McDonalds McFlurry – 628 Calories, 81 Grams of Sugar

Vs.

Wendy’s Frosty – 600 Calories, 84 Grams of Sugar

Time to grab a bucket and make a gravity bong in your house’s most obscure bathroom, because we’re about to debate the relative merits of two of this Earth’s most accessibly delicious frozen treats. If your eyes aren’t the color of the Martian surface for this Choice Is Yours, then you’re just not doing it right. Any fast food connoisseur knows that these two products are some of the finest that McDonald’s and Wendy’s have to offer you.

Icy cold gut bombs that work like Proust’s Madeline, taking you back to a time when Family Guy was still funny and you were legitimately concerned about using white lighters. For the change dug up from your center console you could afford these unknown pleasures so delicious that you didn’t even care that your stomach felt like 10 kinds of demons later because you ingested approximately 8 million calories and enough cane sugar to rival the all-syrup Squishee. Nothing illustrates the ravages of time like the inability to eat frozen commerce without worry.

I feel like most people will (unfairly) give this one to the Frosty automatically, but the McFlurry has a lot going for it too. I mean, you can put shit in it, so that’s a big +. Oreos, M&M’s, uhhh… other stuff that I can’t remember. And you get that weird combination spoon/tube/whatever-the-fuck that I was never really sure how to use but looked fun. On the other hand, the Frosty is a very pure treat. And you can dip your fries in it, which is a real power move. It’s a tough one. But you know how this works. The Choice is Yours…

Beverly Cleary (Born 1916)

Vs.

Judy Blume (Born 1938)

Wassup haters time for Battle Old Women Writers up in this bitch, shit’s about to get real violent! Beverly Cleary’s over 90 years old but she still wields an Ostrogoth mace like it’s nobody’s business. Shit, just the other day I saw her cleave a hog’s head in twain and then cure its hock into bacon with her mind rays all whilst dictating a story where Beezus learns a lesson about gumption in the face of adversity. The woman is clearly hard as rock.

Then there’s Judy Blume who’s got some sort of Dorian Gray thing happening. Seriously, look up some pictures of her and you’ll see she’s looked exactly the same since the early 80s. See that picture above? Yeah, she’s in her 70s. Are you there Judy, it’s me Whole Milk and I’m in love with you, please sign my buttcheek so I can tattoo it on. Because it’s real. Both of these women should get a Caldecott Medal for kicking ass and taking names, but you know how this game works. The Choice Is Yours…

DC’s Crisis On Infinite Earths (1985-86) – Marv Wolfman & George Perez

Vs.

Marvel’s The Infinity Gauntlet (1991) – Jim Starlin, George Pérez, and Ron Lim

So I’m a sucker for George Pérez pencilled crossover events! Whatever! With The Avengers opening this weekend, it had me thinking a lot about my favorite mega-events, and how seeing the spirit of one translated to the screen really warmed my dorky little heart. Though many, many of them are complete nightmares (look no further than Fear Itself and Flashpoint, both major publishers’ most recent ones), when they’re on they can hit harder than almost anything else in the paneled world.

I chose these two not only because they are two of my absolute favorites, but also because they are also very similar in ways, making the choice for you even more arduous. Muahaha I just pulled a Thanos/Anti-Monitor style power move on this Choice Is Yours. Speaking of those two guys, they’re both absolutely key to the absolute success of both of these events. Sure, Thanos has cropped up before, but The Mad Titan reached a whole new level of frightening once he constructed the Infinity Gauntlet (a process outlined in a pretty darn good miniseries of its own) and fucked up half of the living universe with a snap of his fingers, all for some evil necrotic poontang.

Then he slowly starts to fuck with/kill all your favorite Marvel heroes. Damn, that shit was intense. Sort of like when the Anti-Monitor starts dissolving entire world and making The Flash collapse into a pile of dust. 30 year old spoiler alert. But best of all, both these villains seemed truly powerful enough to require all the heroes from the respective universes’ to team up, which is really what a mega event it about, and both of these deliver in spades. But you know how this works. The Choice Is Yours…

Weird Science (1985) – Dir. John Hughes

Vs.

Real Genius (1985) – Dir. Martha Coolidge

It’s really quite strange that both of these films came out in 1985. At first I thought perhaps they were both attempting to capitalize on the success of Revenge of The Nerds, but considering that came out in ’84 and John Hughes was famously longwinded with his pre-productions, often spending years writing about his characters in notebooks, that seems unlikely. Is it possible that all three of those movies can be directly tied to the rise of personal computer availability? This is some deep investigative journalism right here you guys.

Now I think that most people’s gut reaction to this Choice Is Yours will be “Weird Science, of course!” But try to separate in your mind that movie from the general glow of John Hughes that now rests gently over all his projects, and also remember that, while not as popular then and certainly not as remembered now, Weird Science is really fucking good. Sure, Weird Science has the incomparably hot Kelly LeBrock, but Real Genius has hilariously great performances from Val Kilmer, William Atherton, Jon Gries, and more. I’ll give Weird Science the edge in actual main character, as Anthony Michael Hall is better than whoever plays Mitch. But really at the end of the day Real Genius is Kilmer’s show and he owns it with aplomb.

Both movies have great looks and great weird Sci-Fi fun, whether it be the mutant biker (mutant. bikers!), gravity manipulation, indoor sledding, or a house being filled to the brim with popcorn popped by a lethal space laser. Both hold special places in my nerdy little heart, but you know how this works. The Choice Is Yours…

GoldenEye 007 (1997) – Rare

Vs.

Perfect Dark (2000) – Rare

Though this is an argument best had over delivery pizza from Dominos (plus cheesy bread, natch) and a two liter of the Dew, I’ll take the long roiling argument onto the stage of the world wide web: which N64 FPS is better? Is it the groundbreaking licensed title GoldenEye, it of the millions of hours of multiplayer and utter seizure of the gaming zeitgeist? Or is it the equally loved (if not as widely) vehicle for original character Joanna Dark?

Damn you Rare and your proficiency with FPS’! How dare you make us choose! In the most basic sense, Perfect Dark is a more “advanced” game, as it was made by the same company after GoldenEye (some say it originally started as a sequel to that game and eventually morphed into its own beast. Seems plausible enough but who knows). It had greys and V’s (you know they stole the Skedar from V. C’mon) and the suitcase gun, multiplayer bots (big deal seriously), and of course Joanna herself.

I’ve always been a fan of female avatars in games (I play Chun-Li and my RPG characters tend to skew girl) but I know that’s not the case for everyone. On the other hand, GoldenEye had more iconic moments like diving off the dam, playing Golden Gun in Facility or Stack, slapping mofos to death, endearingly awful animation, and getting to play as James fucking Bond. Both classics, but you know how this works. The Choice is yours…

Ralph Wiggum (The Simpsons) // Created by Matt Groening

Vs.

Butters Stotch (South Park) // Created by Matt Stone & Trey Parker

Battle mentally deficient animated children, commence! Huh, it sounded sorta weird when I said it like that… But today we’re pitting two of animated television’s most endearing and beloved characters against each other, and it promises to be a battle filled with Sun Tzu level tactical sophistication. Or maybe just a lot of booger picking. Who knows!

Starting off as background character in Lisa Simpson’s class, Ralph Wiggum has grown into the child king of television non-sequiturs. From classic lines (“Me fail English? That’s unpossible.”, “I bent my wookie”, “Super Nintendo Chalmers”, and, of course, “they taste like burning”) to classic moments (his ill-fated date with Lisa jumps instantlt to mind), Ralph is one of the best secondary residents of Springfield.  You have to think that this character had at least some sort of influence on Butters Stotch, the well meaning and infantile boy who went from side character to one of the main South Park crew.

Butters was always funny, but Matt Stone & Trey Parker have also used his naivety to play out some of the series’ strangest and darkest moments: remember his mom trying to drown him in a car? He also has a thriving secret life as the dastardly Professor Chaos. In many ways Butters and Ralph are the same character, but each filtered through the vision of their respective creators. They’re both great, but you know how this works. The Choice is yours…

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007) // Dir: Joe Lynch

Vs.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006) // Dir. Alexandre Aja

Battle Recent Mutant Horror is the particularly unwieldy title I would bestow upon this Choice Is Yours. Will I catch some flack for putting up a pretty weird CIY? Perhaps, but then again I am the same human who did an Eerie, IN vs American Gothic so I guess this is just the life I’m gonna live now. Oh right, mutants. I love both these movies. They’re both super underrated, underseen, and neither director has made another flick that slapped as hard since. No lies: I like the Hills Have Eyes remake more than the original.

Swag me out with controversy. I went to see that shitty movie 16 Blocks and it was so shitty I just went straight into Hills afterwards hoping it would redeem film for me and it more than delivered. Holy crap this movie is brutal. Unrelenting violence and mutation out the wazoo. A lot of people are on Alexandre Aja’s French nutz over his overrated Haute Tension but Hills makes that messy flick look like the buckets of viscera spilled in this one. The sepia-tone lookin ass flick is krazy to the max and also features the guy who plays Buffalo Bill getting his arm cut off and then burned on a tree. Oscar!

Wrong Turn 2 also vastly (like… so much) improves on the original, and was a helluva coming out party for Troma associate Joe Lynch. This movie is hilarious AND gross. Just like mutants. There’s also a (spoiler alert) great moment when the girl you think is the protagonist gets her head totally cleaved in twain by a flying axe. Surprises! Also Henry Rollins. So much Henry Rollins. Both these flicks proved that mutant horror is anything but dead (and cannibalized). But you know how this works. The choice is yours…

Mad Men [AMC] – Created by Matthew Weiner

Vs.

Breaking Bad [AMC] – Created by Vince Gilligan

Battle of the alliterative AMC shows, commence! People seem to have gotten some memo that we’re hitting some watershed moment in television that marks the end of some “golden age” we just experienced. See Vulture’s rundown of the Greatest TV Dramas of the Past 25 Years. See numerous think pieces on what the return of Mad Men means (vaguely guilty of that one myself, but I’ll call it a recap and we’ll move on…). See your parents complaining. That is a bullshit idea. The golden age of television has been happening for longer than people give it credit for and will continue longer than they want it to. People (especially critics) just like to be the people on watch when it all goes to shit. That’s why humans always think the apocalypse is coming: “we must be the last.”

But all that doesn’t mean we can’t still play this fun little game where we pit TV shows against each other like BattleBots armed with pathos, high music-licensing budgets, and feature film directors in between projects. Let’s talk drink and drugs. Let’s talk Mad Men vs. Breaking Bad. Walter White vs Don Draper. That can’t have been a coincidence. Both are about deconstructing the American Dream. Both are about generational shifts. Both purport to be realistic but are in fact outrageously fantastical in the best way. Both feature GOAT central performances. Both are some of the best TV I’ve ever seen. But you know how this works. The Choice is yours…

Tag Team – Whoomp! (There It Is) 1993

Vs.

95 South – Whoot, There It Is 1993

The year is 1993 and Miami Booty Bass is at its height. The scent of tanning lotion and freshly buzzed hi-top fades float along, riding the ocean breeze. For real though, shit was so freaky, untamed, and downright dirty here in the South Florida Metropolitan area that two different groups were able to make virtually the same song while sharing similar levels of popularity and success. All that bumping and grinding must’ve been crazy distracting because nobody seemed to care whether they were breaking it down to the “Tootsie Roll” or “Da Dip” as long as they were getting some later.

For your pleasure we’ve got two traxxx of unadulterated, pussy poppin’ dance music for your consideration. “Whoomp! (There It Is)” is an irrefutable classic from DC the Brain Supreme and Steve Roll’n known 2gether as Tag Team and “Whoot, There It Is”, a party jam of massive proportions from another influential duo rolling under the moniker 95 South. Look beneath the surface and you can hear that, despite being freakishly reminiscent of one another in name and structure, both cuts boast their own brand of swagger. I guess the bigger question is were you hollerin’ Whoomp! or Whoot! back then? There can only be one.

R. Kelly – 12 Play (1993)

Vs.

The-Dream – Love vs. Money (2009)

Battle super sexy R&B, commence! Two of the slinkiest, grindin-est, swooning-est albums of the past 20 years, both of these deserve prime position on your love makin’ lineup. Love vs. Money happens to be my favorite The-Dream album, but I suppose if you have really strong feelings about another one you could sub that in too. They are all very close in quality/sensuality. 12 Play, crazily R. Kelly’s debut solo release, came out in 1993 and introduced a fully formed sexual weirdo with a pure gold voice onto the American music scene. For better or worse, it’s never been the same since.

As we all know (unfortunately, perhaps too well) Kells is a stone cold freak, but damn can that dude sing a song like it’s nobody’s business. “Your Body’s Callin”, “I Like The Crotch on You” (Yikes though. Sample lyric: “Only if you’re old enough baby!”), the acoustic live interlude “Intermission” (stunning), the epic “Sex Me”, and of course “Bump N’ Grind”: classics yo. Goddamn that voice is good. Along with many of us, there was another person who had this album on repeat all throughout the early 90s: Terius Nash AKA The-Dream. Coming of age as a producer and then transitioning to a crazily consistent solo career, Mr. Nash took the the things that R. Kelly started and brought them to arguably even greater heights, especially on his sophomore album Love Vs. Money.

Though his voice requires way more digital assistance than Kelly’s, there’s no arguing that The-Dream has one of the finest minds for hooks of our generation. They just pour out of him to the point that it’s a little insane, with more in each track than most people would hope for on an album. Like Kells, he’s also incredibly good at swearing. This album is pretty airtight (the swollen back end of Love King drops it slightly in my estimation), highlights including the musical MDMA of opener “Rockin’ That Shit”, the perfect use of Mariah Carey on “My Love”, that part on “Take You Home 2 My Mama” where he says “her booty like woo-oo-oo”, and, of course, closer “Kellys 12 Play.” I love both these albums, but you know how this works. The choice is yours…