Advice for January 10, 2007

Hey! Wait, what? Say what? ...I ain’t been around dolin’ out the free help for eight months? Well, whatever. I guess I just lost my taste for the biz. It happens to all the great players—we need time to grow and learn and chill with Cameron Diaz in Antibes. (Yes, a little, and three times.)

Fortunately, I found my taste for the biz again yesterday afternoon (turns out, I had left my taste for the biz at the bottom of a glass of delicious Ten — silly me! It was right there next to my taste for bein’ SO happy about gin and my taste for orderin’ hella sneaks off Zappos.com).

Enough about what’s good with me. Let’s hear what’s bad with you. -=Ray=-

Since you're totally loaded, I'd like to know how to get a huge horde of money. I've been putting a slice of cheese and some hot sauce from Chipotle in my cup of noodles to get by and I don't know how much longer I can last before my innards turn to mush. If it helps, I'm going to college and all but I'm an English major so I'm kind of screwed. Help me out dude, I'm dying over here.
Bill B, Colorado

Dear Bill,

Yeah, I seen many dudes in that rut when I was finishin’ out my semester in the dorms at the local community college. Guys were eatin’ worse stuff than you, like powdered laundry soap with Tabasco, just tryin’ to memorize one more equation or Spanish word. The lowest, I tell you. My heart went out to those dudes, so later on, before their finals (I only took golf, so my finals were pretty mellow), I threw a little “Teach a Man to Fish” party. Yeah, we did it up as right as you can do it in a dorm. Showed ‘em how you can use a ten-speed rim as a mad-ass improvised grill, how you can set a poo on fire as fuel for the grill (sometimes it’s all a dude has to offer the world), and how to pound cheap meats real flat and marinate/tenderize them for grillin’ usin’ nothing more than the bottom of your lob wedge. Good times, although I did get evicted.

In a nutshell: “Bike wheel, meat deal, poo.”

I finished High School in November last year, and am taking a Gap Year, a year off before University, because I don't feel ready to head back to class as it were. I am trying to find work, but not having much success. What pearls of wisdom do you have for those in my position, and what sort of job is fitting for a young dude in this crazy modern world?
HP, Brisbane, Australia

Eighteen, huh? Starbucks, man. Just make some cash. You ain’t gonna get a job designin’ skyscrapers or anything. No adult in his right mind would even say hello to you, let alone have you do a job that requires any interpretations or decisions. Sorry to bring the icky reality of it all down around you, but even though you sound like a smart, ambitious kid, you are to the workforce what a sticky noodle is to an almost-clean dish: somethin’ that better be gone before customers show up.

I’ve only recently started drinking hard liquors, and have found an affinity for bourbon and cokes, but the coke seems to always get flat when mixed, is there a way to prevent this?
W.S., Internet

Dear W.S.,

You mixin’ hooch with soda pop, and yo soda pop is losin’ its sparkle? It ain’t like they gonna sic Hawking on this one. You want some bubbles in yo Nas-Tee Tayst? Drop in some Alka-Seltzer and you got yourself an Ed Sullivan.

I'm in my grad year of high school [...] I have this pity friend who has pulled me into a D&D club, is the spitting image of "Comic book guy," pretends he's Bruce Lee in public, and says "Greetings humanoid" when shaking hands with strangers. This does absolutely nothing good for my social life. However, we've known each other since I was about nine and I don't have the heart to ditch him. Since there's only one university around and I want to know people that don't spend most of their time drawing bad japanese cartoons, how do I distance myself from him and his geeky pals without moving to another province?
Steve from Up North

Dear Steve,

Let me get this straight. This dude is part of an active D&D club, enthusiastically greets strangers, and has an enormous SciFi support system available to him? Sorry, but...sounds like you’re the hanger-on, dude. I bet that when you’re not around, your “friend” refers to you as, “an enormous Klingon-berry!” and also, “my first wife, from when I was a gay, tubby soldier, freshly afoot on the plains of white time immortal, making way ‘crost the sands of yon chance...a boy in the clothing of Shame el-Incarnate.”

I am engaged to be married and for some reason I agreed with my fiancee that we should write our own vows. So here's the deal: writing vows is really hard for me and I have to read them in front of 200 people. Any advice? What would you say if you were in my place?
Thanks, Ben

Dear Ben,

Yeah, bad call. Once you been to a few weddings, you realize ain’t nobody gives a damn if you readin’ custom vows or the 1987 “Let’s Go!” guide to Bahrain. Just use that stuff about Do/Don’t and Sickness or Health and you gonna get the job done. Why you got to go past the sale — ain’t gettin’ married enough?

* A Gentle Reminder (“Disclaimer”): This is advice from a cartoon cat, and should not be taken seriously. We are not responsible for anything you do based on what Ray says, or otherwise. Do not commit suicide or otherwise interrupt the lives of others. Continue on with your life as though you had never read this column. Erase your browser history. Not for readers under 18 years of age.