Judge John Hodgman: Pizza Parley
December 30, 2014 10:42 AM - Subscribe

A man seeks to enforce a contract regarding pizza toppings.
posted by mathowie (9 comments total)
 
I think Judge Hodgman dropped the ball on this verdict. The agreement for lifetime pizza choice was beyond excessive and reasonable people would have renegotiated by now. The Judge should have been the voice of reason and forced a renegotiation.

That said, Judge Hodgman had a great insight about games in this episode. He mentioned that as a kid he liked thinking about dungeons—he liked thinking about dragons. But he didn't care for the intricate rules and math involved with the game Dungeons & Dragons. Then he realized that the intricate rules and math are the game! Just like fantasy football is more about stats and scoring than football, D&D is more about dice and numbers and if you don't enjoy that aspect you won't enjoy the game. That's great.
posted by pb at 10:54 AM on December 30, 2014


I was really surprised by this case and verdict. It sounded to me like the terms of the agreement were for the one football season (according an email right?), and it felt unfair to stretch it out for five years after. I was surprised the judge didn't end the contract for being cruel and unfairly long, and I thought the resolution of "just buy two pizzas" was expensive and not a great compromise going forward.
posted by mathowie at 10:56 AM on December 30, 2014


I thought this would have been a great chance for Hodgman to break out some actual law, by declaring this to be an unconscionable contract.

It sounded to me like the terms of the agreement were for the one football season (according an email right?),

No, both sides agree on this. That was the initial offer, the (now) husband rejected that and negotiated for a lifetime option. The (now) wife acknowledged a couple of times that there was never an agreement on the season-long proposal, and the only agreement was lifetime. Still, I thought it should have been struck down.
posted by spaltavian at 11:36 AM on December 30, 2014


pb: "Just like fantasy football is more about stats and scoring than football, D&D is more about dice and numbers and if you don't enjoy that aspect you won't enjoy the game. That's great."

My mother has an amazing vocabulary, and it used to drive her crazy that my stepfather would routinely beat her at Scrabble, as he -- by his own admission -- is no wordsmith. One day she realized that Scrabble wasn't a game about words, but was really a game about math.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:05 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


and I thought the resolution of "just buy two pizzas" was expensive

This is a consistent blind spot; I think it comes with the deranged-millionaire territory.

That said, I'm not sure it's such an issue in this case. The judge is right: pizza keeps well. I live alone, and I occasionally order two large pies, the better to amortize the cost of delivery. I nom two slices immediately; I put another slice in the fridge to be eaten cold in the morning; and I store the rest in the freezer, for reheating over the next couple weeks.

As for the ruling itself... on the one hand, I would have been inclined to rule that Meredith had had a reasonable expectation that she and Jason would have broken up long ago, and that the deal was made under mistaken pretenses. On the other hand, I would also have been inclined to rule in favor of Jason's discrete-topping-vs.-sauce distinction, and to hold that it would be unreasonable to compel him to go half-and-half on a pizza with mustard sauce on the other half. The status quo of sharing only pizzas with sauces acceptable to both parties seems the only reasonable solution.

Thus, while I might quibble with the judge's reasoning, I concur with his ruling.
posted by Shmuel510 at 6:33 PM on December 31, 2014


On another note... might it make more sense to have the "Episode Home" link in the sidebar point to the episode page with the evidence henceforth, rather than a page with only the MP3? Or is that infeasible for technological reasons?
posted by Shmuel510 at 6:34 PM on December 31, 2014


Yeah, we would prefer to link to the max fun page, but we have to use what they provide in the feed.
posted by pb at 8:13 PM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


This episode mostly made me hungry for pizza. (Even with mustard sauce.)
posted by minsies at 7:35 AM on January 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I made the mistake of listening to this episode while hungry on the way to pick up dinner and walking through a grocery store. Every pizza they described sounded like ambrosia! Mmm, taco hot dog pizza.

The insight about games and rules was interesting, though I'll counterpoint that there are in fact players / games that focus more on using rules to emerge stories than to play number games. :) See games like the one-page What is a role playing game? where you play astronaut bank robbers!

I also enjoyed "fantasy football, which in my day we used to call larping, but nowadays means something else," and the figurine references since real fantasy football for me will forever be the kind with spikes on the ball.
posted by savagerose at 9:06 PM on January 1, 2015


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