Posts by Gabe the Beaver:
Dear Editor-lady,
Gabe the Deontological Beaver here with my jam-packed submission for your peanut butter-packed newspaper. Do with it what you will, though hopefully you will print it. Also, I assume you shall contact me if I do end up ‘winning’ this mysterious and death-defying contest.
In any case, there’s a slight problem with the time-space continuum. See, I happen to be in North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia on a three month exchange at this particular moment and I cannot stop by Corbett Center and pose for your splendid photographers.
There is, however, a second option (I call it Option B). I have a predrawn head-shot and full body shot that you could gladly publish. I have attached my favorite picture of myself in both .jpg and .tif file formats, which I assume are appropriate for your needs. Let me know if these are not correct or if you would like for me to send my head-shot instead.
I also have a designated artist in New Mexico whom I could get to contact you if so desired. Alternatively, you could take a picture of a potato, a large piece of living room furniture, or some random mammal and claim that it is me. I’d bet my own mother would have difficulty telling the difference.
In any case, I look forward to my competitor’s article and wish you a grandiose year.
Love,
Gabe D. Beaver
Advice Columnist sans the Advice
Pix Capacitor
[obviously, the text proceeding the word 'obviously' is not to be printed]
Tao of Gabe
Gabe the Illustrious Beaver here with the results of his year-long odyssey into the college student psyche. It turns out they spend most of their time playing Spider Solitaire and poking people on Facebook.
College is where people find themselves… face down in a pool of their own vomit. Actually, that’s an exaggeration based on a stereotype that is perpetuated by the media. I shouldn’t perpetuate that image, but as I’m now part of the media, I find myself compelled to do so. I also feel compelled to cast a biased look at whatever politician you happen to prefer and promote whichever political idealogy you happen to detest.
I digress. The point was to explain what college students think (in case you, as a college student, didn’t know).
Not all college students are the same. While some could entertain you for minutes on end with stories of their drunken escapades against the parking department, many college students are content muttering ominous death threats while hovering around for parking (the adult version of musical chairs).
Similarly, while some students bed dozens of partners, others remain virgins until their postgraduate days. If you think that’s sad, I bought a 12-pack of condoms in March and I still have 11-and-a-half of them left.
Then there is the other part of college that nobody mentions: classes. College would be so great if it weren’t for the classes. Then, as if it weren’t enough to be made to pay to do extra work, they make you buy books that you’ll open once before each test and then never again. Don’t lie; you know you complain more about how heavy your books are than how hard.
That’s the reason that every semester I look in my wallet and I say to myself, “Gabe, this money isn’t going to last very long, so you’re going to have to spend it really fast!”
Luckily, college isn’t just surfing the web, drinking, and complaining about parking, sex, and classes. No, if you truly want the college experience, you can do so much more.
You could live in the dorms, for instance. Everyone that’s lived in one would recommend it, I know I do. Of course, we only recommend it because we don’t think it’s fair that nobody warned us beforehand. It turns out that it? not very fun to overpay to live with the dirtiest people this side of Mississippi and eat the same tired food day-in and day-out.
Then, if you still feel you’re not getting the college experience, you could join a sport, become a Greek, or join a club like SANA: Students Against New Acronyms. It is definitely advisable to do at least one of those– or so we hear from the testimonials on the brochures.
College is a little of everything, really. Sometimes, while trying to make sense of it, I feel as if I’m the only sane person in the world and that makes me feel crazy.
Love,
Gabe D. Beaver
“Remember Kids: The college experience is a hoax perpetuated by the media!”
August 23, 2005 at 5:37 am | In note to self | | No Comments
To Whom it May Concern,
I received my Ph.D. in Phrenological Psychology from Amsterdam University in 1993. After that, I opened an independent practice where I promptly drew criticisms for my support of eugenics in primates (Eugenic Nullification, I called it).
When my practice failed, I took up a job in the circus. That’s right: I took tickets for a living.
Despite this minor setback, I managed to get a job dispensing advice for Panther Tracks in 1998. Slightly before the publication folded, I went to work for a local newsletter and transferred to Carver’s BT in March of 2001. It was there where I experienced the life-changing divorce that made me a Taoist.
Since then, I’ve welcomed my readers with the various mini-adventures that I’ve undertaken including reading an encyclopedia, eating a restaurant, divorcing 2.5 women, voting for Badnarik, exposing my rabid bias against tall people, and convincing them all that they share my deep-running lime-green state values.
I’m a multi-lingual Dutch-Canadian who knows all about psychotic disorders through first, third, and fourth-hand experiences. I have a Bachelor’s in Cross-Gendered Studies and have run into every problem humans have many times over. Furthermore, as I hate most humans, I am the perfect person to tell them what to do.
Qualifications to actually give advice come from years of earning trust and living wisely. Since I’m a psychologist and don’t have the time to do this with every patient, I make up for it by keeping all of my degrees displayed prominently (and polishing them every fortnight). People usually ask me silly questions and I respond in kind, but when someone has a serious problem, I am as serious as a non-silly bout of cancer.
July 29, 2005 at 5:34 am | In note to self | | No Comments
Dear Editor,
As a reclusive beaver with an only marginal grasp on reality and and even more marginal grasp on the concept of humans, I’ve realized that I’m the perfect person to give advice to the growing New Mexico State University population.
That’s right, I caught sight of “In the Sack with Sak” last semester and I realized one thing: few people know how to give or take advice (that last part is what keeps us advice giving mammals in the business). Therefore, this semester, after overhearing my current editor talk about the opportunity you’d offered him some months ago, I’ve decided to offer you my services.
I can write a biweekly, semimonthly (or semiweekly, bimonthly?) column between 250 and 800 words in which I give fantastic advice to weak-minded humans… completely free! Granted, I only offer to work for free because I wouldn’t be able to cash a check even if I had it in my own paws.
I’ve been giving advice professionally since December 1998 in an early edition of Panther Tracks. Since then, I’ve worked for Carver’s BT and Pix Capacitor (that last one is a bit of a stretch. Most of the people that pick up a copy do so only to light their cigars). I have a built in fan-base and never miss a deadline (the deadlines miss me :).
So what do you say? Would you publish my column if I sent it to you every fortnight (I’ll even provide nice little pictures for you)? I assure you, you’ll possibly not regret it!
Let me know (I can provide samples, if you wish).
Huzzah!
-Gabe, the Illustrious Beaver
July 21, 2005 at 5:40 am | In note to self | | No Comments
Dear Readers,
I just finished the Wikipedia Americana. Yes, I know I started off reading the Encyclopædia Canadia, but that’s just one of my quirks. I always finish things I didn’t even start. It’s the reason my divorce was so complicated—
I never married that bitch!
I married that beaver!
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Dear Gabe,
You never answered the second part of my question: what’s the nutritional value of boogers?
-Joe Jessy
Dear Joe,
Your body gets rid of the buggers for a reason (wow, first time a British insult has come in handy when I wasn’t around the late Queen). They’re not good for you. Nasal mucus is 95 percent water. The other five percent includes proteins, fats, carbohydrates, salt, dirt, and germs. So it doesn’t particularly hurt you, but it gives you bad breath (hey! It was research!), looks bad, and is just plain gross. Besides, the healthy beaver nose produces more than a pint of snot a day, you just don’t realize it because little hairs called cilia beat along the passages to move the mucus down the back of the throat. Yum, yum.
Dear Gabe,
I saw someone up on a high tower with a high-powered rifle. He said he wanted to hurt people, but I just thought he was going to the cafeteria. He gave me a list and said “You know what to do,” but I don’t! Do you think I should go to the cafeteria to look for him?
—Joe Jagear
Dear Joe,
Not if you don’t want to look stupid. If he said “you know what to do” and meant it, then you should probably go from person to person on the list and find out what they have in common before he catches you and thinks less of you. You wouldn’t want an unstable, total stranger to think less of you, would you?
So, I recommend you target the straight-shooters first. They’re sharp and won’t give you any bull so that you’ll go through the list quickly. Get the lead out, you don’t want to have to rifle through the list at the last minute. Besides, high caliber people could hammer this task out in minutes.
Just don’t rush it. You never know when you’ll be in this guy’s sights…
—Gabe—
May 3, 2005 at 7:51 pm | In note to self | | No Comments
Dear Readers,
I’m still reading the encyclopedia and for the first time in a long time, I feel like an educated beaver. I was always in the bottom third of my graduating class. In fact, PhD’s from my graduation year are only worth a certificate of completion from any other junior high school in the nation.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Dear Gabe,
I know when to underline and italicize, but what’s the etiquette for using bold?
— Joe Typeface
Dear Joeface,
You use bold when you want people to realize how stupid they are. Or when you’re hiding secret codes. Also, when your writing isn’t clear by itself. Whatever.
Dear Gabe,
We recently ran out of toilet paper at my house so I went to a friend’s apartment and stole some two-ply T.P. from him. I made up for it by leaving two single-ply rolls I’d previously stolen from a faceless corporation (in other words, my mom’s house). Now my friend is mad at me. Did I do something wrong? How does this upset the Karmic balance of the universe?
-Joe Econo
Dear Joe,
Ah. I get it. See, you thought that two-ply (2x) was twice one-ply (1x), but toilet paper doesn’t work that way. It’s like the Richter scale, each number is thirty (30x) times greater than the prior. So you still need to give your friend 28 rolls worth of single-ply to make up for their property that you wiped your ass with.
Dear Gabe,
In your last issue you gave a lady some advice on nose-picking. I’d always heard that this is bad for you. Is it? Also, what are the nutritional values of boogers?
—Joe Jessy
Dear Joe,
Why don’t I ever get the normal questions like “how can I find a sexy beaver to cuddle up with?” Okay, Joe, after some research, I’ve found the answer to your question, courtesy the Straight Dope.
The only real danger of nose-picking is that you will somehow break the skin and give root to an infection which could spread to the base of the brain. Then yes, I guess picking your nose could prove deadly, but how often does that happen? I stand by my original advice.
—Gabe—
Write to Gabe!
He needs to fake a paper trail for the IRS.
April 9, 2005 at 5:56 pm | In note to self | | 1 Comment
Page 8 of 10« First...«678910»
