Generally, NASCAR is pretty funny. It’s a sport where spectators’ goal is to get a drunk as possible beforehand and then dodge flying debris during. It’s a symbol for life, really. You spend the whole time trying to maintain your buzz, watching people you’ll never be compete for the entertainment of thousands, going in circles all the while. But today, we can’t make fun of racing, because they lost one of their own. Dick Trickle was found dead of an apparent suicide. Stop snickering at his name, you guys. If you were busy explaining to the insurance company about how your car got closed in a gate this week, odds are you missed it.

A city hits rock bottom
Toronto has had an unusually hard week. After battling back in the series to force a game 7, the Maple Leafs fell to the Boston Bruins in overtime. Then it was reported that people are shopping around a video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack. Your hockey team lost to the Bruins in the first round and your mayor is caught smoking the rock? Congratulations, Toronto, you’re Washington, D.C. in 1990!

From the Hill looking down
It was uncovered this week that IRS agents targeted groups with conservative-sounding names seeking nonprofit status in recent years, which has drawn criticism from conservative lawmakers. Further Congressional hearings were also called investigating last September’s Bengazi attack, which was investigated months ago. The House also voted for the 37th time to repeal Obamacare. Any day now, lawmakers are going to get around to that sequestration thing.

There is not enough soap to get you clean
This week, an anonymous bidder purchased a topless painting of Bea Arthur for $1.9 million dollars. The painting was done in 1991, and Arthur did not sit for the work of art. The bidder reportedly is planning to spend the entire weekend alone in his room.

A fight of the most epic proportions erupted at a British sci-fi convention. The people involved? Members of a Star Wars fan club versus Doctor Who fans. We might not be talking the Hatfields and McCoys, or even the Sharks and the Jets, but hey, it could still be bad! Maybe. The reason behind the spat? The treasurer of the Star Wars club asked a Doctor Who actor for his autograph. Okay, so it’s not exactly the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, but still!

Police were eventually called over reports of an assault taking place, but after questioning, it was realized that having your internet pride hurt isn’t exactly what an assault truly is.

The CDC investigated 161 pools in and around Atlanta, Ga. and, according to bacterial evidence, somebody squeezed off a dook in over half of them. They found E. coli in 58 percent of all tested pools’ filters, and P. aeroginosa in 59 percent.

The CDC partially blames improper cleaning and maintenance procedures, but also that you — yes, you — are not fooling anybody. We’ve seen you at the bar and know that you go to the bathroom every 30 minutes.

So, what can you do to help prevent the already rising number of pool-illness incidents?

1. Wash that ass. Unwashed perianal regions (that area ranging from your pee parts to your anus, including the taint) contain 0.14 grams of fecal matter on average. So, scrub up with soap before soap before going to the pool — or, for that matter, sitting on shared surfaces or standing upwind from anybody.

2. Stop pooping in the pool. Or peeing. Or farting after eating “complete proteins.” And if you have diarrhea, just imagine there are poop-eating sharks — or shartks — waiting for you.

Thank you for your attention. Hope you have a rad summer.

Just call up al-Yamama (don’t laugh, we’re trying to be culturally-sensitive here), a fast-food smuggling service. The food starts frying at a KFC 35 miles away in Egypt, and in just three short hours, the food is delivered to your door by way of a tunnel system.

The Colonel has officially been drafted into a war he never asked for.

Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes play Dave and John, twenty-somethings introduced to a gooey, mind-altering substance, dubbed Soy Sauce, that frees them from the space-time continuum and allows them to read others’ minds. It’s not all fun and party tricks, though: taking the stuff makes them targets for all manner of icky, slithering beasts and inter-dimensional gnat swarms, only some of which are easy to squash. Attacks from these critters lend themselves to Sam Raimi-ish camera moves, though (cult favorite) director Don Coscarelli isn’t as good as the Evil Dead director at making viewers laugh throughout a grisly life-or-death encounter.

The main story is told in flashback, as Dave narrates to a newspaper reporter played by Paul Giamatti. While Giamatti brings welcome charisma to the cast, the framing device takes some air out of the story and leads viewers to expect a more clever overarching narrative than we actually get.

Along with Giamatti, the two leads try their best to rein in the narrative. Relatable yet maintaining an unsteady smirk throughout, Williamson and Mayes are two fresh faces who snugly fit the traditional (and watchable) buddy dynamic. Mayes especially delights, embodying that peculiar quality in your most untrustworthy friend: unreliable for a ride, but essential if the world should ever face annihilation.

A cult following seems to be the audience John Dies at the End desires, but more often than not, those genre entries wind up in the nether regions of Netflix. Hopefully Wong and Coscarelli’s strange concoction escapes that fate, though. It’s better than that (and speaking of which, is currently on Netflix Watch Instant). Coscarelli knows how to exploit horror/sci-fi tropes and adeptly meld a practical effect with a well-timed gag. Many could depict a man’s disembodied mustache with the right degree of farcicality, but few can imbue it with such an oddball credibility.

People, we present to you the early stages of the Robocop statue that was created through funding via a Kickstarter campaign and will be displayed in Detroit. What we cannot present to you is exactly where it will be standing. Nor can we present to you the super secret way to override Objective 4.

As Bryan McBournie reported in this week’s “Minute,” cicadas make people say and do crazy things, like eat them. Fortunately, one of several broods only pop up every decade, give or take a few years, so we can nod and say, “Sure, it’s just like eating shrimp,” because we know this is only a temporary madness inspired by driveways covered in bug skin.

But, the U.N. isn’t content with being crazy once every 17 years. They are ready to embrace bug-eating every year, all year-long.

Taking a break from somehow stealing all of your guns, the U.N. found that insects produce more meat per pound of food eaten than most other sources of protein. It’s also leaner because bugs have ridiculous body images thanks to the exoskeleton fashion industry.

Their study noted that two billion people in Asia, Africa and Latin America already eat bugs. And in some African and Asian countries, large enough collections of certain bugs can mean big money for collectors. Of course, this is what happens when you have to compete with lions and tigers for a steak.

There’s only one reason The Guys may support this idea: to finally thin the bugs’ numbers. They currently outnumber us 200 million to one.

A French couple arrived home after a vacation in Ecuador, and luckily, their bags arrived along with them. However, when the couple got home, they discovered that their bags had been unpacked for them somewhere in transit. They had no clothes or souvenirs, except for a very special gift from the people of Ecuador: cocaine. 20 kilograms (about 44 lbs.) of it.

That’s how you get return business.

When the Insane Clown Posse reemerged a couple of years ago back into relevance with their music video, “Miracles,” they pondered everyday miracles like “Magnets/how do they even work?” Everyone, of course, laughed, because the answer to how magnets work is documented in books or, if your bookshelves are doused in Faygo, a Wikipedia search away.

What a pair of illiterate morons, right? I mean, who treats something that has been documented in written word for some time now like it’s an unsolvable, unknowable mystery?

That would be pretty much everyone writing Game of Thrones recaps.

Does that seem harsh? Hit the jump to find out exactly why your Monday morning link bait is terrible, and you’re terrible (with notable exceptions) for writing it.

First off, no, I’m not talking about everyone who posts a weekly recap of Game of Thrones after each new episode airs on HBO. I’m not even mad if you haven’t read the books. But, if you’re writing a recap for the sake of guessing what happens next in the series and, even worse, get upset if somebody mentions in the comments — that you asked for — what happens in a book published in 2000 (A Storm of Swords, which is where Season 3 is at) … then we’ve got a problem.

I’m gonna back up a bit. Let’s say that you aren’t a complete idiot and know how to look up magnets to find out how they work. Instead, let’s say you’ve just watched Peter Jackson’s first of three Hobbit movies, but you never read J.R.R. Tolkein’s book.

What are you going to write about? You can’t write about the ending because Peter Jackson and New Line Cinemas decided to stretch The Hobbit across three films and pad it with scenes written from Tolkein’s notes and Lord of the Rings appendices. But, you can’t even discern which scenes are “new” material because it’s all new to you.

As far as you’re concerned, it’s a work in progress. To everyone who actually gives a s**t about a book that was published all the way back in 1937, however, you are an idiot, especially when you wonder and/or try to guess what happens next. If you’re really that interested in whether any of the dwarves die, then the answer already exists. You just have to read a book that is very easy to read. (Or even look it up on Wikipedia if you’re that lazy.)

Of course, Tolkein’s not for everyone. Nearly everyone, however, has read Harry Potter. Except for me.

That’s not entirely true. I read almost all of the books except the last one, which I started and after several chapters of whining in tents, put it down and decided I just didn’t care enough; I’d wait for the damn movie. (It’s OK not to care. It’s never OK to pretend to care when you absolutely don’t.)

But, I sure as hell wasn’t about to write a recap for each installment of The Deathly Hallows. I knew better than to guess which characters live and died in the second half, or to take odds. Why? Because I don’t like to revel in illiteracy.

I can fully admit that I didn’t read a book. And why not? It’s not like I didn’t read other books. Or that I was worried about having the ending spoiled for me because, if I truly cared enough that I needed to see Voldemort die in context, I would have f**king read it.

Or, you can ignore all of this and write about Game of Thrones anyway, demonstrating that ignorance is no obstacle to holding an opinion. Just be aware that I may have Photoshopped juggalo makeup over your byline pic.

Let’s say you choose to do something distasteful on a daily basis on the condition that you’re paid for it. Maybe you didn’t plan on cleaning porta-johns, but, hey, the money’s good. Or maybe you’re writing copy for a company you don’t particularly like, say a weapons manufacturer, but it beats suckin’ dicks for a living, right?

It’s not like you’re a prostitute, even though the only difference between you is whether you take a shower every hour (or choose not to when you should). The mere implication that you accept money like a whore is insulting, right?

That’s what LinkedIn says, anyway, about actual sex workers. They’re not allowed to use the online spam service to network in their chosen career field. Of course, LinkedIn still offers the option to endorse other users for “prostitution,” so they can’t be t–

… You just left this page to endorse all your former bosses and coworkers for “prostitution,” didn’t you?

[Special thanks to Anthony S.]