Only 15 bucks?!?!?
Welcome to another KSK Sex & Fantasy Football Mailbag. Please note the ampersand when writing in, ladies and gentlemen: sex AND fantasy football. Too many of you want my precious fantasy knowledge but have no sex question (or vice versa), and that violates the spirit of the mailbag. Need lineup help but don’t have a pressing sex question? That’s fine: MAKE ONE UP. Ask me a hypothetical or something.
All I’m sayin’ is, we’ve been in this mailbag relationship for a couple years now, dear readers. Don’t get lazy. Let’s keep things fresh. Let’s keep things… SEXY.
Dear KSK/Ufford,
In vain attempts to “maximize” my roster with silly things like matchups, etc. I am 1-5 in a 10 team (standard scoring, one keeper) league, which sucks. Roster is as follows: QB: Vick/Foles, Kaepernick RB: CJ Spiller , Reggie Bush, Stevan Ridley, Willis McGahee WR: Calvin Johnson, Desean Jackson, Antonio Brown, Edelman, Roddy White TE: Julius Thomas Tell me who to start so that I can take next week’s inevitable loss (I have been outscored by an obscene amount of points overall) off (Left 30-40 points on bench every week) my (fantasy football is the worst) shoulders.
-Sam Spain
Start Vick this week. Despite the injury risk, the matchup against the Giants (6th-worst in giving up fantasy points to QBs) is too good. Drop Nick Foles. If you can’t trust him at home against the porous Dallas D, you can’t trust him at all.
re: Eagles MT @SheilKapadia: Watching All-22 now. An avg. QB would have yielded 300 yds. through the air. Guys running open all game long. — Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) October 22, 2013
Start Bush every week, and I’d say lean towards Ridley as your second RB until you see signs of life from Spiller or the matchup dictates McGahee. I’d start Megatron, DeSean, and Brown every week unless injuries dictate otherwise.
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Hey Man of Cave,
Sex: When I was in college, my grandmother moved into a nursing home, and soon I noticed that I was developing a fetish for older, retired women. I still dated and slept with women my own age, but nothing compared to the sex I had with a few of the women at the retirement community.
is this real
After graduation, I moved to a different city for a job, and I also started volunteering at retirement home on the weekends. I’m at peace with my sexual interests, even though I know most people wouldn’t approve, but here’s the dilemma: one of the women I’ve been sleeping with handed me an envelope with a thousand dollars in it. I’m trying to figure out if I should keep it or not. She’s pretty wealthy and I don’t think she’d miss it, but I have to admit that I don’t really need the money. I’m making close to 75k, I have no debt, and I’m only 25. On the one hand, who couldn’t use a thousand bucks; on the other hand, I’m worried about the psychological effects of essentially becoming a prostitute. What should I do?
-Gilf Fetishist
Rich old men dating young women buy them nice things, right? That money is a gift, enjoy it. Put it towards a new laptop or TV or a plane ticket to somewhere cool — something you think about buying, but don’t because it’s not “responsible.”
Give it some thought. If it still offends your moral code, donate the money to a charity that supports a cause you care about. There HAS to be some kind of charity that supplies replacement hips or something.
On a related note, this emailer sent me a photo of a “gorgeous older woman” that I found horrifying and made me doubt the email’s veracity. But, if you can step outside the “old people aren’t sexy” mindset for a moment, it’s kind of an ideal fetish to have. They’re experienced, they’re doting, and if you ever choose to settle down, your wife will only ever get sexier. Not a bad deal.
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Matt,
Sex: Unfortunately, the multitude of marriages that my friends went through in our twenties has given way to a number of divorces in our thirties. My usual approach towards my friends’ divorces has worked pretty well up to this point (give advice if they ask for it, listen if they want to vent, and ignore it if they don’t want to talk about it). Giving advice has gotten more difficult recently, as a few troubled marriages involve couples with children. I’ve never been married and have no kids, so I don’t know how to respond to questions such as:
“How do I choose between giving my child a stable home and remaining in a relationship that makes me miserable or getting a divorce that would make me happier but potentially lead to me not being as involved in my kid’s life.”
“My wife is going to move with our child to another state to be closer to her family. Do I sacrifice my career to move with them and try to keep a dying relationship alive or move for the sake of my kid?”
This is way out of my league, so any advice you and the Kommentariat could give on how to approach questions like these would be a huge help.
How stable is a home in which the parents are miserable and don’t like each other? I have a couple friends whose parents divorced while my friends were in college or early adulthood, and it STILL hit them like a sack of bricks — they ended up wondering if what they’d seen while growing up was a lie. So you can gut out a miserable relationship and waste years of your life, or you can get your child adapted to the idea of mommy and daddy living separately from an early age.
I am by no means advocating for divorce, and while I’m not yet a father, the notion of seeing my future children four times a week or only the weekends sounds terrible. Maintaining a close relationship with your child while staying cordial and working with your ex-spouse on consistency in parenting takes a fuck-ton of effort and patience, but to me it seems the preferable course to a loveless or broken marriage.
Football: What’s your strategy towards drafting defenses? I’m sure the answer depends on how the draft plays out, but at what point would you draft a Seahawks or Niners D versus going with a weekly streaming strategy based on whoever’s playing the Jags?
Thanks,
YM
I’m a 12th-round-or-later guy. The Seahawks D was under-the-radar enough last year for me to get them in most leagues, but I knew that wouldn’t be the case this year. While Seattle’s D has put up great fantasy numbers so far this season, in general, the drop-off from what’s perceived as a “top” defense and the “regular” defenses isn’t steep enough to warrant an 8th round pick, IMO. Think back on your drafts: how many years were the Bears and Steelers picked early even after they’d fallen off?
I prefer to target a young, aggressive defense that showed some promise the year before or clicks strongly in the preseason, and if that doesn’t pan out I work the free agent pool early. This year I targeted the Browns (good) and Rams (not good), but was able to pick up KC in two of my leagues.
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Dear Guy Who I Once Paid To See In Short Shorts,
You’re welcome!
Fantasy: I’m 5-1, I’m fine.
Good work!
Other: I’ve been with a woman on and off for the last 13 years of my life, and I’m 31. We have been living together for the last four years after spending two apart, and a few more not living together. We broke up the first time due to drug use (both of us), jail (me), and cheating (her).
So a pretty smooth relationship without too many ups and downs. Got it.
We got back together after both getting clean on our own (clean being beer and the occasional joint a few times a week) for a while, and realizing that we were really happy together when things were good. This was all I wanted in life as an ex felon trying to live life the right way, work an honest job and come home every night to someone I love.
You, sir, are perhaps my ideal vision of a KSK reader.
Fast forward to now; after both being clean for years, she has been doing drugs (heroin, meth),
stealing quite a bit of money from me (about $1,000), and doing other dudes. This is all in the last month or so, after a long period of stable, domesticated relaxation. I found out a little over a week ago, I’m also still (besides beer and joints) clean.
This is good. Please stay that way.
Needless to say, I’m a little fucked up over it all. I’ve asked her to move out, and she is in the process of getting her things and hasn’t stayed in our place in over a week. Now obviously I need to end this now, that isn’t really the question. It doesn’t matter how much I love this person, I can’t continue to do this to myself. My real question is, as a 31 year old man, how the fuck do I continue to live my life?
I already go to the gym, and do stuff with people at places during times and all the other really great Ufford Plan stuff, and it’s great. I just have no idea how to move on, at 31, from a woman I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with who has now ripped my heart out, more than once. I just have no clue how to live life as a single person, I haven’t gone to a bar besides my Wednesday night trivia and an occasional birthday or holiday in years. How the fuck do I pay rent on a two income place with one income, or even go about finding a place? I can’t even afford shit with what I make where I live, do I need a roommate at fucking 31? I know that things will get better with time, but how fucking much? I’ve loved this woman for my entire adult life, even when we weren’t together, and I have no clue how to turn it off. Please help, I’m fucked.
Signed,
A guy who remembers when Captain Caveman was a funny Deadspin commenter.
You are not fucked. Your life will be fine. In time, you will find a level of happiness and fulfillment you have never known or thought possible.
But that’s all down the road. For now, you’re at the “writhe around the floor and cry your guts out and feel miserable” stage. That’s called heartbreak, and just about everyone who’s sampled love has gone through it before. You’re not the first to feel this way. So: welcome to the team! We’re sorry about what happened, but we can report that it DOES, indeed, get better.
Don’t worry about being single. You don’t need to go to bars. A roommate at 31 isn’t a bad thing. Lean on your friends — preferably those who don’t have access to drugs — and just work on getting through each day. The pain lessens a tiny bit each day — not something you can measure on a daily basis, but one where you notice progress from month to month. Then one day you’ll think about being sad and suddenly realize, “Wait, did I even think about her yesterday?” And you’ll even miss the sadness, because the sadness being gone means that you’ve accepted that it’s really over. (I think I’m paraphrasing Swingers here. Sorry.)
Eventually, you can focus on being a whole person who can be happy and sufficient by himself. That should be your focus: move forward. Live your life as it is, not how you wish it had gone.
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Greetings Matt,
Fantasy: I am the commissioner of a decade-old twelve-team league. I really enjoy the guys who are in it and we have very little turnover, however two teams (0-7 and 2-5 respectively) have decided to stop setting their lineups. These are original members with busy lives (one just got married, but at the courthouse so it’s not like they had the time commitment that you and Mrs. Caveman had to dedicate). Each team started injured/bye week players last week and while none effected the match ups, they very well can in the future and really fuck with the playoffs. I’m sure I would catch hell from a team who had to play full strength squads while another team who played these bums got into the playoffs by a game. So, what do I do? I have emailed and texted these guys and they still have Doug Martin, Andrew Luck and the Texans defense in their starting lineups this week. They have paid their buy in for this year but I’m strongly considering kicking them out and giving their rosters to reserve owners who I know would play out the year. Setting a lineup takes five minutes a week, am I being unreasonable in kicking out two ten-year members?
Sincerely,
Chris
EVERYONE is busy. We all have too much shit sucking time away from the ideal lives we’d like to be living. If these two guys are ignoring your texts/emails and not setting their lineups, how interested can they be in staying in the league?
If it were me, I’d send out an email to everyone in the league and float some ideas. “Hey everyone, so John and Bill have a lot of stuff going on and haven’t been able to set their lineups recently. This poses a lot of problems for the level of competition in a league where money’s at stake. I know two guys who are willing to take over their rosters for the rest of the year, but I wanted to put it to a vote:” Then you insert a poll that gives them, like, three or four choices: expel them with an option for next year, give them one more chance to set lineups, whatever.
Then you close it out with “Bill and John — no hard feelings, totally understand if you’re too busy. If you DO want to stay in the league, just set your lineups each week and I’ll stop being the jerky commissioner.”
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Dear KSK,
Football first, I’m dead last in my 12-team work league, sitting at 1-6. Top of the table is shared by four teams at 5-2, next rung has three teams at 4-3, and mixed bag below that. As you can tell by the records, I’m not TOO far behind yet, but considering blowing up my roster to swing for the fences. Starting 7 looks like Cam, Spiller, Insert Weekly Running Back Here*, Jordy, Garcon, Brandon Myers, Mike Wallace. (*Will eventually be DeMarco Murray, who I just recently did an injury-trade for, trading Steven Jackson after getting fed up with scrounging the waiver wire every week for a replacement.)
Anyway, long story long, someone’s offering me Trent Richardson/Charles Clay for Pierre Garcon and CJ Spiller. I think Trent might have some life in his new home, and with Jordy Nelson, Greg Jennings, Brian Hartline, and Mike Wallace think I can make up for losing Garcon. And anyone would be an improvement over Myers at TE, frankly. Should I do it?
I’m lukewarm to the trade. I like the upgrade from to from Brandon Myers to Charles Clay, and you’re right: you can afford to lose Garcon. I would say that I like the swap of Spiller for Richardson — at least Richardson’s guaranteed touches, right? — but after the Broncos game, I have serious concerns that Donald Brown is going to take over as the primary back in Indy. If you DO make the trade, pick up Brown off waivers (or try to orchestrate a smaller trade for him).
Ladies–Currently enjoying the past year and a few months with someone cool, and while I wouldn’t have said she’s “the one”, I’ve seen a few folks write in recently suggesting that if it’s going good, keep it going. So I’m going to follow that plan until it’s not. In lieu, please accept this Mexican Esquire photo of Kaley Cuoco. I don’t watch The Big Bang Theory, but I’ve considered it once or twice, and that’s all due to her.
Thanks, At Least I’ve Got More Wins Than Schiano
You know what? I’ve never really found her all that remarkable in the world of attractive blonde actresses, but that is a downright compelling picture. Maybe Superman knows what he’s doing after all.
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Hi Captain,
First, thanks for the “Keepers” segments. By bucking the overdone, round-table format of the major networks, you give us something that’s five times as useful and more accountable in a fraction of the time. Win-win-win.
I swear this is not my mother or someone from SB Nation.
Fantasy: Why the eye-rolling every time a question involves a league that’s not 10 or 12 teams with 4 pt passing TDs? People do come up with scoring systems that may seem unnecessarily complex/goofy (e.g. 100 yard bonuses, points per rush, etc.), but my feeling is: the roster of NFL players is like a deck of cards, and just like there are a thousand different card games, there are a thousand different ways to play fantasy. I won’t exhaust the (admittedly not perfect) analogy, but I do think it’s reasonable to adopt different sets of rules for different numbers of participants, whose interest in the game is piqued by different elements. When you consider that everyone in a given league is playing by the same rules, complaining about them as an outside observer can come across as misplaced condescension.
Let’s say I write a card game strategy column, Mr Analogy. Most people write in about poker. Maybe some bridge, maybe a little cribbage. I’m going to enjoy the poker questions the most, I’m going to admit my weaknesses as a bridge player, and I’m going to scoff at the chumps who need help playing War (hi, 8 team leagues!).
For instance, I’m in a 14 team league where we scrutinize every rule to reduce luck and maximize skill in a way that makes sense to us; we use 0.5 PPR and 6 pt passing TDs. Is that so bad?
More specifically, why do 6 pt passing TDs raise your ire? I understand that the objective of 4 pt TDs is to reduce QB value relative to R/W/T, but in practice, counting TDs differently for different positions is just as arbitrary as any other “goofy” scoring rule that you deride in your column. That you hold 4pt TDs up as one of your scoring tenets says to me that your objection to other people’s rules is more about being entrenched in what you grew up with, than consistent with any well-founded logic. Could you please elaborate on your position?
Why are you asking the question if you understand that the purpose is to reduce QB value relative to R/W/T? Because that’s my answer. If you want to have a fantasy football league that’s really just a fantasy quarterback league, then have at it. Play Texas Hold ‘Em with jokers wild. You don’t need my permission.
You asked if your 14-team league is so bad; what the hell does my opinion matter about a league I’m not in? A couple paragraphs up, a guy wrote about how he likes fucking old women, and he didn’t need anyone’s approval about straying from the norm, or an explanation for why everyone else is so insistent in being attracted to young women with buoyant breasts. He’s comfortable with what he likes.
So, why don’t I like 6-point passing touchdowns? BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE THEM. It’s a matter of personal taste. I’m going to continue liking what I like and crinkling my nose at the stuff I don’t. That means I want my world populated with 4-point passing touchdowns, 0.5 PPR, one space after each sentence, bourbon on the rocks, large dogs, and GIF pronounced with a hard G. Don’t like it? You don’t have to.
Sex: At every wedding I attend, I hear the same talking point that husbands and wives are — or should be — “best friends.” It has become such a commonly accepted and repeated sentiment that last week even one of your readers casually included it as a reason why he should probably get married (“she’s my best friend etc”). I love my girlfriend deeply, but I don’t need her to fulfill every role in my life, namely that of “best friend”; thankfully, she agrees. We recognize that we are in the dwindling minority who think the “best friend” talk is a little creepy, and would value your opinion as a thoughtful, no-bullshit kind of guy. Does it represent evolving gender equality and mutual respect between partners? Is it just another obnoxious way, in the Facebook Era, to project the appearance of a perfect relationship? What exactly are we dealing with here?
Thanks,
What’s Wrong with Husband and Wife?
You and your girlfriend love each other and are happy, right? Then I’ll just redirect you to the section above about validation.
My personal opinion, since you asked for it, is that the term “best friend” probably means different things to different people, and is probably not an exclusive title in many cases. In practice, my wife is probably my best friend, because we live together and hang out all the time and have sex and meaningful discussions about our shared future. But if you ask me, I’ll probably say my best friend is my old roommate from the Marine Corps, who I rarely see or talk to. We have maybe one or two phone conversations a year, usually lasting 90 minutes or so. So which one is REALLY my best friend? Who cares, this isn’t fourth grade. I don’t have to go to the DMV and register only one Best Friend.
And if people who are getting married say that THEY’RE best friends, GREAT! It means they really like each other. Maybe their interpretation of the term isn’t the same as yours, maybe they have secretly retained their previous “best friendships” with the Best Man or Maid of Honor, maybe they just need shit to say at their wedding. But the most likely explanation, in my opinion, is that you’re a little too worried about what other people do and think. Do your own thing, man.