The Opposite of Advice

Welcome to the first ever edition of The Opposite of Advice, the first and only truly self-help column. The advice column runs in reverse. That’s right: I got the answers from our readers and then found the questions you’ve been dying to ask.

Q: Are there early warning signs of men that are better avoided?

A: When I was learning to drive, my father told me to remember: "Drive like everyone else is an idiot."

Answer by Iguana w/o the g
Q: I want to start learning more about how to make my money work for me; really investment 101. I am tired of a financial planner making all the decisions and I don't really know or understand how to check an investment out. What would you suggest as a good way to start my Investment 101 lessons?

A: My grandmother told me to put...penny in my "shoe" on every date. (no, i wasn't getting married or hoping to). She said she was told to do the same when she started dating.
Want anymore stupid stuff, just ask.

Answer by “Sailing Away”


Q: I'm nervous about my wedding night. What if he's disappointed?

A: Well, it seems everybody has been put in Jeopardy. Everyone has faults and makes the common mistake. The only way to get back on the track is to just get back on it. Don't try to over do yourself. Just do what you need to do and what is required of you...Try it.

Answer by Christopher


Q: I know my question may not seem earth-shaking in comparison with many of the questions that appear in your column. However, my best friend and I were wondering if you could settle an argument. Should a short person wear ankle-length skirts?

A: The little apple without the stem never ever falls to far from the tree.

Answer by Patricia


Q: I'm a young woman in a difficult situation. I recently took a job from a man who was obviously hiring me because he was attracted to me. I thought I could prove myself as a competent, valuable employee over time, but his sexual advances are getting out of hand. Lately, he's even taken to physically dragging me into the supplies closet to make unwanted (and sometimes partially clothed) moves on me. This job is my dream job, and the launching pad for my career. If I were to file suit (and the lawyer with whom I recently met has told me that I have an air-tight one in the bag), I might make a lot of money. However, I know that the suit will scare off future employers. I know I could live more than comfortable off of the settlement for life, but I'm worried I'll never respect myself if I don't see my career path through to its natural end. After all, his modus operandi is obviously to scare me out of the business. If I take his hush money, he will have won. If I don't, I'm worried his come-ons might become even more forceful. What should I do?

A: It’s all about the dolla, holla!

Answer by Joey G of Booty Camp


Q: Whenever I go to church, I always follow my brother into the pew. He always genuflects on his way in, just the way Mom taught us to do. Whenever he does, though, I'm always tempted to tackle him and pound on him until he cries like a bitch. My mom has always told me that there's a time and a place for everything. Is that true?

A: NEVER pass up a good opportunity!

Answer by Stephen


Q: I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist, but lately the ancient quandries ("What's the sound of one hand clapping?" and "If a tree falls in the woods with no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?") haven't been able to put me into the same empty-minded head-space I so value for meditation. Can you think of another answerless, circular riddle?

A: always follow your money and plan wisely, know where you spend your money and you will become aware that you have money.
more money than you'll ever have.

Answer by DougyFresh


Q: In the former Dungeons and Dragons variation, all wizards use a staff for casting; without it they're at penalties. In the newer version, again all magic users have a staff they use for casting, but that staff is formed out of something precious to them (a musical instrument or a feather for example).
I've been thinking about this and was wondering if it could be incorporated in a game world and just wanted to get other peoples opinions. Basically what you'd get is the magical staff a wizard has in Monte Cooks game with the addition of the intelligent magical item template (personality determined by GM according to the item you selected and so on). The more important the item was to you the more loyal and friendly the staff would be. For example a branch grabbed off a tree and transformed might resent or ignore you, but a hair ribbon your brother gave you would actually be more of a friend.
Currently, I believe a 1st level spell would work with a long casting time e.g. a week. The form of the object would generally be a long staff with a matching design to the original object e.g. in the anime the musical instrument becomes a bronze female staff named soprano while the feather becomes a white edible one with the personality of an old man.

A: There is nothing impossible to him who will try

Answer by Shanna


Q: I have an obsession with Tyra Banks. Every time I see her, I just want to cover her with chocolate syrup and pretend every day is "Sundae," if ya know what I mean. I was thinking of flying out to a taping of her talk show and squirting her with a whole bottle of Bosco from my seat in the audience. She might have me arrested, but just seeing her all covered with chocolate would fulfill a lifelong dream of mine. Is it worth the jail time?

A: Be relentless in your pursuit of happiness, no matter what form it takes.

Answer by Lee


Q: Can I exercise my memory and thus avoid Alzheimer's disease altogether?

A: You think too much. Just don’t think. Hope that helps; if it doesn’t: just "FUGGET ABAAAT IT!!"

Answer by David


I hope you learned a lot from this edition of The Opposite of Advice – I know I didn’t.
If you would like to add your answer to my ever growing collection, you can email your words of wisdom to answerainm@grigrislagnaippe.com

For Those Looking To Cover Up This Mardi Gras Season

Anti-Bush T-Shirt Slogans

1) (On an infant's shirt): Already smarter than Bush.
2) 1/20/09: End of an Error
3) That's OK, I Wasn't Using My Civil Liberties Anyway
4) Let's Fix Democracy in This Country First
5) Bush. Like a Rock. Only Dumber.
6) You Can't Be Pro-War And Pro-Life At The Same Tim
7) If You Can Read This, You're Not Our President
8) Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?
9) George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight
10) Impeachment: It's Not Just for Blowjobs Anymore
11) America : One Nation, Under Surveillance
12) They Call Him "W" So He Can Spell It
13) Which God Do You Kill For?
14) Jail to the Chief
15) Who Would Jesus Torture?
16) No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade?
17) Bush: God's Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full Of Crap
18) Bad president! No Banana.
19) We Need a President Who's Fluent In At Least One Language
20) We're Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them
21) Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Blood
22) Is It Vietnam Yet?
23) Bush Doesn't Care About White People, Either
24) Where Are We Going? And Why Are We In This Handbasket?
25) You Elected Him. You Deserve Him.
26) Impeach Cheney First
27) Dubya, Your Dad Shoulda Pulled Out, Too
28) When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46
29) The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century
30) 2004: Embarrassed 2005: Horrified 2006: Terrified

Good Golly, Miss Molly!

for the woefully heretofore unitiated, i'm afraid you'll only get to know molly's columns posthumously. you can check them out at www.texasobserver.org.
if you'd rather, though, here is a sort of beginner's course in molly-speak: erudite, cutting, dixie charm drips from her pen (yes, she started that long ago). here's a personal favorite to start off the batch:

"As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office."
Molly Ivins

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• The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging.
• What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.
• Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous.
• The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.
• Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.
• You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.
• It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.
• What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.
• There's never been a law yet that didn't have a ridiculous consequence in some unusual situation; there's probably never been a government program that didn't accidentally benefit someone it wasn't intended to. Most people who work in government understand that what you do about it is fix the problem -- you don't just attack the whole government.
• I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.
• I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.
• One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn't waste a lot of time thinking about the people who built their pyramids, either. OK, so it's not that bad yet -- but it's getting that bad.
• It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong.
• In the real world, there are only two ways to deal with corporate misbehavior: One is through government regulation and the other is by taking them to court. What has happened over 20 years of free-market proselytizing is that we have dangerously weakened both forms of restraint, first through the craze for "deregulation" and second through endless rounds of "tort reform," all of which have the effect of cutting off citizens' access to the courts. By legally bribing politicians with campaign contributions, the corporations have bought themselves immunity from lawsuits on many levels.
• Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.
• During a recent panel on the numerous failures of American journalism, I proposed that almost all stories about government should begin: "Look out! They're about to smack you around again!"
• I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.
• I know vegetarians don't like to hear this, but God made an awful lot of land that's good for nothing but grazing.
• The United States of America is still run by its citizens. The government works for us. Rank imperialism and warmongering are not American traditions or values. We do not need to dominate the world. We want and need to work with other nations. We want to find solutions other than killing people. Not in our name, not with our money, not with our children's blood.

Decaf Poopacino

in case anyone missed Dave Barry's spectacular rant against starbuck's regulars and their ilk, here's an oldie but a goodie. no wonder i'm slowly switching to whiskey.
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I have exciting news for anybody who would like to pay a lot of money for coffee that has passed all the way through an animal's digestive tract.

And you just know there are plenty of people who would. Specialty coffees are very popular these days, attracting millions of consumers, every single one of whom is standing in line ahead of me whenever I go to the coffee place at the airport to grab a quick cup on my way to catch a plane. These consumers are always ordering mutant beverages with names like ``mocha-almond-honey-vinaigrette lattespressacino,'' beverages that must be made one at a time via a lengthy and complex process involving approximately one coffee bean, three quarts of dairy products and what appears to be a small nuclear reactor.

Meanwhile, back in the line, there is growing impatience among those of us who just want a plain old cup of coffee so that our brains will start working and we can remember what our full names are and why we are catching an airplane. We want to strike the lattespressacino people with our carry-on baggage and scream ``GET OUT OF OUR WAY, YOU TREND GEEKS, AND LET US HAVE OUR COFFEE!'' But of course we couldn't do anything that active until we've had our coffee.

It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity. I bet this kind of thing does not happen to heroin addicts. I bet that when serious heroin addicts go to purchase their heroin, they do not tolerate waiting in line while some dilettante in front of them orders a hazelnut smack-a-cino with cinnamon sprinkles.

The reason some of us need coffee is that it contains caffeine, which makes us alert. Of course it is very important to remember that caffeine is a drug, and, like any drug, it is a lot of fun.

No! Wait! What I meant to say is: Like any drug, caffeine can have serious side effects if we ingest too much. This fact was first noticed in ancient Egypt when a group of workers, who were supposed to be making a birdbath, began drinking Egyptian coffee, which is very strong, and wound up constructing the pyramids.

I myself developed the coffee habit in my early 20s, when, as a ``cub'' reporter for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pa., I had to stay awake while writing phenomenally boring stories about municipal government. I got my coffee from a vending machine that also sold hot chocolate and chicken-noodle soup; all three liquids squirted out of a single tube, and they tasted pretty much the same. But I came to need that coffee, and even today I can do nothing useful before I've had several cups. (I can't do anything useful afterward, either; that's why I'm a columnist.)

But here's my point: This specialty-coffee craze has gone too far. I say this in light of a letter I got recently from alert reader Bo Bishop. He sent me an invitation he received from a local company to a ``private tasting of the highly prized Luwak coffee,'' which ``at $300 a pound . . . is one of the most expensive drinks in the world.'' The invitation states that this coffee is named for the luwak, a ``member of the weasel family'' that lives on the Island of Java and eats coffee berries; as the berries pass through the luwak, a ``natural fermentation'' takes place, and the berry seeds -- the coffee beans -- come out of the luwak intact. The beans are then gathered, washed, roasted and sold to coffee connoisseurs.

The invitation states: ``We wish to pass along this once in a lifetime opportunity to taste such a rarity.''

Or, as Bo Bishop put it: ``They're selling processed weasel doodoo for $300 a pound.''

I first thought this was a clever hoax designed to ridicule the coffee craze. Tragically, it is not. There really is a Luwak coffee. I know because I bought some from a specialty-coffee company in Atlanta. I paid $37.50 for two ounces of beans. I was expecting the beans to look exotic, considering where they'd been, but they looked like regular coffee beans. In fact, for a moment I was afraid that they were just regular beans, and that I was being ripped off.

Then I thought: What kind of world is this when you worry that people might be ripping you off by selling you coffee that was NOT pooped out by a weasel?

So anyway, I ground the beans up and brewed the coffee and drank some. You know how sometimes, when you're really skeptical about something, but then you finally try it, you discover that it's really good, way better than you would have thought possible? This is not the case with Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee, in my opinion, tastes like somebody washed a dead cat in it.
But I predict it's going to be popular anyway, because it's expensive. One of these days, the people in front of me at the airport coffee place are going to be ordering decaf poopacino. I'm thinking of switching to heroin.

Greg Giraldo Loves Him Some Bitches

From the man, the myth, Greg Giraldo:

-----------------------------------

I don't know if you guys watch a lot of hip-hop videos, but, man, bitches are the shit. Bitches are so much better than regular women. They are way cooler than wives or girlfriends. If I had it all to do over again, I'd never get married or anything, I'd just get a bunch of bitches to have with me, 'cause bitches are fuckin' awesome. They're always in a good mood. They just dance around in their thongs with their high-heeled shoes, and you get to smoke bongs and play the X-Box all day long; they never seem to mind. Bitches never complain, they never tell you to take your feet off the couch or, "We gotta go see my mother." Bitches don't even have mothers. I don't where they make the bitches. Maybe some sort of genetics lab where they do that little ass-shake move--where they can just shake that ass like that--that only bitches can do. Let's say you've got a wife or a girlfriend: she might help you wash the car, but she's not gonna soap herself down with suds and press her tits into the windshield...but bitches will. That's how bitches wash shit. Bitches just soap themselves down and press their tits into things. They're always happy, and they won't do it alone; they'll invite a lot of other bitches over to soap cars down. Let's say you might like a little champagne, right? You like to have champagne, to pour it in a glass and sip it, but you don't shake it up and pour it all over your tits...but that's how bitches drink; they have a whole different anatomy. And if bitches get in a bad mood, all you gotta do is just turn the music up and they just dance more; they can't help themselves.

--------------------------

True that, man. True that.

George Carlin's Top 13 New Rules for 2007

13 NEW RULES FOR 2007 BY GEORGE CARLIN

New Rule: 1- No more gift registries. You know, it used to be just
for weddings.
Now it's for babies and new homes, graduations, and releases from jail.
Picking out the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you
isn't gift giving, it's the white people version of looting.

New Rule: 2 - Stop giving me that pop-up ad for
Classmates. com! There's a reason you don't talk to people for 25
years. Because you don't particularly like them! Besides, I already
know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn.

New Rule: 3 - Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their
hot, blonde teachers are permanently damaged.

I have a better description for these kids: LUCKY BASTARDS.

New Rule: 4 - If you need to shave and you still collect baseball
cards, you're gay.


If you're a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols. If you're a
grown man, they're pictures of men.

New Rule: 5 - Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here's how much men
care about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? Okay, we're done.

New Rule: 6 - There's no such thing as flavored water. There's a
whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket - water, but without that
watery taste. Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You
want flavored water?
Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt. That's your flavored water.

New Rule: 7 - Stop screwing with old people!! Target is introducing
a re-designed pill bottle that's square, with a bigger label. And
the top is now the bottom.
And by the time grandpa figures out how to open it, his ass will be
in the morgue. Congratulations Target,,,, you just solved the Social
Security crisis.

New Rule: 8 - The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger
the asshole. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf grande
half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread
cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n'-Low and one
NutraSweet," ooh, you're a huge asshole.

New Rule: 9 - I'm not the cashier! By the time I look up from
sliding my card,entering my PIN number, pressing "Enter," verifying
the amount, deciding, no, I don't want cash back, and pressing
"Enter" again, the kid who is supposed to be ringing me up is
standing there eating my Almond Joy.

New Rule: 10 - Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it
doesn't make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your
ass!! And it translates to "beef with broccoli."

The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you
weren't pregnant. You're not spiritual. You're just high.

New Rule: 11- Competitive eating isn't a sport. It's one of the
seven deadly sins.
ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because
watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned
exciting. What's next, competitive farting? Oh wait. They're
already doing that. It's called "The Howard Stern Show."

New Rule: 12 - I don't need a bigger, "mega" M&M. If I'm extra
hungry for M&Ms, I'll go nuts and eat two.

New Rule: 13 - and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom
attendants. After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a
mint like I just had sex with George Michael. I can't even tell if
he's supposed to be there, or just some freak with a fetish. I don't
want to be on your webcam, dude. I just want to wash my hands.

Nobody Hard-Drives Stick Anymore

The purpose of technology is progress. We all know this. With the advent of new technology, though, we have been steadily losing our abilities to perform basic functions. No one I know remembers ever having to stand up to change a channel on the television. Most of my friends cannot drive a manual transmission. Myself, I have almost totally lost the ability to perform simple arithmetic in my head; give me a long division to perform, and I will promptly cock my head like a cocker spaniel, cross my eyes, then search frantically for my trusty calculator. I realize that this ease implies relinquishing control, but, for the most part, this doesn't bother me. However, when it applies to something important--such as my pictures, files, research, and basic livelihood--I must protest. Though I am a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, I am adamantly Linux-loyal till I die.

The aforementioned tilted-head-spaniel look is usually what I get when I tell people this. Linux does, after all, have one of the worst reputations in the computer world. It is reputed to be neither user-friendly nor user-oriented in the least (though I think the genesis of this reputation can be traced back to someone with the initials B.G. or S.J.). To paraphrase Joan Jett (as I am frequently wont to do), "I don't give a damn about its bad reputation." To me, Linux is my dream car: a '65 Mustang convertible. Maybe the diesel engine pollutes the air, maybe the 5-speed transmission is loud and the clutch sticks, maybe it'll never get more than 20 MPG no matter how much highway driving I do. The reason that car is my dream car is because of the control I can no longer have over my own car, which is run by computer. The human element is still present, and I still have the delusion that man is ruling the machine.

Linux is the same way for me. Granted, we have our problems. Most recently, I remember falling into a catatonic stupor when I couldn't get the system to reload after someone had made the egregious error of putting my laptop screen down when the system was locked. But the solutions to such problems are the reasons why I love it so; for instance, in the case of the system not coming back up, we just logged in as root user, cleaned out the bug, then moved on with our lives. No calls to Dell. No staying on hold for hours on end before some poor underpaid Indian employee comes on the line to ask me if the system is plugged in. No running down to Comp USA to be belittled by the pencil-necked asshole behind the counter who acts as though I must be the product of first cousins to have made such an asinine mistake--or, worse, that I must still program in Fortran or Java (snicker snicker). Instead, I get to control my own destiny, and that of my hard drive. I can open up the hood and tinker till it's fixed. I can do something active in the face of the imminent demise of all I've worked for. I can lay my own loving hands on my baby and make him all better. And that is something Windows or Mac could never offer.

Understand, I know full well that this desire to tinker is not for everybody. My parents, off the top of my head, would sooner perform their own dental work than try to fix a crashed hard drive themselves. All I ask is for acceptance. Just as I understand their reticence to log in as administrator and quite possibly wreak havoc on the interior workings of their computer for the sake of recovering their latest FreeCell escapade, I ask others' understanding that I will do just that to recover the results of the simulation it just took me 3 hours to run (and 6 years to write). Instead, I tend to find people looking at me when I tell them I use Linux as though I had just said I take baths in cling peaches: "But, for God's sake, WHY?!?!" their perplexed stares say, as they inch away from me, lest they catch the desire to do the same. This is the same look I get from people when I tell them of my preference to drive a stick, rather than automatic, even in my beloved hometown of San Francisco (rumored to be Spanish for "I just burned out my clutch"). And so I proffer this introductory column as an explanation, nay, a plea for understanding.

Linux may well not be for everyone. Hell, I even know people who don't like coffee. Fine. All I ask is for others to steel themselves when I tell them this, and not to immediately jump to the conclusion that I either live for gaming, web design, to marry an Elvish princess, or be a Level 50 Paladin with a +2 Broadsword. I merely love the idea of turning it on, popping the clutch, and telling Bill Gates to eat my dust.