Proximity Alert

Q: Why do people you love hurt you?

A: Ah, the classic conundrum!

Let me answer your question with another question, dear reader: Who else is going to hurt you -- people you hate?

I'm assuming here that you're relatively normal and don't go out of your way to surround yourself with people whom you utterly despise? Are you making the age-old mistake of hanging out with pedophiles, necrophiliacs or perhaps Veronica?

If so, that's gonna be a problem, because those dudes will most likely rape you -- regardless of age, gender or pulse.

If that's not the case, then who else has access? You guessed it, the people you love!

So it's generally a matter of proximity.

It's probably true that your enemies would like nothing more than to punch you in the throat and push you into a pile of garbage while you're gagging for air. But if you don't let them close to you, collapsing your windpipe with a swift karate punch is simply not an option.

Honestly, the easiest way to not get hurt is to be cool like Fonzie (and myself) and not care about anything.

[starts jukebox with a casual bump of the elbow]

Eeeeeeh!


PS: I would be remiss in my duty if I didn't also mention the possibility that the people you love do, indeed, hate you. Perhaps they are the types that subscribe to "keep your enemies close"?

I wouldn't advise you to get paranoid, but it's entirely possible that they are all out to get you. Perhaps they even have secret meetings about how to best make your life utter hell while you're out experimenting on your cats, or watching torture porn. You just never know for sure.

KEEP ALL YOUR EYES OPEN!

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Do the "Jiggery Pokery"!

Q: Most people think I’m a bit of weirdo, and I’m trying to appear more normal. Now, the other day I just learned a new phrase. It’s “jiggery pokery”. I have absolutely no idea what it means, but I was just wondering if I should start using in every day conversations from now on?

A: The short answer is yes, absolutely.

It sounds like you are universally disliked already, so what harm could it do?

I'm unaware of the term "jiggery pokery", but is sounds to me like a funny dance that ends in rape.

Since the phrase clearly doesn't exist, lets assume that most people will agree with my interpretation. Well, that's certainly the sort of thing that will get you noticed if you slip it into casual conversation, isn't it? Indeed, it's rather hard to ignore!

Here's an example. Say you're talking about the latest movies, and someone brings up feminist issues. You could simply throw your hands up and scream "NOT enough jiggery pokery, right!?"

If you do it often enough, you may find it has many positive side effects, such as inspiring the conversation to go in completely new and interesting directions.

Or, there may be a couple of minor, slightly negative, side effects:

• You may find people wanting to repeatedly dip your head in the toilet. Not to worry, this is perfectly natural when you use phrases that don't exist in an attempt to get popular. You just need to have faith that after a few good flushings, you'll win them over.
• Initially, women will hate you and report you to the police. This is because your random non-existent phrase really does stink of rape. And remember, she never wanted to be talking to you in the first place, so it's an uphill battle.
• Expect to be punched in the face without warning, or king-hit from behind with a bottle or other available weapon, such as a medieval mace. Perhaps wear a helmet? You could color it nicely with crayons or permanent markers, or decorate it with ribbons and glossy paper, so it looks like you're attempting to be fashionable.
• You may be murdered. Again, perfectly natural, and something you may need to endure in order to seem normal.

Good luck, and I truly do hope people start seeing you as less of a weirdo. And remember, if you find your head submerged in toilet water with your eyeballs rubbing up against some homeless guy's discolored bloody turds, hey, at least you're trying.

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Mystery Poet Strikes Again!

Q: What do think of my latest poem?

1. Climaxing puppies...
2. Whack crap, tail flap
3. World wide WAP with a fat attack
4. Climaxing puppies...
5. Tear off my face and wipe your ass with it
6. Eat a bald tit
7. Climaxing puppies...
8. A t-shirt that fits you?
9. Don't mess with a shih tzu
Climaxing puppies...
Climaxing puppies...
Climaxing puppies.

A: I read this aloud, and in the distance I heard children screaming with delight. It was impossible that they could have heard the poem from that distance, so I can only assume they instinctively sensed it's emotional echo.

Such satirical cynicism, mixed with the innocence and hope of a child trying out for the baseball team and is fairly confident of being picked.

If you mixed this poem with blood-filled urine and black ichor from the devil's veins, it would still be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I would be keen to ingest it into every orifice of my body.

You're a national treasure, mystery poet, and I love you on behalf of every person on Earth.

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Apocalypse Soon

Q: With a global meltdown imminent, I would like to know how you're preparing for it Harv. I plan on basing my own survival on your sage advice - so please. Share with us less fortunate than yourself the wisdom necessary to overcome this bleakest of futures and survive into the new age.

A: Sure, dear reader; I am writing this from my lead-coated, underground bomb shelter as we speak.

There are a few precautions that everyone should be considering, in order to prepare for the global apocalypse:

1) Trade in your cash. When the meltdown occurs, your cash money will be worth EXACTLY the paper it's printed on. People will tell you to store gold, but gold also has little practical value in a post-apocalyptic, low technology society, where most of the leprechauns have been disassembled at a sub-atomic level. Personally, I have opted for peanuts. Not only are they a good source of nutrition and will provide great collateral in a bartering society, they are damned delicious and go well with beer. It's lonely down here in the shelter.

2) Impregnate someone. It sounds silly, but if your face is melted off by excessive UV exposure, or your body is disintegrated to a pile of steaming custard by a nuclear blast-wave, your offspring is a way to survive beyond physically surviving. Obviously, this does not apply to women. I'd advise women to become more slutty and less choosy -- and then tell me what bars they are planning to hang out in.

3) Invent time travel or teleportation. It may sound like science fiction, but this is an area of research that the human race is really slacking off in. Sure, I've been dabbling myself, and have actually been able to transport my hand across the room 20 metres, only to get it stuck in a cement wall and spend hours with a hammer and chisel trying to free it so I could sew it back on. But, even though I can definitely do it alone, it would be slightly faster if we also had the world's greatest minds to support my efforts.

Eventually, I'm planning to make a clone of myself, implant my memories in it, cryogenically freeze it, and teleport it into the far reaches of space. That way, if we destroy the planet, at least our greatest natural resource -- me -- will be preserved. The aliens should know how to thaw me out and revive my massive intellect.

Please, though, whatever you do, don't shoot talentless hacks like Lindsay Lohan or David Hasselhoff out there after me, no matter how much money they throw at the problem.

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World-Wide-Weariness!

Q: I've TRIED going online plenty of times; signed up for Facebook, Friendster, IMDB, CNN and even Twitter. But no matter how hard I try to entertain myself, I'm completely underwhelmed by it all!

I watch my friends and co-workers jumping online, clicking away, cackling uproariously and high-fiving each other as they surf -- but I just don't get it!

What's so good about the internet?

A: Well, dear reader, you have found one good thing about the internet, haven't you?

AskHarv is a miraculous resource for informative, and life-changing information, and it wouldn't be possible without this interconnected mess of wires we call the internet.

I used to laugh with my friends that if only I could somehow impart my knowledge onto a small handful of the general populace of the planet, it would probably solve all human issues in under a day.

Sure, I've only been able to impart a small fraction to the power of some astronomical number -- a number no calculator or computer would recognize as larger than zero -- of my knowledge via this medium, but even that has had positive intangible benefits to the world, and the universe. Perhaps even dimensions of space and time we have yet to recognize consciously, too.

Other than that. Meh. I could take it or leave it, too.

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Mmm... M&Ms...

Q: Ever wonder when you eat these little chocolate pieces...who actually print's the M&M on these little dudes???

A: You may believe it's Santa's elves, highly intelligent ticks with tiny fountain-pens, or even aliens from the planet "Alpha Candori" that perform this intricate task! But, dear reader, unfortunately the truth is much less interesting: fairly simple machines, designed by man.

However, your question has relevance in the field of ultrafast laser micro-machining, as the text on M&Ms were a precursor to this interesting field of miniaturization research.

Recently, researchers from the manufacturing firm Micreon GmbH managed to create a pair of glasses fitted to the head of a fly. And the amazing thing is that, not only did they fit, they were stylish!

I have heard, through my contacts at Nasa, Harvard and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, that Micreon's next project will be lubricated, vibrating condoms for African Dung Beetles. Admittedly, male Dung Beetles do get a whole lot less sex than you might think, but, when they do manage to get laid, they have an notoriously immutable talent for two things:

• producing offspring with almost every pop
• providing very little pleasure for the poor female shit-bug

That latter is, in large part, due to their horrific stench (yes its abhorrent even to females of the species), but it's still a praise-worthy research-goal nevertheless.

Slightly less praise-worthy is their other high-priority project of the moment: M&Ms that are 1/1000th the size of regular candies. I have seen a proof-of-concept, and to me it looks just like a multi-coloured bag of sticky sand -- and to be quite honest, it melts in your hand a lot easier than the regular size.

In my assessment: EPIC FAIL!

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Three times the charm!

Q: Are we close to a World War Three?

A: Yes, dear reader, we most certainly are. Every week I'm surprised that no one got nuked that particular week, and predict that it must happen the following one.

However, being anti-war is a little knee-jerk, I feel, as war provides many benefits to human kind, such as:

• Population control: war tends to wipe out a lot of people, and since a large percentage of our current population is essentially useless, chances are we'll cull quite a lot of those.
• The end of worry: sure, you may be one of the unlucky majority who gets their faces melted off, but, let's face it: we're due for one, so lets just get it out of the way so we can stop worrying about it.
• Mutation: the nuclear fall out from war would be devastating, sure, but if we ever want to see a real life version of the TV show Heroes or the comic book X-Men, we better get some significant sources of radiation going soon. Evolution relies on mutation, and we haven't had anywhere near enough of it lately.

I would suggest worrying less about war and more about things like, say, reality television. We can't stop war, but we CAN try get the ratings of shows like Survivor, Big Brother and Idol down as low as possible. That way, after the big war is over, the fledgling post-apocalyptic society that emerges won't remain under the misapprehension that such shows are cool and keep making them.

If we're not careful, they may even think its a good idea to clone Lindsay Lohan, or, heaven forbid, Gwyneth Paltrow, from the ashes of their blow-fly-ridden, charred, rotting corpses.

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Religious Work-Experience

Q: Hey Harv, now that religion is dead, what do you think would be a good job for Jesus?

A: Well, I guess the son of God would have many useful applications once retired from the position of savior of humanity. Here are a few ideas:

1. Doctor. Admittedly, this is a little off-the-shelf, but you can't deny that Jesus' ability to heal any disease or ailment would come in very handy in the medical profession. However, job satisfaction would be an issue, as healing isn't particularly challenging for Jesus, and of course getting an appointment would be a nightmare. He would drive pretty much all other doctors out of business, too, which may lead to another unfortunate and bloody crucifixion.
2. Fashion designer. Jesus' attire wasn't especially fashionable in the 0's, 10's and 20's, but his flowing robes and sandals MUST be due to make a come-back by now! I can imagine Paris Hilton being very interested in getting the secret to Jesus' patented "glowing head" look, too.
3. Writer. He has already provided the storyline for one bestseller. If anyone can challenge John Grisham, Stephen King and Dan Brown, it would be the Christ himself. He has access to one of the more intriguing characters in literary history ( I would imagine he'd have a tendency for asides, rambling descriptions and possibly a little narcissism, but it would be nothing a good editor couldn't fix. Perhaps blogging would be more his style.
4. Pool Attendant/lifeguard. Walking on water, anyone?

Whatever he would choose, I'd make a point to be a loyal customer.

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Dream a Little Reality

Q: I sometimes ask myself, "Is life a dream?" Is life really a dream?

A: An interesting question, one that has been put forward by philosophers, writers and poets for many centuries.

Some posit that, when a person is in a dream, the dream becomes the real world and the real world becomes a dream. And that, if one were to dream about having a dream, then THAT dream world would become a dream and the first-level dream world would become reality. The "real" reality at this point would be a fading, distant memory at best, and would seem less real to the dreamer than the second-level reality his mind had created from the less tangibly real "real" world.

I often ponder these interesting and layered theories, but mostly find my nose spouting violent jets of snot-flecked blood when I do so.

So is life a dream?

The answer, sadly, is no. You've just watched "Inception" too many times.

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Canine Clamping

Q: A Rottweiler just clamped its teeth on my balls and won't let go. Should I be concerned?

A: No, dear reader, there is nothing to worry about.

Although our friend the Rottweiler does possess the strongest bite-strength of all canine breeds, he still gets tired eventually like any other animal.

You just need to withstand the pain longer than the dog does, and it's a known fact that the Rottie has a notoriously low endurance threshold for pain!

If you're worried about more damage being done to your testicles while you play this dubious waiting game, take solace in the fact that, odds are, the majority of the damage was done during the initial biting motion and won't be particularly worsened by the lack of blood-flow or additional crushing force applied by the dog's jaws. No leverage, you see.

Just watch out for any kind of sawing motion.

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