Stop Waiters From Thieving Your Money By Kicking Their Asses

I bet you all saw how to do checksum tips several months ago (I'm linking to Punny because Punny is awesome. Go read it). Something about this has always bothered me. It's not the math; I fucking love math. Whenever I walk into someone's kitchen I always count the tiles along the edges and multiply them together; I can recite a whole lot of powers of 2 in one breath; one time I got a math question wrong on a test and my teacher was so dismayed, he made everyone else answer it wrong too. Et cetera, et cetera. The point being, I love math.

However, I am also a creature of habit, and I always tip the same way: the lowest multiple of $5 that is at least 15% of the bill; 20% if the service was memorable (and I wouldn't forget a memorable service). Yes, that means I tip $5 on $20 worth of food. No checksum required. I'm not about to sit around, paranoid, clutching my bank statement in my hand, wondering if some idiot waiter decided to give themselves a cash bonus. Life's too short to think about everyone stealing from you. When it's obvious somebody's ripping you off, don't rely on some arcane formula where it's not required; this is one of the fundamental aspects of programming, to take the simplest, most elegant solution, and kick the asses of everyone who breaks your shit. Or, you know. Buys themselves a pack of smokes on your dime.

Vegas Wins Subprime

Congratulations, fellow gamblerholics and people who moved to Vegas to get started on your career in the adult movies: we win subprime. According to all the news numbers, Las Vegas stands at the top of the US market of housing price drops.

I remember wandering around in Phoenix's totally awesome Copper Square, which is kind of like urban shopping, except more sexlike. I walked into a pawn shop that was closing its doors and holding a huge liquidation sale. As I browsed musical instruments and shotguns, the clerk made small talk with me. And by small talk, I mean I elicited his confession that Las Vegas was totally growing faster than Phoenix. I forced him to say, "We're number two". Which made me giggle in the store, because I thought he was talking about poop.

If you drive down some random streets on the south side of Las Vegas, you'll find millions of crackerbox McMansion communities, each development of which has about two residents. All the rest of the houses are totally and completely empty, because nobody actually wants to live in Las Vegas except for meth junkies, alcoholics, and aspiring transgendereds who are also prostitutes. After the subprime crisis hit, all the construction companies went "oh noes!" and watched as their gigantic housing projects did not form Voltron, as well as not getting any residents ever.

Personally, I think the solution is simple. Every single one of those houses should be turned into one of the three things we can't seem to get enough of in the valley: convenience stores with slot machines, music venues with slot machines, and casinos with cigarette girls (slot machines optional). If there's one thing Vegas has an awful lot of, it's old people who live their entire lives in front of the spinny flashy money eaters; why not open more venues to cater to them? Just like real estate, you can never have too many places to put video poker.

HostGator Serves With Active Malice

I am currently using three solutions for hosting sites: this site, which is being handled by Blogger; the Edible Unknown, which is hosted on a blazingly fast Gentoo virtual server on vr.org, and the sites Fancy hosts, which are being handled by HostGator.

Now, a virtual server is exactly that: a full Linux install on a chrooted box which gets fractional processor share. If you know how to configure your own server, running a virtual server is like having your websites personally kissed by angels, perpetually, all over the place. It's comparable to just having your own server in the first place, except you don't have to go colocate it yourself. For forty bucks a month, it's even cheaper than colocation.

Recently, however, certain issues with HostGator are leading me to believe that their servers are actually a networked grid of evil robots who delight in temporarily restricting access to individual files. On top of an annoying $10-per-domain jailed ssh fee, I've been working on applications, only to refresh and get an error that "xxx file cannot be found".

Obviously, the missing files are in plain view on their sluggish servers, and upon (multiple) refreshes, the website grudgingly gives up and lets the app work the way I coded it to, like some pissy cybernetic bear. I'm not enough of a *nix guru to understand how this can happen; every time I install apache on a server and leave it there, it tends to happily serve up all the files in the web folder, all the time. It's mildly annoying to work on a server where things are somehow magically worse at being a server than if you just left everything alone. And of course, there's frequent downtime and sluggish ssh response, but those are things I can deal with, if not necessarily like.

I'll be begging Fancy to move us to a virtual server as soon as possible. I can't say enough good things about vr.org. Love them. As for HostGator? Somebody with the skills please tell me how the heck they managed to achieve such a staggeringly mindblowing level of total and complete incompetence, kay?

5 Ways To Prepare Your Home For The Market

You've done it- you've completely used up all the magic in your house. When you first moved in, you'd walk into your kitchen, full of unpacked boxes; you'd take a deep breath of satisfaction and think, all of this is mine.

Nowadays, you stumble downstairs in your crummy housecoat, swear at the loose tile that keeps tripping you when you're not paying attention to where you walk, and look around the kitchen, full of unpacked boxes, and think, what in the world were we thinking when we moved into this hellhole?

Well, the housing market isn't going to fix itself overnight. We're heading towards recession at about sixty times the speed of debt, and if you want to move into another house and steal all their magic, you're going to have to make it look like you haven't squeezed all the happy-juice out of your own digs.

#1 Post Helpful Warnings Around Eyesores And Hazards
People love warnings. It makes you look thoughtful, like you actually care about the people dumb enough to buy your worn-out and totalled house. You don't, obviously, but if you run around the house with a few sticky notes, you can give the appearance of caring, while spending far less money than it would take to give this pathetic hovel the renovation it actually needs.

#2 Pretend Your House Is Haunted
With just a few well-placed electric fans, faulty light sockets, and timing your prospective buyers' walkthroughs to coincide with your noisy neighbors' after-dinner romp, you can convince the gullible to believe that the hitchhiker you brought home (hold on, I just need to stop off at home and get my meds) died 'as soon as you stepped out of the room', and is now wailing her vengeance. The only thing that keeps her from destroying your family are the protection runes on the wall. Yes, the ones that look like an unmedicated toddler went schizo with a sharpie when you were putting a little Irish in your coffee.

#3 Hang A Dreamcatcher
I have no idea what it is with people, but I swear- any middle-class family that walks into a cozy room with a dreamcatcher hanging from the ceiling suddenly go completely psycho digging for their checkbooks. The ones who manage to restrain themselves will try to ask a question or two about it: either they'll ask about witchcraft and crystals and copper bracelets and all that shamebait, or they'll ask if it has some sort of cultural significance. All you have to do in this situation is use the word "Navajo" in a sentence, and they'll probably throw their 401k in to sweeten the deal.

#4 Use Clever Distractions
During the walkthrough, it's inevitable a question or two will come up about the uninsulated wiring, a crack in the ceiling, or the fact that the house seems to have sunk two inches as soon as they walked in. Using prearranged hand signals, you can trigger a child to throw a fit. It's better if childhood violence is not the cause; try to get them to summon up real tears about all the kids starving in Canada or about the unicorns all getting eaten by dinosaurs or something like that. With some clever parentology, you can get everyone to gather in the dining room as you soothe your trembling child. Answer any additional questions with renewed outbursts of tears. The best thing about this strategy is that you only have to make one room in the house presentable. If you don't have children of your own, rent some.

#5 Seek An Alternative Market
Not able to sell to the people who normally hunt for houses? Look for America's "barely accepted" underclasses- homosexual couples, Wiccans, Turks, or ear-candling fetishists. A well placed pleasure-swing/pet sacrifice pentacle/coptic cross/box of earplug shaped crayons and you'll be initiated into the secret brotherhood of knob gobblers/fat hairy people/waffle-eaters/totally insane Japanese people. Once you're perceived as knowledgeable about their filthy rituals, they'll be far more likely to pay an outrageous price for your leavings. The best part? Everyone you hate living around now has to deal with them. Victory is sweet.

"Dance", Said The Coyote

Come, White Man.

Even though your ancestors destroyed us with their European ghost diseases, even though they took the heads of many braves and urinated on them in public, I will help you in your time of need.

You have come seeking enlightenment. You are at a turning point in your life, where you must listen to the wind. You have made the tribe rich with your many trips to our lodge casino. You are looking to score illegal drugs.

This is all okay. We are willing to let the ancestor spirits speak to you in return for the keys to your Nissan 350Z. The ghosts of the shamans have given their assent. They wish for me, the current shaman, to cruise down Ventura Blvd with a piece of hot white tail. They have shown me many visions of the future when I waited behind her in line for stamps at the White Man's Post Office. Their speakings must be fulfilled.

Eat the blessed fruit of the cactus. It is bitter with the realization of your guilt, your whiteness. Your mortgage debt. These things make the cactus bitter to you. To us, the Lake People, the blessed fruit tastes like Hi-C Ecto Coolers. It is your guilty white tongue which betrays you.

Do not mind. We are used to the white man vomiting on the ground. It is why we do not carpet the shamans' lodge. The fruit is too blessed to remain in your criminal albino entrails. I will call upon the squaws to remove this admission of culpability from the sacred circle.

Yes, yes my friend. You are witnessing the spirit world. Wakantanka is pleased that you have been shown mercy. I shall get an A on my spiritual report card for gifting you with this, just as you shall for blessing us with 18-inch cast aluminum alloy wheels.

What is that? No, my shameful caucasian friend. That spirit jar did not just move. Although I do agree with you, it would indeed be 'really trippy' if it had. Now listen. You must seek Coyote. Coyote, not peyote. You have already had the peyote. You must focus.

You say you see a gigantic antelope, eating the hands of a child. Yes, this may indeed be Coyote. Coyote is a trickster, and he takes many forms. The hand-eating antelope might just be one of his clever guises. Listen carefully. He may have more instructions for you.

Oh, my poor, remorseful, pale-skinned acquaintance. You do not have the ears of the People. The mystical language of Coyote is beyond your ability to comprehend. Please, repeat for me these "weird-ass noises" as best as your European tongue shall allow, and I will translate.

Yes. Yes. I understand. I will communicate to you what Coyote wants. It is a way to rinse yourself of blame that he describes. You must return to the casino. The roulette wheel shall give you the sacred numbers, which will grant you fortune when selected in Beaver Lodge Keno. You must be brave. You must be willing to dedicate the whole night to this adventure.

Remember, Early-Bird breakfast specials in Doubles Diner begins at 1 AM. Eighty seven cents, ham steak and eggs.

Future Imperfect

It seems like there's some self-improvement gene lodged firmly in the disgusting, filthy chromosomes of genus Homo, telling us that we'll never find the ecstasy of nirvana until we've not only caught up with the Joneses, but trampled their bodies flat and dated their daughters (Priscilla, plz call). It's the theory behind the millions of anonymous emails I get every day selling something to give me a little boost. The spammers who actually know me just keep asking what it's like being me, so they have something awesome-sounding to put in the messages they keep sending to everyone else.

I don't need the gym membership, thanks. I get plenty of exercise lifting that fifth of gin for all those reps. I feel the burn, babe. Mostly because gin tastes like vodka and perfume mixed together.

Improve my memory? You're making me laugh. There's a reason I take Ambien, and it's not because life is worth living to the last drop. Actually, about three-quarters of life is a miserable waste of time. That would be all the periods in time where I'm not programming, gaming, or secretly fantasizing about Neko Case threatening to cut me with a pocketknife.

Pills do not make you smarter. Reading doesn't make you smarter (though it does sensitize blah blah pathways blah I slept with your sister blah blah exercise your mind.) What I've learned through living and being smarter than everybody is that apparently, you get smarter by doing lots of drugs, never doing homework, and eating once every three days.

I don't need to improve my love life. If you have a thing for silent, motionless, and smelling of damp earth, your performance doesn't really matter an awful lot. It's like buying a Lotus Elan and using it to prop your garage door open.

Sure, I'm asian and I get sick frequently. What you don't know is that my body is basically Virus University; after incubating in me for three days, a harmless cold bug becomes a white-people killing plague. One time I was waiting in line for tickets to see Finding Nemo when I got one of those sudden sneezes, the kind that you just can't move fast enough to cover completely. Everybody in front of me immediately keeled over, but so did the ticket guy so instead of watching the movie I just jumped on the internet and found Nemo myself. He was in the bathroom.

CBYTE Dual-Processor Motherboard

It is the congratulation! Here you are having your very own CBYTE Dual-Processor Motherboard. Allow yourself the breath of victory! It is a thing to own this motherboard. In the follows are the instruction to have you put it into your computer machine.

The Assembling

The CBYTE motherboard is built for dual processor. It is important to have all the processor for your motherboard connecting at the joining place. Never cause your computer to start without every processor, for in doing so your feng shui will diminish and your lower parts will shrivel and recede into the abdomen. It is good spirits for the dual processor to be connected.

Also the CBYTE must have its RAMs. Without RAMs the CBYTE will hunger for remembering. Please do not make the CBYTE hunger in this way, for it is loyal and a servant to you.

The CBYTE is thirsty for memories, but not for cola. Do not sate the CBYTE with cola.

ISA and PCI Expanding

It is certain that you will not use the onboard video and sound modules, for they are lousy. Instead put your own video and sound modules into the fitting slots. If you do not have the network module it is no big deal. The onboard network module is not lousy. Using the 10/100/1000 built in network module will bring no shames onto your family and its name. The pornographies will still have tunnels with which to stream into your powerful machine. It is acceptable.

Setting The Jumpers

The CBYTE comes with the jumper switches set for a perfect harmony with the beep monster enabled and the onboard video, sound, and network modules working like a tiger. If you want the modules of your own, please examine the happy diagrams for changing the system. If you do not want the CBYTE working like a tiger, this is a glorious optionality.

It is harmful to some to hear the beep monster enabled. To remove the spirit of noise from your system, the jumper diagram on page 11 will show unto you the way. It is your motherboard. It must be used in the way which will bring you endless joy. We proffer thanks in the voice of the CBYTE to you. Beep, beep, beep.

She Really, Really Loves Me

Love	Creepy
Makes you dinner	Gives you a necklace made of mice she caught
Watches The Transformers Movie with you, cries	Watches Event Horizon with you, gets turned on
Writes you letters when you're away, gives them to you when you come back	Cuts herself to mark the hours you've been gone; names all her houseplants after you
Secretly fantasizes about Johnny Depp but doesn't compare you	Secretly fantasizes about her father, comparisons frequent
Smells like lavender	Smells like the morgue
Knitting	Taxidermy
Calls you pumpkin	Calls you uncle Roger
Misses you a lot	Ignores your restraining order

The Liars Are Out En Masse

Derek is posting up a storm, if you live in some bizarro universe where "storm" means "a couple drops of rain". Luckily, that's exactly what 'storm' means here in Vegas.

He seems to be intent on feeding massive lies to the common consumer, so I have to take it upon myself as someone who knows the truth to inform everyone about the massive web of disinformation he's passing out. Let's see if we can clear up all the mistruths so that everybody can go back to minding their own business.

Lie #1: He Visited Kentucky

This is total nonsense. Derek is afraid of string ties. He once called me from a Halloween party where somebody had dressed up like the evil priest guy from The Gunslinger. He was in a closet, peeking out at the guy through the crack in the door, crying into a bra some chick gave him literally two seconds after he arrived (I don't know how he does this but I suspect he carries Rohypnol). There is no way he'd ever visit Kentucky, even though the company he works for has a massive building there, because he would have freaked out. I once ordered KFC and he had a grand mal seizure as soon as he smelled 10 out of the 11 herbs and spices.

Lie #2: He Reads Fiction

Yet another horrible lie. If you ever walk into his house, you'll notice a few things: first, that he keeps girl scouts in his garage; and second, that the only fictional books in his house are those New Ager books by guys named Rajesh that tell you to do things like "focus your chakra" and "visualize your chi". I have a vague suspicion that these books are actually literary pornography. I mean, I remember the last time I focused my chakra, and it was in this bar where you had to do it up against the door in the bathroom because there aren't any doorknobs.

Knowing this, it's bizarre that he would give you details that are the exact opposite of anything he would do ever. Trust me, the only "teen fiction" he knows anything about is listening to little girls tell him they're past the age of consent. On the other hand, he would totally read a book about antimatter, because this one time I didn't see him leave his bedroom for a week, and when I got bored and accidentally burst in I saw him building something I swear was an android version of Maya Angelou. I couldn't be sure, though, because I only got a glimpse before he threw a handful of moths at me, and that night I had a dream about a giant rabbit that eats skyscrapers.

Lie #3: Up Up Down Down B A B A Select Start

Derek would never have memorized the Konami code with the select button. Using the select button means you're going to play two player. Derek grew up in total isolation in a sensory deprivation tank while being fed nothing but royal jellybeans by an order of blind monks.

Lie #4: ZFS Is The Greatest Thing Ever

ZFS "will" be the greatest thing ever. Like, when today's cutting edge disk access technologies become the mainstream disk access technologies. Way too many people have drives way too pathetic to handle the mighty powers of ZFS. If you don't know what ZFS is, let me tell you that it's basically having a horde of tiny Ron Jeremy clones in your hard drive, taking care of it in that way that only scary porn stars can.

Now that we've uncovered the thread of blatant falsehoods, it's pretty darn obvious that he's telling you all of this because he wants you to think he's got something in common with you, the book-reading, Kentucky-loving, two-player-Contra-gaming, non-ZFS-knowing pink American everyman. And the reason he wants to do this, I suspect, has something to do with the pill bottle clinking in his pocket.

(trackback)

Comfort Not Applicable

Oh, Joolz.

Nobody wants to have sex in a tent. I mean, why? Just... why? Is it the soothing sound of vermin crawling all willy-nilly right outside the door of your cramped little temporary boudoir? Is it knowing that maybe, just maybe, there's a bear watching?

I may not be able to offer an unbiased opinion, since both sex and nature rank right up there with snorting crushed glass on my list. I don't get the concept of wanting to bang out a contract with somebody in the bathroom of an airplane, for that matter. Whatever happened to people wanting to snuff the smurf in, you know, physically conducive locations? Places where two people might actually fit? Places without rocks?

Of course, I know your first argument will probably be something along the lines of wanting to change up your sex life. Personally, I think playing around with sex merely lengthens the duration of something that's pretty darn boring in the first place. There's the whole rush, true, which is why people continue to copulate and the world population soars, but there's drastically little you can do while actually performing the act. I mean, you can watch TV, talk on the phone, or recite all the swear words you know, but unless you have a particularly permissive partner, you can't:

• Play the piano
• Go make yourself a sandwich
• Practice your golf swing
• Look for porn on the internet
• Memorize the Bill of Rights
• Plunder graves
• Purchase illicit chemicals and insufflate them
• Complete a magazine survey to determine whether or not you're a closet homosexual

In fact, most of the suggestions you see out of people trying to get more bang for their buck include such timeless offerings as: roleplaying, which is stupid without a dice bag; positional variations, which actually make sense but don't really change the tab A - slot B functionality (much); and BDSM, which is an excuse to buy more clothing and a way to get your SO into D&D. And, of course, there's having sex in unusual and uncomfortable locations, like tents, walk-in freezers, and on a moving skateboard. None of which actually sound like any fun whatsoever, more like something you do when you've got the motive but need to improvise.

Also, I am now never ever going camping with you.

F You Too

It appears that Joolz' little girl, Justine, is getting bad grades. Now, I've been around to witness this action. The problem is that Justine is so disillusioned with the actual world - and by "actual world" I mean "everything except hanging out with friends and being totally wicked" - that she doesn't even hear mom telling her to go upstairs and do her homework so she doesn't end up forced to test whale feces for a living, or something. Seriously - from what it sounds like, her grades are bad enough to bar her from employment in a brothel.

Luckily, Joolz has the support of the most brilliant and attractive blogger in the entire world to help her out. The secret to solving any problem ever, as we see in every single episode of House MD, is to assume the problem is lupus and then do a differential diagnosis. Let's get cracking, folks. Everyone (except Justine) will be graded on this.

Lupus: If Justine is complaining of fever, malaise, fatigue, and joint pain, she may be suffering from lupus. Or, you know, any other disease ever. I mean, chances are, she's pregnant. Because, as everyone knows, being pregnant is totally bitchin'. If she *is* pregnant, I suggest you counsel her sternly, but under no circumstances should you ask her who the father is. Because, you know. Don't mess with him. I'm sure he's too busy blogging or being married or asian or something to have to deal with a baby. Just sell it or something.

Differential Diagnosis Symptoms: I own a lot of scrubs, so therefore I'm completely qualified to give accurate and prompt medical advice. First of all, since Justine has two X chromosomes, it may just be that she's stupid. I have witnessed the patient complaining about all sorts of imaginary problems; also, she's coming of age, which means you need to worry about her Aunt Flo falling off the roof, not to mention her being way too busy having sex with total strangers (who just happen to be totally punk rock) to understand her geography and orthography and such. Also, I'm pretty sure I heard her scream something about having a headache or hangover or something like that from upstairs, which is a sign of Lupus.

Lupus Again: Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease with no known cure, which means that the only way to treat it is through magic. Common side effects of lupus include receiving spam emails for C1@li5, playing World of Warcraft, and being a total tease. Of course, the World of Warcraft thing may actually be a symptom of another problem entirely...

Being A Fucking Geek: World of Warcraft, an expensive drug sold by Blizzard Pharmaceuticals, is highly addictive and has several worrying side effects. At least 3% of test patients exhibited the following symptoms: playing the fuck out of World of Warcraft, not doing anything apart from playing the fuck out of World of Warcraft, referring to all clergymen as "level 50 pallys", and not calling me back the morning after a torrid night of passion. Do not stop taking World of Warcraft immediately. Contact your physician and they will inform you how to taper off of the drug. Once you're off the WoW, your study habits should slowly improve, unless...

Innate Stupidity: Don't worry, Joolz. Stupidity is an atavistic trait, which means that Justine may have picked it up from a toilet seat. You can check for it by knowing the traits, which include characteristic walking into walls repeatedly, saying 'Duh' often, and not knowing how much to charge for a Cleveland Steamer. Stupidity is currently corrected through electroshock therapy.

That's pretty much it. I'm tapped. Hopefully, with these nuggets of completely true knowledge, you will be able to cope with a difficult situation and eventually live a seminormal life.

Take Two Of These

Why do bra ads always need to be pornographic?

I mean, I get it. You get more people to look at your ads. You sell more. Not having breasts myself, I can't say whether or not it helps to be able to see someone else's in the underwear. And let's face it, nobody really complains that there's boobies around.

But I've never seen some male model in underwear and thought, wow. Look at that guy's junk. I totally need a pair of those boxers. And if you're gonna try and sell on some poor girl's self-image problems, why not go the full monty and show some before and after with those double-padded bras?

Look, girls. You meet a guy. After whatever your personal courting time is, be it one hour or one year, the compatibility alarm dings or your ovary clock hits daylight savings time or [insert pointless metaphor here] or whatever, and you go home for a rousing game of Truth or Sex. Do you really think it matters what you look like by this point? The visual index is pretty much unimportant after the first glance. You're not gonna miss out on the Bow-Chicka unless you're a bow-wow, if you get my drift.

And trust me, if all systems are go, how many of you lie back in post-coital exhaustion and think, well. That was fifty dollars well spent. I mean, I think that all the time, but it's not the bra I'm paying for.

Real Estate In The Face Of The Subprime Meltdown

Stop breathing into that paper bag. Obviously, you listened to the queer-sounding guy at work who lives alone with three cats and has seen every movie you've never heard of in your life, who has been spending his spare time trying to get his real estate license. While he prattled on about Boxing Helena, you actually did the real estate thing, and managed to make a little horse-racing money on the side. Of course, Comes In First didn't, and now the real estate market is in a complete fucking shambles. (Editor's Note: If I don't say fucking at least once every post, this might stop being a hateblog.) Now, you need to know what to do in order to keep Jimmy The Fish from fracturing your patella.

There's some good news. First of all, those of us that are better than you are ensuring our great-great grandchildrens' financial and political superiority by using our super-secret society rings (i.e. our accredited investorship) to dump money into hedge funds raking up corporate bonds, so that companies like Countrywide and WaMu will basically owe us out the ass for a period equal to the half-life of radium. But, second of all, there are things you can do with those foreclosed properties you bought that are now about as valuable as origami rocks.

1. Rent Your Properties Under The Table.
Actual tenancy laws are hard on the slumlord- they require running water, lack of infestation, and building structures that stand for longer than a fortnight. Renting under the table, on the other hand, just requires that you overlook the obvious drug trafficking and white slavery that will doubtless go on in the property in exchange for you doing jack squat. Make sure that the people you rent to fall in the 'good renters' category, which includes:

• Extremely large immigrant families who pile six generations into a van and listen to strange cultural music in the middle of the night.
• College students, especially the twitchy kind. Twitchy folk are more conscientious and will make an extra effort to pay the rent on time.
  
• College dropouts, especially the twitchy kind. It's not their fault they dropped out; maybe they're just stupid.
• Foreign men who have a different woman with them each time they come to look at the property.
• Blind people, who won't be able to see the shoddy work.
• Extremely hot women, who you should attempt to work out a rent exchange agreement with.

After you have selected your tenant (known in this legal document as THE SUCKER), you should sign papers in a shady basement with nothing but one desk and a fan that makes that cool movie wuHwuHwuHwuH sound. Make sure to wear a dirty suit, as if though you are a member of the mob and just sunk some poor fool in concrete sandals. Scared tenants are paying tenants. Make sure to have a jar of cheap grocery-store tilapia caviar nearby, which you should eagerly spread on Krispy Kreme doughnuts and then stuff into your mouth right before you laugh at something and make all the caviar eggs fall out.

Should you come upon the rare situation where your tenant doesn't pay his rent, just politely use your spare keys (you do have spare keys, don't you?) and grab enough pawnables to make up for it. Bonus points for putting a webcam in the bathroom.

2. Shoot Porn
This is a rather easy one and a no-brainer. Just buy a filthy mattress (urine soaked is preferable), find a willing actress (that is to say, a broke actress) and some willing actors to help out (if you can't find these, you should fucking die).

3. Find Someone Stupider Than You
This is a difficult one to pull off, because let's face it. You're dumb as rocks. You bought this shit and you're expecting someone else to buy it. But these people do exist; they sit around at soccer games talking about their spoiled ugly children, have big-ass diamonds on their wedding rings, and have absolutely no idea there's a financial clusterfuck out there because their husbands are too smart to let them balance the budget or use the real plastic when they go shopping.

The secret is to buy yourself something. A car, a boat, a new suit. Now, walk up to Stephanie (their names are always Stephanie or Tiffany or something like that) and offhandedly mention
how completely loaded you are now that you've taken up real estate. Most of these women have no idea how to do anything except fork hubby's money over to the first taker; if you can bang out a proper contract, you might be able to legally require her to help you use another property to work out option #2 (see above).

I hope this guide has helped you out. And if I see you on my property again, I'll shoot your ass full of rock salt.

Medical Invulnerability

1. Cavities, known to excommunicated medical torturers as dental caries, happen when you neglect to brush after putting ANYTHING in your mouth, including open-mouthed breathing or kissing or what have you. For these purposes, you should coat your teeth in clear nail polish each morning.

2. Always bring high-proof alcohol to any gathering, ever. I mean, if there's only one syringe to share, you'll be the popular one, as you're the only one around who'll be able to sterilize it between injections.

3. When you see someone bleeding heavily, collect as much of it as you can, even if you have to lacerate your own hands and store some of it in your blood vessels for transportation to the hospital. Remember: modern science lets doctors tack missing fingers and toes back on. They've been doing blood transfusions for literally ages.

4. If you come upon a fellow diner choking in a restaurant, immediately fill your lungs with air, pucker up, and blow that offending chunk straight down their esophagus.

5. If your prostitute has suspicious sores on her mouth, just pay the extra money for a full on lay.