Guest Post: Terrible Advice Theater

Terrible Advice Theater
by Pickleople

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Good day, I asked people on Twitter if they needed advice. Below is the magic that was spun. Thank you to all who asked questions. All correspondent names have been changed (as if you couldn't tell) to protect the innocent. Let's get into the fun, shall we?

Dear Pickleope,


I recently moved into a new apartment. The problem is...it's haunted. Don't laugh. I swear, tons of weird stuff happens there at night and sometimes during the day. I hear weird noises and I swear something got into bed with me. I signed a 12 month lease. What can I do?


Sigourney Weaver


Dear Sigourney,

Congratulations, you have the most interesting apartment of all your friends. What do they have, Ikea furniture and boring photos? You have proof of the afterlife (or an overactive imagination that misinterprets bumps and electrical problems, whichever)! You win.

You could call one of the crews from those crappy ghost hunting shows, but all they're going to do is use infrared cameras and say, "What's that," every five minutes.

You'll get used to living with a ghost. But you'll never get used to being boring. So come up with a good background history for your ghost and have a phantasm party, whiner. What's it going to do, flick a light every now and then? So it cuddles up to you at night, we should all be so lucky. Maybe it's Patrick Swayze, did you ever think of that? Maybe you'll get to make out with Whoopi Goldberg. You can have a threesome without the awkwardness and regret.

Don't look a gift ghost in the ectoplasm.

Your pal, even after death,

Pickleope

***

Dear Pickleope,


My boyfriend plays too many hours of video games. What can I do to get his attention?


Ms. Pac-Man

Dear Ms. Pac-Man,

First, why would they call you Ms. Pac-MAN? Why not Pac-Lady or Pac-Person at the very least? Sexist ass video games.

Here's the thing. How much time does he spend playing video games? 3 hours, 4? Ask if he can limit it to one hour per night. Threaten to learn how to play (because no boyfriend wants to teach a girlfriend how to play videogames. Nelson Mandela doesn't have the patience for that). If he can't abide by the one hour rule, pick up an annoying habit of your own, like smoking or drinking heavily or becoming a dominatrix.

What do you want him to do, sit next to you while you watch some terrible reality show? You could give him a reason to start paying more attention to you. Of course he's going to ignore the troll in sweatpants, but the fun lady cosplaying as his favorite video game vixen is hard to ignore. Or you could break up with that nerd. (Hey girl, what's your number?).

Wearing garters right now,

Pickleope

***

Dear Pickleope,


What are some good animals I can box? And what's the best strategy?


Russell Crowe

Dear Russell,

While I do not advocate violence against animals, there comes a time in everyone's life when you're put in the position of pimp slapping wildlife. It's just going to happen. Law of averages, people. So, to beat the hand of fate, I suggest you go out there and find an animal to preemptively beat up.

One thing you have to understand about animal fighting is that animals are unpredictable. So, the only sure-fire strategy is to get the animal drunk first. Most animals are easier to take out when they're drunk.

You could probably take out a drunk giraffe, and that'll get you some street cred. Other drunk animals you could probably take out include kangaroo, panda bear, vulture, 5 penguins at the same time or one at a time, your choice, and the capybara. Some animals to avoid: walrus (too thick and they they can handle their alcohol), any of the large cat family (too stabby), and any of the larger primates such as chimp or orangutan (rip your face off man).

The movie Gladiator didn't age well,

Pickleope

I am nothing if not helpful. If you would like some advice, feel free to email me, pickleope(at)gmail(dot)com. All questions, as you can see, will be taken seriously(ish) and are welcome.

Thank you to Jeff Unrelated for providing this space to me, a humble, megalomaniacal, anthropomorphic, briny vegetable-antelope hybrid who traffics in absurdity. If you enjoy this type of absurdity, I can be found at www.pickleope.com (is the "www" necessary anymore?). Also, if you need asinine advice, feel free to drop me a line on Twitter or you can find the email on my website.

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And thank YOU, you half-pickle, half-antelope, all-awesome person you.  Readers! I implore you! Check out Pickleope's blog and follow on Twitter! The links are RIGHT ABOVE YOU.

Well, not right above you. Like, not literally.  I mean, look above this.  No, no you're too high.  Down.  Down.  Yeah, yeah there you go.

CLICK.

Guest Post: Stop and Smell the Airplanes

Stop and Smell the Airplanes
By Jason at Poetry of a Madman

People say to stop and smell the flowers. To 'ground' yourself (no pun
intended), I suppose, or to just push your troubles away for a moment
and enjoy the beauty of nature. But I say that's for losers. What I
suggest is to stop and smell the airplanes.

What I mean by this is not to literally smell an airplane, that's just
silly. It's metaphoric, of course. What I mean is to look at one and
really think about it. How often do you marvel at the amazing things
that mankind has been able to accomplish? Rarely? Never?

Picture this: you are flying about 40,000 feet in the air, in a big
metal tube weighing in excess of 600,000lbs, going more than 500 miles
an hour. But wait folks, there's more. You are using a tiny device
(with no wires) made of glass, plastic, metal and the sweat of people
who are literally on the other side of the planet. To send a message
to someone else who is on the ground, about 1,000 miles away,
traveling in a box that is going about 60 miles per hour. Now how much
would you pay?

I mean really, think about this. Not much more than a hundred years
ago we were breaking out the party hats when we got something fairly
light and wooden in the air that looked as if it was made of popsicle
sticks. And it wasn't very long before then that you would be locked
up in a funny farm or burned at the stake for even suggesting such a
thing was even possible.

So, do you think about it? Most of all, do you appreciate the fact
that you can not only fly to the other side of the earth, but also
talk to and SEE your family and friends in real time while you are
there? Not to mention the untold numbers of things we surround
ourselves with on a daily basis. Electric razors. Microwaves.
Computers. Televisions. Water heaters. Digital clocks. Light bulbs.
Sliced fucking bread!

We are, quite literally, walking and driving and flying around in a
world of magic. And we're telling people to smell flowers? Puh-lease.
There's a newer, safer way to do that. It comes in a little bottle.
You can spray it on yourself and you too can smell like a rose,
without risk of sneezing or getting a bee up your nose. You don't even
have to leave your hermetically sealed, climate controlled home to do
it. You wouldn't want to do that, anyway. There are people out there.
Some of them not so desirable. People that could stab you at any
moment, or spray you with their smelly stuff without your permission.

On the other hand, you can look out your window and appreciate the
technological marvel that is an airplane, or even the funny looking
truck that brings the person that brings your mail. No more horses
taking that payload. It's bad for their backs, anyway, and they tend
to drop honking turds everywhere.

Yet, on the other other hand, you can also look out your window and
consider that even as far as human beings have come, we're still on a
ball of rock weighing approximately 13 octillion lbs (that's 24
zeros), spinning at a rate of about 1,000 miles per hour, flying
through space at roughly 67,000 miles per hour around a 44 nonillion
lb (that's 30 zeros) ball of nuclear explosions...

That's right. Good ol' mother nature kinda makes our little airplanes
look quaint and cute, huh?

So maybe you should stop and smell the flowers. After all, they can
turn sunlight into energy more efficiently than we can.

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A big THANK YOU to Jason for sharing his talent here at Content Unrelated.  Don't forget to follow him on Twitter, click through his site and show him some love.

Prices go up, wages go down?

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take this time to use my purchased space on the Internet not for the typical bullshit/dick jokes/innuendo you're used to seeing, but instead to bring your attention to a new Senate Bill that's being considered in Florida.

The Optional Guaranteed Tipped Employee Wage Bill, or SB 2106, aims to cut wages of tipped employees by more than 50 percent.

SOURCE.

You guys may or may not be aware that servers in Florida make a whopping $4.65 per hour, in addition to money earned in tips.  That $4.65 hourly wage is what a server would see on his/her paycheck at the end of each week -- a paycheck that, more times than not, exists solely for covering taxes based on tips for the week and health insurance costs.

This is a snapshot of roughly one month's worth of paychecks I personally have received after taxes and health insurance costs.

In four weeks, I earned $18.73 from the company -- an amount of money unable to cover a measly half of a tank of gas.

And this is based on a $4.65 hourly wage.

SB 2106 aims to slash that to $2.13 -- a wage not seen since the early 2000's.

Two dollars and thirteen cents.

An hourly rate that would surely wipe any hint of a paycheck from existence.

But who gives a shit, right?  I make tips!  Why am I bitching about losing 18 dollars?

1.  Because it's 2012 and people still don't know how to fucking tip, or are completely unaware that their money puts food on my table.

Or both.

You might be surprised how many times this happens:

"Keep the change."

Oh, yeah?  Keep the change?  That means, from you, I earned $3.16.  But guess what?  I don't get to keep every cent I make from your tip!  See, most restaurants automatically deduct a percentage of a server's sales as a tip-out for bussers, bartenders, hosts or other people in the restaurant who help said restaurant maintain functionality.

In this scenario, on a $96.84 check, I earned less than a dollar for an hour and a half of keeping people happy.

But even if I don't have enough cash for groceries that week, I still have that paycheck from my hourly wage to cover taxes and health insurance costs.

2.  Because whatever I still owe after my check hits zero gets deducted from other sources of income, this means smaller or nonexistent tax returns and yearly bonuses.

You can tell me to get another job if I'm not happy all you want.

That's not the point, here.  Plus, the only times I'm not happy are when grown adults come in and treat me like I'm some kind of subhuman piece of garbage.  But that's a post for another day.

The point is, in this economy, there is absolutely no reason for anyone who lives comfortably to be making decisions on lowering the wages of people who, for the most part, bust their asses every single shift to make rent, keep the electricity going, pay off student loans, etc.

The following is a note posted by one of my good friends on Facebook.  Please read this for more perspective and links for you to click so you can help us say NO to the mass eradication of thousands upon thousands of workers' paychecks.


Friends, the Florida Senate wants to pass a bill proposed by the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association that would cut our hourly wage effective July 1, if it passes. The Federal Minimum wage for tipped employees is currently $2.13, but in Florida it's $4.65. If you work 30 hours a week, you currently gross $139.50. If your hourly wage was to be cut back to Federal minimum (and back to levels it was at in 1991) you would gross only $63.90 a week. Not only will you never see a paycheck, you'll possibly end up with no federal income tax return, possibly owing taxes at the end of the year, on top of owing leftover insurance premiums no longer covered by your wages. 

So here's the deal: 
"Carol Dover, chief executive officer of the restaurant-and-lodging association, said many restaurants she has talked to said they would keep current employees at the higher rate. But in an industry with high turnover, it wouldn't be long before many new employees would be making $2.13 an hour — a rate unchanged since 1991, critics said. "It's basically just more reason for them to try to hire new people, cut the hours [of existing workers] and get somebody to change jobs," Spencer said. "Restaurants don't have to fire people. They just start cutting shifts." (source: http://bit.ly/wO2PLq)

Here's a petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-governor-of-fl-stop-bill-spb-7210sb-2106-from-passing

Here's another one: http://sayno7210.com/

Here is all the contact info for everyone in Carol Dover's office. Please call them and let them know how you feel. http://www.frla.org/contact

Senator Jeremy Ring is apparently sponsoring the bill. Here's his contact info. Give him your thoughts. http://www.flsenate.gov/senators/s32

This sucks. Get angry. But don't just bitch, pass it on. Change will happen if we all yell together.  Please share with everyone you think will care.

Thank you!
-Trisha

It's not abuse if he's vegan!

So.

PETA.

Amirite?

These crazy bastards come out with some pretty wild advertisements, you guys.  Chicks rubbing veggies all over their half-naked bodies, raw footage of pre-lunchmeat being mistreated, women in neckbraces being totally okay with the physical harm involved in fucking their newly vegan boyfriends.

Wait.

Yeah.  That just happened.

Apparently this guy is so goddamn stoked he's been eating nothing but rabbit food for the last two weeks that he celebrates by nearly caving his girlfriend's skull in every time they, you know, bang.


PETA? More like PUTA, as in People for the Unethical Treatment of Anatomy.

Also: Whore.

Boyfriend Went Vegan and Knocked the Bottom out of Me.


Like.  What?

Knocked the bottom out of you?  As in, your bottom bottom?  Like, you guys bumped uglies and some of your intestines fell out?

Source.

And if you aren't referring to your pooper and instead your other lady bits, I suppose you better get going on those kegels if you guys are going to keep eating twigs and berries and shit, because, you know.

Hotdogs and hallways and all that.

This is why I keep ground beef in the house.  If I don't get any red meat at least every two days I go all Bruce Banner and put holes in the walls and turn all of our personal possessions into fucking mulch and oooohhhh God QUICK SOMEONE GET ME A CHEESEBURGER.  IT'S HAPPENING AGAINNNRRRRAAAAAAAHH.

What's that "L" stand for, again?

TLC.

When you see this acronym, what does it mean to you?

Does it represent the pre-Destiny's-Child musical chick trio that didn't "want no scrubs"?

In this case, the "L"  represents the first letter of Lisa Lopes' nickname in the group, "Left-Eye." With the other members' nicknames "T-Boz" and "Chilli," you get your TLC.

This makes sense.

Does TLC represent the often-used "Tender Loving Care" when referring to something which needs just that?  As in, "Boy! That dirty old car could use some TLC!"

In this case, "loving" fits in the acronym because it's used to describe the care that will be going into whatever needs said TLC.

This makes sense.

Does it represent The Learning Channel?

What do you mean, "What's The Learning Channel?"

You know.

The Learning Channel, you guys.  The "L" in this case, obviously, stands for Learning.

The Learning Channel.

But when was the last time you've actually heard someone refer to this network by its full name?

Can you count that number with your fingers and toes?

Let's just start with one hand and work our way up from there.

Shit, if you can count at all, it wasn't because you learned how by watching the goddamn "Learning" Channel.

Now let's count the number of times you've actually learned something on The Learning Channel.

Even fewer fingers?

Thought so.

This does not make sense.

But TLC wasn't always the mind-numbingly, brain cell mass-murdering ball of shit you've come to know and loathe.

In 1972 until the mid '90s, you were able to turn on The Learning Channel and actually learn shit. Science and math and history and all the boring shit that helped you become more knowledgeable and thus more tolerable to have actual conversations with.

The shift from education-oriented programming happened sometime in the late '90s and into the infancy of the new millennium, when TLC execs (I assume) came to the conclusion that consumers are fucking dumb, and wanted programming that reflected their fucking dumbness. (Source?)

Phasing out anything even remotely educational, The Learning Channel was forever shortened to its acronym in hopes that people would eventually forget they were supposed to be doing any sort of learning in the first place.

But the fact that they  simply stopped referring to themselves as The Learning Channel shouldn't be a green flag for their bullshit lineup.  In the last 12 years, the only thing I've actually learned is that if I want my own TV show, I need to either be under four feet tall, have 37 kids, getting married or be really fucking good at baking.

Source.

And don't even get me started on that glorified child abuse that is Toddlers & Tiaras.  Go-go juice?  You're kidding, right?

If TLC had been doing its original job the whole time, this kid would already know about diabetes and she'd tell her mom to shove that bottle up her ass.

If you're going to keep this crap up, maybe it's time for a name change. I mean, if Outback Steakhouse stopped cooking steaks and did away with the Aussie theme, do you think they'd still call it Outback Steakhouse?

Probably not, TLC. Probably not.