I had a short fantasy about Gwen Stefani at a traffic light in my wife’s car this morning.
The fantasy was about Gwen Stefani on a golf course: I was in my wife’s car because the Doblo decided this morning the weather was too damp for the windshield wipers to work.
The fantasy goes like this:
Mig: I’m going to catch 40 winks in the cart, Gwen. Wake me up when we get to the 19th hole.
Gwen: Okay, Mig.
Advice: see what I’m thinking with this is you have the cultural wisdom, the wisdom you grow up with, that which your parents or society in general try to impart. And then you have the wisdom you figure out for yourself.
There are usually good stories attached to the latter kind. Like, don’t try to climb stone monuments while drunk: I’d love to hear the story behind that one.
At a bookstore recently I was looking at a book about taking your life back at midlife (i.e. reclaiming one’s life, not committing suicide). It depressed me so I put it back on the shelf, but it mentioned the value of what we have learned, the wisdom we gain through living and so on.
Right there in the bookstore, I couldn’t think of a damned thing I had learned that anyone would be interested in. I suppose if I would apply myself, I could think of several. But application takes effort, so I’m just asking you for your wisdom instead, with stories where interesting.
I am of two minds about self-help books. On the one hand, I would like to help myself. On the other, most self-help books strike me as a single seed of wisdom (or not) expanded into a book by some twat with an editor and time on his hands.
Any of these pearls of wisdom here could be expanded into a book. Think of all the time and money we are saving when we post them here, and all the idiots we are putting out of business. I will go first and try to add a few after all:
- Again, to lose weight eat less. I am repeating this because the weight-loss book/etc industry is so large. This is all there is to it: burn more calories than you take in. Is that so hard? Get used to the feeling of hunger. Relax, you won’t starve – the food is available, you’re just not eating it. Skip a meal or two. Daily.
- Again, because the stop-smoking industry is fairly large: to stop smoking, you have to stop smoking.
- Relationships: avoid romantic relationships with people who have one or more screws loose. Also: if it feels weird, it is weird.
- Fashion: you can’t go wrong with a dark suit, unless you work in some fashionable industry in which case you don’t need fashion advice, or if you live somewhere where no one wears suits. But the world would be a better place if all grownups wore dark suits, at least the men. And drank whiskey. The women could wear little black dresses and they would all be hot and look like Gwen Stefani and drink gin.
- Woodworking: cut away from yourself.
* If you have a large beak [www.goodplasticsurgery.com/archives/005066.html] get it carved down. You’ll look much better for it.
you’d think she’d do something about that thing between her eyebrows.
So I’m not the only middle aged man listening to No Doubt cd’s wondering how a 35 year old woman can sound so young and hot? She looks pretty good in the videos too.
Here’s how: “Tony called me and I was like, ‘Dude, I suck.’ And he was like, ‘Dude, come over.’ So I went to his house and a bunch of our friends there were playing these tracks that Tony was doing that were, like, stupid. I was like, “You did not do these.” And he’s like, ‘Yep, you wanna hear your tracks?’ And I was like, ‘Nuh-uh, you did not.’ So he pulls out this one and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s my song.’ ”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/people/202261_people06.html
Regarding “How to make money doing…..whatever” books: My thought is that if this is such a good deal, why is the author writing about it? If this is a good way to make money, then the person would be making money and not writing books. This is especially true for books on “How to make money in the Stock Market”. People who write about how to sell short or how to day-trade obviously lost their shirt(s) and are trying to recoupe some of their losses.
“How to make money in Real Estate”…Dudes!! Give me a break! If you are making 100% on capital per deal, then you’d be doing that and not writing books about it. My considered opinion on all of this genre is to avoid it like the plague. Same can be said of gambling books. In fact, these are all gambling: stock trading, real estate flipping, Texas Hold-‘em.
Oops…hot button…I work in a Barnes & Noble store these days…I get pretty cynical about this genre of books…
Only yesterday, I was thinking that the single most valuable thing I’ve learned over the years could be distilled to two sentences:
“It takes longer than you think. Plan accordingly.”
Are we still playing the Advice game? I forgot to post when it started.
First, a bunch of related buying advice that all comes down to: don’t do it.
If it’s such a great book or movie, it’ll still be great next year and you’ll be able to buy it cheaper or borrow it for nothing; if it’s bad, you won’t be one of the guinea pigs to discover that. Use the library.
If it’s something you didn’t want last year, you probably don’t need it this year, no matter what your propagandized brain is telling you.
If you already have a fully functional something or other (especially an electronic gadget) but you think you need a newer one, don’t buy it. Or if you can’t stop yourself from upgrading, at least stay one or two generations behind — you’ll get it cheap and with all the major bugs worked out. For example, if you plan on getting a flat-screen television because you suddenly realized that your current television just isn’t flat enough, first try slapping yourself out of it. But if the brainwashing will not be denied, at least wait another year or two, because you’ve lived this damned long without one and never even noticed. This approach will also stop you from committing most fashion crimes — buy fashions that are at least a year or two old and are still being sold to and worn by folk you don’t mind being lumped together with.
If you’re buying something because you think it’ll make you look smarter or sexier or cooler, don’t bother. Smart, sexy, cool people can, for example, wear burlap potato sacks and still be smart, sexy, and cool; people who aren’t will look like a bag of potatoes. You cannot buy your way out of your predicament by adding more possessions to the heap you are sitting on. If you have to spend money on this problem, spend it on confidence lessons or hypnotism or a decent education or something.
i just got up and i’ve not had coffee, but in this state of non-awake i’m happily seeing the world as full of men in dark suits, drinking whiskey. i wouldn’t mind looking like gwen, and i like gin. i like black dresses.
it’d would be a good looking world. also, sort of drunk.
And if that doesn’t work, move to another continent.
It’s weird how you seem to be writing about my life. And I don’t find your advice funny; actually, I think it’s spot-on and dead serious.
I don’t know, I was just watching a women at work, appearing to be well over 30 but wearing fishnet stockings and then dark stockings over the top of them that went up to her knees, leaving this nice stretch of fishnet stocking between her knees and her skirt.
Now the money she spent on this outfit may not have made her happy or feel younger, but it did make ME feel happy…
Not sure what that means in the grand scale of things, but more happiness can’t be bad can it?
Who is Gwen Stefani?
(heh,just kidding)
I set all our clocks to her.