This Week In GIFs: Doing a good job is entirely optional

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of THIS WEEK IN GIFs. Listen, y'all: you know as well as I do that some GIF weeks are better than others. It's inevitable. We have weak weeks, and we have strong weeks. Well, this is the strongest week of GIFs we've had in quite some time. In my estimation, at least three or four of them could win your average GIF vote.

So let's get to it. Before we do, please allow Matt Ufford, Dan Rubenstein, and myself to review this week's memorable field:

Voting, as always, will remain open until 11 p.m. Eastern Sunday. Enjoy!

JAMAL CRAWFORD/BLAKE GRIFFIN

(Via Bill Hanstock)

SimCity, released this week, is by all accounts a very well-made and fun game that its handler has managed to screw up in hilarious fashion. Essentially, they took a game that is not only (pretty much) a single-player game, but the newest installment of the most famous single-player-only computer game of all time, and required players to be connected to their online servers to even be able to play it. Then they failed to ensure that their servers actually worked, which resulted in some players losing lots of game progress, and other players finding themselves completely unable to play the game to begin with. As Vikings punter Chris Kluwe succinctly put it, "How many lost sales do you predict from word of mouth versus general piracy rates?" The whole thing has been an abject PR disaster, and while it's rather sad to see a beloved franchise so terribly betrayed like this, it is kind of nice to see a company completely ignore the wishes of its consumers and then completely fall on its ass as a consequence.

Lob City works better and is way cooler.

KOBE BRYANT/LOL HORNETS

(Via Ben Swanson)

In order to prevent fast-break buckets, it is not important to guard the net. It is only important that you apply yourself, be a good sport, try your hardest, and feel in your heart that you did a good job.

FAN THIEVES TOWEL

(GIF by @cfbsection via @cjzero)

Yep, Kobe lands in two GIFs this week, and is the star in neither of them. This faceless individual's gumption is matched only by his or her quality of execution.

In his book Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain spent a good time stressing the importance of simple things in a restaurant kitchen. In specific, he went on about towels, and how indispensable they are, and how he would hoard as many clean towels as he possibly could because it was impossible to have too many.

I feel like if the tuning knob of Western culture were set just a notch further from decorum and a notch closer to function, we'd all wear backpacks everywhere that was full of shit we needed. It would be completely full of towels. Quality of life would shoot up by 400 percent.

LAUREN SILBERMAN

Lauren Silberman made history last weekend by becoming the first woman to participate in a regional NFL tryout. By the accounts of folks who were there, she didn't really warm up, and didn't bother to memorize how far away to line up before kicking. She performed terribly, and frankly it was pretty funny because that is what happens when you don't prepare at all, period.

This just goes to show that women don't belong in the NFL, because the actions of one woman are the actions of every woman everywhere ever because women are the Borg.

DAMN IT, NUGGETS

(Via Bill Hanstock's Week in Worst)

Playing basketball is not important.

MARC STAAL

Mr. Staal is expected to fully recover from this puck to the face, thank God. Predictably, this has sparked a "should NHL players be required to wear visors" debate. That this is even a debate reminds me of the fighter pilots in the early days of aviation who weren't allowed to wear parachutes because it was thought to be cowardly. Human beings are so weird, man.

SERGE IBAKA/BLAKE GRIFFIN

dude got punched in the dong

SORCERY!

(Via @BryanAGraham)

This GIF is pure magic. Like, I don't think I've found any GIF more difficult to explain. WHERE DOES THE SECOND REFEREE COME FROM? It's like he was crouching and hiding behind Patrick Kane the whole time, except we see Kane's backside at the start of the GIF, so we know that isn't so. This illusion couldn't possibly have been pulled off any better if it were done on purpose.

Think we've got an instant classic here. I'll let y'all decide that for sure, though.

VOTE!