and Steve Perry. They stick Smokey Robinson in the chorus, but Kenny Loggins gets a solo. For some reason, Dan Ackroyd is there.

Also, did we realize at the time how weak the words were? How did Bob Dylan not walk out when they handed him a lyrics sheet that included "It's time to lend a hand to life, the greatest gift of all" and "If we just believe, there's no way we can fall."




Watch the video for yourself and answer one or all questions in this multi-part Bargument:



Of all the solo singers in the We are the World video, who was the biggest star then? Who ranked on the very bottom of the list then? (Note: you must be able to name the singers in order for them to qualify as an answer.) And who are the biggest and lamest stars from that group now?

Sneak peek at Barguments the Book

Big news from the publishing front. Simonsays.com, the Simon & Schuster website, sent out its first Barguments e-mail alert. I signed up for a Barguments alert the moment they posted the book's cover on the site way back in June, but this is the first time they actually had anything to update.

The news: they added a description under the book. It reads:

If you could marry into any family, which would you choose?
Who talks about
sex more: men or women?
Is it harder to be a pitcher or a running back?
Name the best television theme song of all time.
Who would win in a war:
Texas or California?
These are just a few of the entertaining,
provocative,
endlessly debate-worthy questions in Barguments. Spanning the
full spectrum of
life's crucial topics -- sports, television, food, music,
sex, and, of course,
drink -- Barguments is the perfect addition to anywhere
friends, colleagues, or
strangers gather with a little time and plenty of
opinions to share.

Not sure they're the best gems in the book, but they give you a pretty good idea of what you're getting for your $9.99.

Going Down!

Would you rather spend a year in a submarine or in prison?

Warning: They'll Look A Lot Older in Person

This bargument comes from my old high-school buddy, Kurt, who not only knows bars but also knows what it's like to be thrown through the window of one. It goes:

What's the oldest celebrity you would sleep with?


Kurt explains in an e-mail:

This came up at about 2:30 AM on Saturday while playing poker and I thought I would pass it on:

We were discussing your book (I should get a commision) and [that] question was asked...

The details are a little blurry but I think that one of the Golden Girls won.

The word "bargument'' made the second edition of the Urban Dictionary, though the definition is flat wrong. The writers claim a bargument is defined as:

A confrontation physical or verbal stemming from or taking place at an establishment that serves alcohol.

The drunk guy started a bargument with the bouncer and got dropped in the alley.

Not really. A bargument isn't just a fight that takes place at a bar. That's a bar brawl. A bargument, of course, has to be an argument you would really only have at a bar, over a question that can prompt hours of debate.

You can find much better definitions at the excellent urbandictionary.com website. I should challenge those guys to a bargument over the definition of "bargument.''