Well this is it, what may end up being the biggest problem in the history of this show, the problem nobody wanted or saw coming: the end of shows. Sometimes shows run their course, and this is one of those times. After 107 consecutive episodes, this will be the final show for The Biggest Problem in the Universe. When we took a break 2 weeks ago, I had every intention of coming back to regular episodes today. Unfortunately that can’t happen, but we’re going out with something a lot of fans have requested for a long time: the full intro song at the end of this episode.

Also, we have a brief cap at the top of the show with the ever-boisterous coconut, Asterios. The final episode includes a problem from the most-downloaded episode in the show’s history: Well-Intentioned Idiots, and a fan-favorite guest, Ryan Holiday. We go over the final tally of problems and solutions and reminisce about the show. When I first started this show, I created it as an experiment to see if people would vote on these problems week after week. It turned out to be wildly successful and highly scientific, so it’s an element I’d like to continue in other podcasts I work on. And speaking of…

This goodbye is only temporary because the new podcast and the new podcast network is still launching within the next two weeks. I’ll be posting about it on Facebook, Twitter and the site that started it all, The Best Page in the Universe. If you’d like to call in and leave a voicemail or song for the new show to speculate what it’s about or to simply ask life-advice, the new number is: 1-562-58-I-RULE (1-562-584-7853)

Special thanks to all of the guests, callers, people who sent in gifts, fans who came out to the live shows, people who bought me drinks and all of the contributors and people who work behind the scenes to make this podcast possible, including producer Randy Kiyan, Sean the audio engineer, assistant Jessica, Laurie Foster and Megan Pennock. This show wouldn’t be possible without you.

One final shout-out to Harry’s for supporting this show over the years. Go to Harrys.com/BIGGESTPROBLEMS and use the promo code, BIGGESTPROBLEMS, to get $5 off your first purchase. It’s been a genuine pleasure working with these guys.

And finally, a very special thanks to me for tirelessly putting in 10-12 hours per episode for over 2 years, without a single break. You’re welcome.

So long for now, it’s been a hell of a ride.

Lots more to come.

Episode 106 Transcript cobbled together by Laurie Foster

Here’s our second best-of episode where we play the first-ever “Weird Matthew McConaughey” voicemail before we gave him the moniker, a classic Bono phone call and the origin of the “go fuck yourself” tag that started from a pattern of disparate comments and voicemail we received.

Dick starts us out with Hoverboard Hoaxes and bemoans the lack of boards that hover without the aid of wheels or superconducting rails or weird vacuum contraptions, and I discuss my master plan for stealing the crown jewels. Everyone on the show agrees that it’s brilliant and it was never discussed again.

Then I talk about the problem I’ve received the most email about in this show’s history: self-defeating thoughts. This one hit close to home for a lot of listeners and I felt that it was worth including in a “best-of.” If you disagree, you might want to check yourself because that’s a self-defeating thought.

Then Asterios rounds out the third problem with Toms Shoes and faux-altruism. Say that last word out loud to appreciate that brilliant portmanteau I created. And stay tuned to the end to hear one of our favorite fan songs by @BandWagonBedlam called, “Too Much Swearing,” a reference to an earlier problem Dick brought in of the same name.

And for the curious, the bonus episode referred to in the promo was Bonus Episode 3.

Episode 105 Transcript cobbled together by Laurie Foster

Here’s our first-ever “Best-Of” episode, which after putting it together, may actually be the best episode of this show we’ve ever made. But so is every show we record. This episode has us spanning the gamut from douchebags, from the ones so loud you can hear them in your home when they drive by, to another kind of douchebag: the party bro and the ensuing nipple-fencing that occurs every time they feel remotely slighted.

Special thanks to Harry’s for sponsoring this episode. Go to Harrys.com/BIGGESTPROBLEMS and use the promo code, BIGGESTPROBLEMS, to get $5 off your first purchase.

And we round things out with the douchebag theme with the saggiest of bags of douche: the stonewalling vegan. A statistically rare creature, as vegans represent only 0.5% of the US population, they make up over 90% of the crying you hear when you go to restaurants. We all know one, because they won’t stop talking about their stupid extreme diets. They’re like a good-time wrecking ball that can destroy the most meticulous of dinner plans. They can’t just go to a social gathering, order something and shut their grass-eating holes because they have the constant need to soak up every last ounce of attention and make the night about them and their needs.

Vegans, for being such allegedly thoughtful and compassionate people, don’t care about the suffering their friends, families and colleagues constantly endure at the behest of the arbitrary dietary restrictions. Arbitrary in the sense that nobody who lives in modern society is truly vegan, because emulsifiers that come from beef are used in almost everything we manufacture, from shampoos and paints, to the plastic used in the very keyboards they use to type out their whiny guilt-tripping screeds. Their diets kill billions of animals in harvesters, but they brush it off by saying it’s “unintentional.” Cool, I guess by that logic we should let drunk drivers off the hook too.

Maybe both problems can be solved by having an Uber-like service where all the drivers are drunk and they only pick up vegans. Possible Biggest Solution…?

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Original thumbnail courtesy of Jack Tubbs

Episode 104 Transcript courtesy of Megan Pennock and Laurie F.

We open this week’s show with discussing the social media meltdown revolving around the word “cuck.” Over the weekend I made a simple meme that made fun of both major political candidates, as they’re both as likeable as a shot of bleach. Guess which side had a COMPLETE MELTDOWN? Turns out that these people, for all their bloviating about PC culture being too sensitive, are quite sensitive! Want to reproduce my results? Just follow these simple steps:

1. Make an innocuous joke like this:

2. Sit back and enjoy the overly-sensitive, crybaby dipshits try to insult you with the only word in their vocabulary: “cuck.” Here’s an example from a more advanced writer, notice the conjunction of the word “cuck” and “master” to create the compound word, “cuckmaster”? Pretty clever. This writer even manages to use 3 other words:

So I made this video in response, and the cry-babies proved my point that they’re overly sensitive and thin-skinned by expressing their outrage. Just look at the votes/comments:

Dick tries to explain the old Shakespearean meaning of the word, which is essentially putting other’s interest before your own. Others have pointed out that this manifests itself in the phenomenon of raising another man’s offspring. Oh man, how embarrassing! I can think of nothing more insulting in this world than someone who would either A) get off to watching other people having sex or B) would want to actually raise a child they didn’t father/mother. Look at these suckers getting cuckolded!

Special thanks to Harry’s for sponsoring this episode. Go to Harrys.com/BIGGESTPROBLEMS and use the promo code, BIGGESTPROBLEMS, to get $5 off your first purchase.

Big announcement this episode: we’ll be taking the next two weeks off so I can take time to focus on launching the new podcast and network. More details soon. But I won’t leave you hanging, as we’ll have best-of episodes in its place, with mix-and-match problems. Sound off below about your favorites. We’ll be back to live episodes on May 30th. And for those who still want a little extra to tide you over, here’s this month’s bonus episode if you haven’t checked it out, available for $1.33!

Dick starts us off this week with his problem, which is a big one in my opinion: tipping. It’s a phenomenon that most people outside the United States aren’t familiar with, as it’s virtually unheard of in most of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It puts you, the customer, in the position of also being the server’s manager. You can’t sit down and just enjoy your meal because you have to constantly be evaluating your server’s performance. It’s like becoming a temporary HR manager every time you get a sandwich at a restaurant: fun for no one.

Then I bring in a problem that’s as cumbersome to spell as it is to abide: Bureaucracy. It’s in every facet of our lives, from phone companies, computer companies, cable companies, appliance companies, plumbers, electricians, power companies, gas utilities, the water company, garbage collectors, debt collectors, banks, universities, government, home owner’s associations, game tournaments and church. Everywhere we go in life, there’s needless and unwieldy procedures that people follow to a T. Every time you call tech support, you have to deal with a long list of touch or voice options, then you deal with a rep who makes you repeat their steps in the same order every single time. There’s no deviation from the script, no room for efficiency. Just needless and rote adherence to procedure. Vote up Human Robots!

Then Dick caps the episode with an episode-capper, post-credit scenes. He hates them because he has to pee. Don’t we all? Well I certainly did during this episode, and while I was draining my python, Dick told a story about him and his man that you’ll have to listen to at the tail end of this episode. Really drives the point home.

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Episode 103 Transcript courtesy of Laurie Foster

We start out this show with voicemail like usual, which conveniently leads us to the first problem–and definitely a problem of the first-world order: voicemail. It’s obnoxious and the ones we play on the show are only a small fraction of the voicemail we receive. Maybe we’ll make a supercut of voicemail that didn’t make the show some day. We’ll call it, “melatonin.”

Special thanks to Harry’s for sponsoring this episode. Go to Harrys.com/BIGGESTPROBLEMS and use the promo code, BIGGESTPROBLEMS, to get $5 off your first purchase.

Our guest, Michael Capes, joins us this week. For those of you who may not know, Michael is the purveyor of a lot of pranks and shenanigans, including his famous sneaking-into-Disney prank. He brings in “Humorless People.” If my intro paragraph pissed you off, you may be part of the problem. Michael talks about all the hurt butts in the comments section on Yahoo, YouTube and other online forums. I wonder if the comments on this site count? Only one way to tell: I’ll mention Trump and take shelter in my tear-proof bunker made out of bags of sand. Actual bags of sand, or boobs, I’m fine with either.

And speaking of humorless comments, here’s the video I appeared in with Michael where we snuck into a night club with a crack team, ala Ocean’s 11 or 12. There are some real gems here:

Also, special thanks to Casper for sponsoring this episode. Go to https://casper.com/biggest and use the promo code “biggest” to get $50 off, or don’t to pay $50 more. Isn’t it about time you upgraded your sleep game? Thank you to Casper and Harry’s for supporting us.

And here’s one of the episodes of “What To Text” we shot together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip7vtN86-aY

Finally Dick rounds out this episode with the “texting batter’s box,” but not before we argue about what a baby is. Turns out, nobody knows. As for the texting batter’s box, it’s a concept Dick has referred to in the past, but finally brought it in as a problem: texting as an extra base when it comes to sex. First base, as everyone knows, is making out. Second base is hands below the waist, or handy-town. Third is when things get a little more scandalous when mouths go below the waist, and a home run is when you score. So what’s the texting batter’s box? According to Dick, an extra step before you even step up to bat. A step that Dick argues is a potential stumbling-block, where not batting correctly could mean you don’t even step up to the plate. Is that how it works? I don’t know, I don’t watch baseball because I don’t hate myself.

And finally, because people are asking, I’ll announce more details about the new podcast along with the network soon. Stay tuned…

Here’s the podcast for our SoundCloud listeners:

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Episode 102 Transcript courtesy of Megan Pennock and Laurie F.

In this exciting episode, Maddox gets chewed out by a real Pokemon master, Sean deletes a coffee, and I forget to read an erotic story that’s so good, you need a week to prepare for it. So wash the chili off of your sheets and get ready for another Biggest Problem in the Universe.

Special thanks to Harry’s for sponsoring this episode. Go to harrys.com/biggestproblems to get $5 off your first purchase.

Do you have kids? If you do, chances are you’re doing it wrong, and we’ll tell you exactly how. Maddox brings Helicopter Parenting, the phenomenon of over-parenting your children, thereby stunting their growth and leaving them unable to cope with life as adults. Did your mom do your laundry? Then she probably turned you into an entitled, narcissistic, additional buzzword about millenials [or passive-aggressive dig against millenials, like adults living with their parents -Maddox], who can’t even shit without looking up how to do it on YouTube first. Who do these helicopter parents think they are? Do they think they live in a world where more than 15% of children are victims of sexual assault? They are and they do. Go vote up first time child experts.

[Maddox Power Paragraph:]

Yeah so about those sexual abuse statistics. Want to prevent child sexual abuse? Let them wander off to your neighbor’s house, because your child is 200% less likely to get molested by a neighbor than they are sitting right at home:

BOOM. The biggest threat to children being molested are their own families. You’re better off letting them play unsupervised in your back yard, where they may encounter more scraped elbows, but 100% less grabby parents (vote up families). Suggesting that “helicopter parenting” will prevent child abuse is like suggesting militarized police will prevent police abuse. Vote up everything.

[/Maddox]

I bring in The Job Lynch Mob. It’s one part thought-crime, another part outrage porn, shaken not stirred by ten thousand loudmouths with too much time and too little control in their hands. To listeners, I ask the question: can you think of a tweet that’s so offensive it should cost someone their job? You personally. If you can, vote it down. To me, opinions are like assholes. I want a good, long look at all of them–especially the gross ones.

Maddox ends the episode with another kind of hovering annoyance: Mosquitos. Easily the biggest problem on this list, mosquitoes are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths every year, the spread of dangerous diseases, and worst of all, waking me up buzzing in my fucking ear like they own the place. Maddox claims we have the technology to end this menace once and for all, but it’s being waylaid by something called “ethics”. Go vote those up.

By the way, for those of you who love a good stats, here’s the graph I mentioned that charts out each drugs harmfulness:

Here’s the podcast for our SoundCloud listeners:

Thumbnail courtesy of the incredibly Clay Rodery, Illustrator. http://www.clayrodery.com/

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Episode 101 Transcript courtesy of Laurie F. and Megan Pennock

In this episode, we talk about how Sean’s problem changed someone’s life, Maddox makes a big bet that’s bigger than the entire solar system–or just slightly smaller than his ego. And I talk about personal freedoms for like 30 minutes on this very special libertarian holiday.

Special thanks to Harry’s for sponsoring this episode. Go to Harry’s website and use the promo code “BIGGESTPROBLEM” when checking out to get $5 off your first purchase.

4/20 is like a Festivus of running your mouth for the world’s most annoying, academically-enlightened know-it-alls: libertarians and drug addicts. I manage to combine both in my problem of the War on Drugs. The war on drugs has failed on all fronts. It has not lessened drug use, addiction, or abuse. It has increased ten-fold the number of Americans in for-profit prisons, and it has bent minorities and Mexico over and ducked them up the ass. The only thing the war on drugs has succeeded in doing is making mushrooms extremely difficult for me to find even though I promised these chicks I would get them some last weekend, so what am I supposed to do here?

Maddox brings in The Golem Effect because he really loves Lord of the Rings. Nerd! The Golem Effect is the phenomenon of lower expectations resulting in lower performance. In a way, Maddox is right. Samwise expected Golem to be a dick, and he was a dick. But in another way, Maddox is wrong because Golem was always a dick and had dicketry in his heart–even way back in the director’s cut when Smeagol kills his Hobbit friend to get the Ring of Power in the first place. That’s why the ring was able to corrupt him so completely and not Frodo, because he was a dick. Also, he talked like an asshole. Vote up Golem.

I bring in Ducking Autocorrect. Have you ever messaged your mom for sex or texted your girlfriend that you can’t wait to get at her Holocaust after work? Have you ever used four “ha’s” when you only meant to use three? You probably have if you use the half-broken technological piece of shot known as autocorrect. Autocorrect is like that one relationship you suspect you’d be better without, but it would take so much work to find out for sure. And by “that one” relationship I mean all relationships. Ducking relationships!

Here are the suggestions from Maddox’s phone when he types “I’m an…”

A photo posted by Maddox (@realmaddox) on Dec 29, 2014 at 9:52pm PST

And here’s the transcript of the voice-to-text segment during this episode that Maddox recorded. If you want to follow along, it starts at time-code 01:15:31. It drops out during a few parts because it’s shitty technology:

Yeah right now I’m doing voice to text and I’m just see how much of this translates correctly for auto correct then we’re going to post this on the website but the rest of the conversation were going to see how much of it translates it also takes on the personality of your texting if I text like I already said this person was muted reaction never gets the right number of has in there cuz I never want that that’s usually something I actually chuckled I want sex to me in a text I typed it I don’t want you throwing it in there like that didn’t mean she didn’t come here for some sex at the office no I didn’t know I got up and I got to explain something that we both know we both know why it happened but I got it compulsively explain it like I have this like I’m the only one on earth in the office with a magical device that fucked up my text everybody has it so I’ll call you in a sec what’s the style doing a lot of this is voice to text it’s a voice to text but autocorrect what you type an animal to animal but like your butt with a voyager which ones closer I’m pretty close to an nuclear Holocaust when everybody’s ducking and covering all the time he won’t even cover the shooting the shit you know what the problem is Dick it’s a lawyer because they don’t want to Google the problem because they don’t want Google doesn’t want to accidentally put in the word fucking when someone actually meant or anything else they’re playing outside like our programs not good enough to figure out what are you getting paid by auto correct I call you every night and didn’t leave your pet’s head in your bed why the fuck are you doing are you defending autocorrect iPhone touch screens with holes because if you guys can remember back in the day when we have a keyboard to type quickly it was correct all the time all the time keyboard who couldn’t spell definitely and separate the what additional defiantly I don’t know and when I meant you know what I think it’s just a really bad they have these models that try to predict what you’re saying in contact and able to use the whiskey does it by creating these models that look at your text and then try to

Here’s the podcast for our SoundCloud listeners:

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Episode 100 Transcript courtesy of Laurie F. and Megan Pennock

We did it. We recorded our 100th episode, so all the people who said we couldn’t do it, all zero of you, take that. But we didn’t do this on our own, a special extended thanks to all of the people who made this podcast possible, starting with the opening theme you hear every week made by the brilliant Brett Mann. Our lovely and talented transcribers, Laurie Foster and Megan Pennock, all the people who’ve helped make thumbnails (Jack Tubbs, Clay Rodery, Eliazar Tatar, Ali Hassanein, Jessica Safron), Producer Randy Kiyan and all of our guests who’ve been on the show, the callers, the gifts, and anyone we may have missed, all of that makes this show worth listening to. A sincere thanks from all of us here at The Biggest Problem.

And coming soon, Maddox has a big announcement on the show: An all-new podcast along with the launch of a new podcast network! Details will be forthcoming, stay tuned…

Special thanks to Harry’s for sponsoring this episode. Go to Harry’s website and use the promo code “BIGGESTPROBLEM” when checking out to get $5 off your first purchase.

This is the big one folks. The big 100. We’ve got songs, gifts, celebrities, and a bombshell problem from Sean, but first, we kick off the celebration with a scintillating recap of the political satire problem from last week. Scintillating means “makes you want to kill yourself”, right? Then Maddox treats us to the worst Dick vs Dick in the history of the show, reaching back 8 years into the past and pulling probably the least contentious passage from my mansterpiece Men Are Better Than Women, also on sale, and shoving it in my face. I don’t know where explaining someone’s own book to them falls on the mansplaining man-mometer, but I bet it’s pretty high! Go vote up Maddox! Special thanks to Alex Bevan for reading Dick’s lucid prose.

Maddox brings in Asteroids and claims you have a higher chance of being killed by an asteroid than attacked by a shark. The math doesn’t lie! We each propose radically different solutions to the asteroid problem. Maddox proposes defunding Planned Parenthood and forming a new world government ruled (presumably) by him, and I want to know when the rioting and looting starts. Come to think of it, those are our solutions to every problem. Go vote up sharks!

Sean finally brings in his long cockteased problem. It feels like a spoiler to even reveal it in this post, so I’ll just say this: if you want to avoid any spoilers, IT’S ADDICTION. Fuck you. Go vote up Spoiler Cry Babies. And here’s the addiction video that Maddox mentioned, making good on his threat to post it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg

I round out this mega-episode with a problem that has vexed man since the beginning of time. Women! I’ll take my chances with the asteroid thank you very much.

We also got a bunch of sweet and shitty gifts pictured here.

And an asteroid sized thank you to Ali Hassanein who produced this bitchin’ piece to celebrate our 100th episode. It’s so good I’m addicted to it. Women.

Thanks again to everyone for listening, and an actual, genuine thanks if you’ve purchased our bonus episode available now for low, low price of $1.33. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? A smart alecky comment? I hope so because that’s what you just got.

Happy 100th episode, everyone. Here’s to 100 more.

Here’s the podcast for our SoundCloud listeners:

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Episode 99 Transcript courtesy of Laurie Foster

That’s it ladies and gentlemen! This is the very last double digit episode. This is the very last time Sean will have not brought in a problem. This is the very last time alphanumeric sorting of our podcast episodes will be convenient. But if you think we’re going to have a 99th episode of problems without a bitch being one, you’re wrong! Welcome back special guest Asterios Kokkinos! Just kidding, I love Asterios. And he has a problem that will blow your mind!

Special thanks to Casper for sponsoring this episode. Go to https://casper.com/biggest and use the promo code “biggest” to get $50 off, or don’t to pay $50 more.

Maddox starts the episode with Facebook Video. It’s rare when a company can screw over their platform’s content creators, advertisers, and users all in one stroke; but that’s just what the talented folks at Facebook Video are doing–cramming autoplay videos into your feed like they’re shoving a big blue thumb up your ass, screwing advertisers outside the box with 3 second ad “plays”, and profiting from out of control piracy. There’s no joke on that last one because it isn’t a joke and I don’t see how these guys don’t have the hipster sued out of them. Hey, there’s a solution for next month: Class Action Lawsuits. Fuck Facebook Video.

Asterios breaks bad with his problem of Political Satire. I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I’m pretty sure he’s saying that John Oliver is a sanctimonious, disingenuous, pandering shill with a message crafted only to turn his followers into smug, parroting advertisements for his garbage show and garbager Drumpf hats, but I may have misinterpreted some parts. Political satire has become a toothless tiger, a shameless and calculated alchemy of outrage porn and marketing demographics that is as cloying as it is cloistering. Instead of an agent of change, it’s become an opiate for the disenfranchised, the closed-minded and the self-congratularati. But maybe Asterios is wrong. After all, it is 2016! Vote it up.

I round off the episode with Banging Your Funny Bone. That’s the only bone in the world no one wants banged. Vote it up!

Tune in next week for our big 100th episode celebration and the crushing aftermath of Maddox’s Voyager wager as featured on the bonus episode, which you can buy for $1.33!

Thanks to Asterios for being on the show, check out Asterios’ The Enemies of Twenty-Something Mega Man Part II: www.devastatorpress.com/megaman2

Here’s the podcast for our SoundCloud listeners:

Incredible thumbnail courtesy of Ali Hassanein

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Episode 98 Transcript courtesy of Laurie Foster

Ever wondered what the podcast would sound like without Sean? You’re going to love this one then. The Delete-o Bandito waltzes into the studio late in this episode with a drink in one hand and an excuse in the other, without a care in the world like he’s pepper spraying student protesters at UC Davis. Just how late? You’ll have to listen to find out. But speaking of protesters…

I bring in Road Blockheads. Those morons who block the freeway for reasons of love, hate, or the love of hatred. As far as I’m concerned, if you block the freeway for any reason other than “I fucked up”, you’ve just declared a one-man personal Purge on yourself. Waze should award Road Munchies for running these shitheads over. Remember, civil disobedience is still disobedience!

Special thanks to Audible for sponsoring this episode. Check out http://audiblepodcast.com/biggest for a free 30 day trial.

I bring in Acne. If you voted down Living With Your Parents, and a lot of you did, something tells me you’re going to vote this one up. I had acne as a teenager–and also last week…It fucking sucks and no amount of lifting in the world will get rid of it. Vote it up unless you’re too busy applying 3 billion dollars of rip-off creams to your open face wounds.

Maddox presents Junk in the Trunk, and he’s not talking about having a fat ass–something that everyone pretends is attractive for some reason. He’s talking about having a bunch of garbage in your car. We all do it, and apparently it’s a huge waste of gas and deepening America dependence on foreign oil. Just how much gas are we wasting? Is it 100 pounds? Because that’s the only number I retained from the presentation.

Tune in next week for our 99th episode and ensuing debate over, “What is a murder?” That seems about right for this show.

Here’s the podcast for our SoundCloud listeners:

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