Seven Work Hacks for the Modern Office

Believe it or not, no actual work has been accomplished at this desk in over six months.

Let’s face it: you’re lazy as hell. You know it. I know it. You don’t want your coworkers to know it. But what’s your lazy ass to do, right? This is America. You  can’t climb the corporate ladder without sweating a little, right? Wrong. You don’t have to work harder to keep your job and get promoted. You just have to not work smarter. Follow these seven simple tips, and I promise you’ll be well on your way to achieving the American Dream of getting paid way more than you deserve.

1. Make use of the 80/20 rule. I’m not talking about the idea that 80% of your results come from 20% of your work. I’m talking about how 20% of the time you should make a big show of busting your ass, and then the other 80% you can do nothing. People are natural generalizers. It’s instinct. We try to notice patterns because it’s often inefficient to try to get to the truth of the matter by collecting enough data. You can take advantage of this by giving off the appearance of a pattern of hard work. Once people get that impression of you, you’ll have to fuck up pretty badly to get them to think anything else. As hard as this may sound, I’d recommend really doing a stellar job on your first project. Do way more than is necessary and in such a way that people really take notice. Make a presentation that wasn’t asked for. Stay in the office until everyone has left. Show up before everyone else. Then, after your reputation is established, come in late, leave early and do whatever the fuck you want. Now, I can already hear your objection. “Buhh…but I’m lazy. I don’t want to have to do that.” Not to worry. Where there’s a lack of will, there’s a prescription, which leads me to Tip 2.
2. You now have ADHD. Go to a psychiatrist and get yourself an ADHD diagnosis. It’s not hard and if your shrink doesn’t think it’s the right one, shop around. This is important for two reasons. First, it will get you an Adderall prescription. Adderall is the best. If they want to prescribe you some other drug or, god forbid, behavioral therapy, shop around. You might be able to weasel your way into the right drug by claiming allergies, but it’s probably easier to just go to another doctor. Adderall is useful for those times when you’re busting your ass to give the appearance of being a hard worker to establish a good reputation you can later take advantage of. You probably wouldn’t be reading this article if that sort of behavior came naturally, so why not make it come unnaturally instead? Trust me, this shit will make you a bionic work cyborg from the planet Allnightus. You’ll actually enjoy doing work. It will make even the most mundane, pointless shit seem impossibly interesting. Sound good? Good.
   

   The breakfast of champions.

   Now, the second reason you need ADHD is that it will give you a medical alibi for poor performance and may even get you some special treatment if you claim it as a disability. Have trouble getting the report done on time because the new Destiny DLC dropped? Sorry boss, it was my ADHD. I just couldn’t focus. I’m working real hard on it with my doctor. Just don’t feel like working today? Sorry boss, I’m trying but this ADHD is killing me today. Trust me, they’ll give you a pass. Disciplining you for a medical issue is a dangerous game. They won’t want to poke that hornet’s nest with a 20 foot pole. They’ll only do something about it if your performance gets crazy bad, and if that’s the case you can threaten to hire a lawyer and/or take your case to the media to try in the court of public opinion.

3. Wear a tie or whatever it is snappy dressers of your gender wear in your workplace. Make a little effort on something you don’t have to do and people will assume you put effort into the things you do have to do. It’s a well known fallacy of the business world that well-dressed people work harder. Maybe some of them do. I don’t know. What I do know is that people will assume you work hard and give a shit if you dress like a boss.
4. Don’t worry about getting written up. Write ups are the currency with which sanity is bought in the modern office. Large corporations are bureaucracies as byzantine and arbitrary as the federal government. It’s not a question of private vs. public that makes companies efficient. It’s a matter of size. The government becomes bureaucratic because it’s massive. Get enough humans involved in any type of organization and it’s pretty much inevitable that it will become chock full of random, pointless rules only the most anal retentive employees care about. You’ll find that the more time you work in the place the more you start to care, too. This is called insanity. Don’t fall into this trap. Getting written up doesn’t matter one goddamn bit so long as it doesn’t affect your ability to get promoted. I mean, for fuck’s sake, you think when Coca-Cola interviews a new CEO it gives two shits that Joseph in Accounting wrote him up for improper tabbing of his folders? Fuck that. The only people who care about that shit are the sort of lower level administrative employees who’ve been stuck in the same stupid job for 25 years and have nothing better to do than get in a huff about petty shit.
5. Memorize popular buzzwords and trendy business concepts, then spout them off to your coworkers to make it sound like you know what you’re talking about. We’re talking about the latest pseudo-scientific concepts, “lifehacks” and trendy business methods, as well as the classic empty bromides and corporate speak. We’re talking your disruptive innovations, your synergies, your butter coffees, your burning passion for fucking everything, your leaning in, your doing more with less. Any of that bullshit will do. Talk about how you try to have a personal relationship with your Lord and Savior Steve Jobs and go on and on about how he revolutionized literally everything you do, from taking a shit to making coffee into the beautiful, magical, made in Califuckingfornia experience it is today. The purpose is to create a smoke screen of value around the fact that you’re actually doing nothing. Your whole career is going to be like one of those false second stories they used to put on the front of buildings in the Old West. Trust me, that’s what you want even if you think you don’t. If you didn’t want that you would have gone into a real profession like science or teaching or medicine or something. Only tools and aimless, lazy shits like you and me go into business.
6. Never admit you don’t know the answer. Honestly, if you’ve been at your job for more than a year you should know this by now, but I include it because people still manage to make this mistake. People wouldn’t ask you the question if they knew the answer, so how are they going to know if you’re wrong? Nobody in the business world really has any clue what they’re doing. They’re all either lying or deluded. In fact, usually you start your career lying and by the end of it you’ve started to believe your own bullshit. That’s called personal development. Business is all about appearances. The appearance of confidence is far more important to success in the corporate world than actual competence. That’s called leadership.
7. Delegate, delegate, delegate. You don’t have to be in management to delegate. Anyone can delegate work to someone else so long as that person is willing to do it. This is a high risk, high reward strategy, mind you. It can easily garner you a reputation for “pawning shit off” on other employees, so be careful. I recommend biding your time, taking careful stock of the personalities and habits of your coworkers. What you need to find is that classic combination of workaholism, self-importance and spinelessness: the sort of person who thinks their dumb job actually matters, busts their butt all the live long day and won’t fight back no matter how much shit they get stuck with. It shouldn’t be a problem finding one of these little turds. Big companies love them because they’re willing to sacrifice practically anything for the same price as a regular employee. A good place to start is to keep an eye out for the sort of person who seems like an adult version of Butters from South Park. A key indicator is an aversion to profanity. Listen for expressions like heck, darn-it , rats and, if you’re really lucky, drat or fiddlesticks. Also look for frequent, overt expressions of gratitude, talk of “getting stuff done” on the weekends, an unusually high interest in lawn maintenance, a tidy haircut that wouldn’t be out of place in 1956, excessive patriotic zeal and someone who doesn’t drink caffeine, let alone alcohol. You’re basically looking for a Mormon, in other words.

Gold is Old: Why I’m a Rhodium Bug

William Hyde Wollaston, the original rhodium bug.

Everyone knows a true conservative’s investment portfolio should look about like this:

• 10% long term CDs
• 50% gold coins bought from reputable cable news advertisers
• 20% cash stuffed under a Smith & Wesson-protected mattress
• 10% firearms, antique swords and other Pawn Star-grade investment vehicles
• 10% patriotic, Christian and/or Elvis-themed display plates and similar collectibles

Fewer people, however, know that gold, popular though it may be, is no longer the fairest maiden in the land of precious metals. Sure, it’s had a good run. But as much as it pains me to say it, gold is old. It will probably provide some good returns for the time being, but do you want good returns, or do you want great returns? Do you want to be somewhat prepared for the coming economic collapse, or do you want an impenetrable financial fortress to rival your actual impenetrable fortress in rural Montana?

That’s what I thought. So what is this miraculous metal poised to give investors historic, unprecedented, Biblically-proportioned returns in the comings years? Is it platinum? Gold-pressed latinum? Unobtainium? No, no and no. As you’ve no doubt cleverly deduced from the title of this article, it’s a well-known but little-discussed precious metal called rhodium.

Rhodium, or as savvy investors often refer to it: the cobalt of kings, is the most valuable investment grade metal in the world. In fact, so valuable is rhodium that scientists actually refer to it as a “noble” metal, presumably because in times past only nobles could hope to invest in something so precious. During the first wave of America’s entitlement-fueled economic apocalypse beginning after the “election” of “president” Obama in 2008, the price of rhodium soared to over $10,000 per oz. To put that in perspective, gold, the investment choice of kings since time immemorial and probably the original noble metal, barely made it past $1,900 per oz during that same period. With rhodium now back down to below $2,000 per oz—and, more importantly, with the fat cats on Wall Street and those clowns in Washington thinking our economic problems have blown over—the time has never been more ripe for filling up your coffers with precious rhodium.

What kind of returns can investors expect? That’s a good question. No one can know for certain, of course, but odds are it’s going up…way up. During the inevitable second wave of economic collapse, some experts predict rhodium will reach prices exceeding $20,000 per oz. If you bought in now, that could mean a return on your investment of more than 1,000%! Good luck getting that kind of a return gambling your hard-earned savings in a rigged casino game like the stock market.

So how the heck did rhodium get so valuable in the first place? That’s a smart question, so I’m going to give you the smart answer. But hold on. It gets a little complicated, and I’m going to use a couple terms of art. Don’t be intimidated, though. If you weren’t smart enough to do  this, you wouldn’t have read this far.

See, the beauty of rhodium is that it possesses something savvy investment professionals and financial gurus call “intrinsic value.” That’s just a fancy way of saying that besides being rare, precious and highly sought after, rhodium also has real life, practical uses. Consider your prized AR-15 or replica medieval battle hammer. They’re not just works of art you keep over the mantle and could sell for a lot of cash. They’re also tools that can be used to defend your land. That’s intrinsic value.

What are these practical uses for rhodium, you ask? Well, do you have a catalytic converter in your car? If so, chances are it’s made with rhodium. Now think about this for a second: when most of the world is living in a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-style wasteland the lie-beral agenda bought us, people are still going to need cars, right? And if there are cars, there are going to be catalytic converters, aren’t there? You know what else that means? Yup. It means there’s going to be high demand for good, old-fashioned rhodium, which will be even rarer since mines will probably be out of  business or converted to producing nothing but overpriced, “green” light bulbs. That’s why you can count on rhodium.

Compare this to the so-called “money” that printing press we call the Federal Reserve puts out. Unless there’s a toilet paper shortage, that stuff has no intrinsic value. Like Monopoly money, it’s only valuable because our government says that’s a part of the game and people blindly follow. It’s what economists called a “fiat currency,” which is the opposite of one that has intrinsic value. You may have heard the term fiat before. No, not the car. I’m talking about ruling by fiat. It’s kind of order made by dictators like Benito Mussolini, his pal Adolf Hitler and our current president/emperor. Yeah, scary as it sounds, America’s whole financial system is based on the techniques of Mussolini and Hitler. Nice, huh?

Okay, okay. So you’re convinced. The question still remains: how much rhodium should you buy? Well, that’s somewhat a matter of personal preference, of course. Really, the question is how rich you want to get. Personally, I would put 100% of my investments into rhodium. However, I recognize that would be a big change and maybe you don’t have the guts for the huge profits that come from America’s safest, most reliable, most intrinsically valuable investment. If that’s the case, might I recommend this: switch out half your current portfolio with rhodium, just to give a shot. Give it a year. Once you realize it’s safe, then maybe switch out the rest of your portfolio, or at least sell the rest of your gold and replace it with good, ol’ rhodium. Sound reasonable?

13 Weightlifting Tips for Real Men

By Todd “The ‘Cep” Brock, guest contributor

Bro, let me ask you something: you wanna get huge? Sure. Who the fuck doesn’t? But it’s hard, right? What with all the bullshit promises and clickbait and infomercial junk, how do you separate what’s gonna get you sleeve-ripping slabs of lean muscle and what’s just gonna get your wallet lean? Well fear not, Todd is here to help you separate fact from fiction and get you ripped out of your fucking skull. Below are my top tips for anyone looking to step up his game and become a real man. Every last one has been critical to forging my award-winning, 28” biceps (no, that ain’t a typo, bro). If you want pythons like these you best absorb every last tip into your brain bucket and implement daily. Trust me. The days of you getting swirlies will be done. Soon you’ll be administering your own swirlies to all sorts of pencil-necked nerds, not to mention dipping your dick in more strange than you know what to do with.

TIP 1: Cold hard fact: steroids are good for you. This tip is fundamental to my whole system, so don’t ignore it. ‘Roids make you huge like God intended and help get rid of disgusting fat. Big Fitness doesn’t want you to know that, though. They want you to keep wasting your time and money on worthless personal trainer sessions and protein shakes, so they spread this propaganda about ‘roids being bad for you. I’ll give you the only personal training session you’ll ever need right here, for free: get some fucking ‘roids. There. Done. You’re gonna be scary big, bro.

TIP 2: Chicks dig enormous, disproportionate biceps. Sick biceps are the currency of love, bro. Exchanging goods for services, know what I mean? I’m talking the sort of ‘ceps that look like you’re smuggling bowling balls in your arms. Write this down, bro: at least 80% of your workout should be bicep work. You hear all this talk about the 80/20 rule on the internet lately? Yeah, that’s what they’re talking about. And that’s at a minimum. I actually do a 90/10 workout. And believe me, it works. They don’t call me The ‘Cep for nothing. Also keep in mind, even if you have a lot of time to work other areas after putting in a couple hours on your biceps, don’t overdo it. If you look smaller in other areas it will make your biceps look bigger, sort of like shaving your pubes makes your dong look bigger.

TIP 3: Spotters are for pussies. They make your mind weak. When you know your spotter can help out, you won’t fight as hard. You gotta feel like an antelope running from a goddamn lion, bro. Knowing you’re gonna get seriously injured if you fail is the greatest motivator there is, particularly when you’re maxing out. Asking for a spotter screams newbie, so ditch the training wheels.

TIP 4: Negative self-talk is critical. You want to get crazy huge? Half the battle is in the gym. The other half is in here (I’m pointing to my head). Telling yourself you can’t do it will motivate you to prove yourself wrong. Telling yourself you’re lazy and worthless is an effective way to inspire a worthless piece of shit like you. I like to look at myself in the full body mirror in my bedroom every morning. I just sit there and tell myself I’m a skinny little twig. Try phrases like “Nobody is ever going to love a disgusting piece of shit like you” and “You’re human garbage” and “Worthless weaklings like you don’t deserve to live.” Those are just examples, though. The sky is the limit. This is something you can really spread your creative wings with. Anyway, I keep repeating stuff like that until I actually see myself as skinny and worthless in the mirror. That’s right. Like not just imaginary, bro. You gotta actually see it. That’s when I’m really ready to tear it up in the gym. Keep in mind this ain’t easy. It might take you a couple hours the first go, but in time you’ll find it’s a part of you. When that happens, just looking in the mirror in the gas bathroom will send you into a frenzy of motivation. Don’t half-ass this, though, bro. This step is critical. You need to be positively ashamed to be alive. That’s how you learn to really want it. That’s important. You gotta want it more than anyone else. That’s how champions are made.

TIP 5: Wiping down the machine after use is for pussies. If you’re always using wiped machines you’re never gonna develop the proper immunities for when you go to a real man’s gym. It’s sort of like how you’re only susceptible to Giardia if you never drink river water. The gym is where real men lift solid chunks of iron and troll for booty, not where they play house and clean up after themselves. Fuck that. Leave it dirty. If you don’t like it go to Curves.

TIP 6: Vomiting is an indispensible skill. It’s almost as important as ‘roids in my book. Why? Two reasons. First, it’s a sort of workout speedometer that lets you know you’re working hard enough. That’s key. You gotta know you’re pushing it or how do you know you’re pushing it? If you’re not puking your guts out you can’t really call it a workout. I recommend taking seven or eight servings of a high-caffeine, pre-workout mix like N.O.Xplode or Jack3d to help this along.

Second, if you’re currently taking a break from ‘roids or lost your connection (it happens to the best of us), you’re gonna need a little more help staying thin. Vomiting will help you cut calories. When I’m not juicing, I’ll probably vomit 10 or so meals a week. This is what fitness pros and nutritionists call Intermittent Regurgitation or IR. It speeds up your metabolism and turns your body into a fat burning furnace. Hell, even when I’m on the ‘roids I’ll still vomit a few days a week to make my abs really pop.

One last point: patience and practice. Vomiting is both a skill and an art. It’ll take some time to get good at it and you’re never gonna be perfect. You’ll probably have to jam a finger down there for awhile, but as your esophagus and stomach become more limber you’ll be able to do it on command, hands free. That’s when the real gains start, bro.

TIP 7: Warming up is for pussies. ‘Nuff said.

TIP 8: If you’re going for your one rep max, start at your max weight. This goes along with the last tip. Seems like common sense, I know, but I constantly have to correct people on this. They all add weight progressively like they see in the fitness maggies written pussy marketing execs with microscopic biceps. If you want to lift as much weight as possible you cannot waste half your strength building up to your max weight. Just be a man and fucking go for it cold, bro. Cold muscles are tighter, which makes you stronger. Don’t believe me? Which rubber band snaps harder, a tight one or a loose one?

TIP 9: Get a little drunk before maxing out. Remember earlier when I said half the battle is in here (I’m pointing to my head)? Well, when I’m going for a one rep max, half the bottle is going to be in here (I’m pointing to my stomach). Fear is your greatest foe when it comes to pulling off beastly lifts, bro. Alcohol lets you cut through that motherfucker like Valyrian steel through a Stark neck. It takes that whiny little voice in your head saying “I can’t” and beats him into a bloody pussy pulp. For max gains you gotta be pretty drunk, though, so I recommend vodka. It’s the most athletic of the hard liquors. Pure and clear like water. How do you think those Russian weightlifters won so many gold medals?

TIP 10: Weight clips are for pussies. If you can’t handle the heat get out of the kitchen.

TIP 11: Chicks love a guy who checks himself out in the mirror. Make sure to wear the most revealing shirt the gym will allow (this tip applies to chicks, too, lol) and flex away. I’d go shirtless if it wasn’t for the Nazi behind the desk at Gold’s.

TIP 12: Chicks at the gym want you to stare at them. They may act like they don’t, bro, but that’s just a shit test. Don’t look away. Don’t apologize. Just keep staring. They love it. I mean, they’re there to work on their bodies so men will find them more attractive. Are you not a man? They aren’t wearing skin-tight shorts that look like they were painted on their asses and sports bras that pinch together their chest meat like two ripe melons to pick up the kids at soccer, are they? They’re doing it for men. Men like you. You don’t get a much clearer invitation than that. If they didn’t like it they’d go to Curves.

TIP 13: Drink as little water as possible. Being dehydrated helps your abs pop and builds mental toughness. Frank Herbert knew it. I know it. Now you know it. Trust me bro, you don’t want to see some tight little shorty watching you curl and then realize you have a temporary water gut from chugging a gallon of river water on the way over. Drink vodka or drink nothing.

Todd Brock is a fitness consultant, motivational speaker and mixed martial artist living with his dog Bulldozer in Jersey City, New Jersey. He gives frequent lectures on the topic of “being a real man and not a pussy in this wussified society of ours” at his local Gold’s Gym.

I’m a Registered Non-Voter

Let’s fix this fucker up.

NFFHC is a part of W. Keith Zoroastrian Enterprises, an international media conglomerate consisting of hundreds of different publications spreading Truth throughout the world. From time to time we will reprint articles from our sister publications which our editorial staff have deemed particularly important or relevant to the modern world and of exceptionally high quality. What follows was originally published as a letter to the editor in the Greensburg Observer, a news and opinion journal located in Greensburg, Indiana, following the November midterm elections. It is penned by frequent contributor and renowned humanitarian Jake Besco.

To the Editor of the Greensburg Observer,

As another election season has come and gone, it’s important to take time to consider how lucky we are to live in a country where anybody, no matter how humble their origins or nakedly self-serving their ambitions, can become super rich and impose their will on the nation by spending gargantuan sums of money. As Adam Smith once wrote, campaign contributions and corporate media propaganda are the very foundation of any healthy capitalist democracy. It’s Freedom with a capitalist F. The troops (thank you for your service, etc.) may fight for our freedom, and we may love our freedom, but it is these glorious citizens who get our freedom. Let us thank our holy and inspired founding fathers for giving us such a precious gift as the right to choose which party stooge gets to root around America’s cookie jar this year.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s time you give up, stop pretending you have any voice and join me in giving it all the middle finger.

Fellow citizens, I’m a registered non-voter. I have been ever since I started not voting at the age of 18. Every election Tuesday I take some time off work, fire up the ol’ Chevy and drive down to the polling place. I wait in line (no cutting!), fill in a few bubbles on a blank sheet of paper to simulate the physical stresses of voting and then leave.

Yep. That’s it. Hardcore non-voting.

Why go to all this trouble? To prove I’m not just being lazy. Let me be clear: no voting occurs during this whole empty act. I am simply scribbling on a piece of paper I brought with me. This is my way of pissing on the whole process without feeling like a piece of crap, or at least without feeling like a lazy piece of crap. I like to call it active cynicism.

Sure, I know what you’re thinking. Why oh why? You have a civic responsibility, Jake! Do you know how many people would kill/have died for the right to vote? Don’t complain when the person you don’t like gets elected!

Let me be clear: fuck off.

In America, we get our choice of laws like people at Golden Corral get their choice of food. There’s a whole lot of every kind of food, and it’s all shit. In every election there is a 99% chance a person I don’t like will get elected and only watered-down, filler-stuffed laws I don’t give a shit about will reach a meaningful vote in Congress. The best I can hope for in this situation is the person I dislike less getting elected, the buffet equivalent of a C+ chicken noodle soup I can stomach for an entire bowl.

Note that I said something will come along. Someone never, ever comes along. Every generation must learn this fact the hard way by caring about a candidate, getting them elected and then realizing that they’re essentially the same as everyone else. Barack Obama is the Millennial Generation’s version of this. His crime isn’t that he’s done anything any worse than other politician, it’s that he led us to believe he was different from other politicians. When he finally got into office and showed us that he was just a typical career politician, it was like when you compare the burger you get in real life to the one you saw in the restaurant’s ad. He’s a match.com date whose picture looked like a 10 but turned about to be a 4 when you finally met. Perhaps he wouldn’t have seemed so bad if he had sold himself as just another career politician, but he was supposed to be something different.

Although, I suppose, if I’m really honest with myself, what I really hate about elections isn’t so much the candidates, as the people who elect them. The candidates are just a reflection in our collective mirror, being what they are because that’s what works in elections. Anyone who spoke their mind and advocated real change on real issues would not get elected. Ever. What I’m saying is I despise our process because I despise voters—that is to say decent, hardworking “folks” like you and me, your average Joes, your straight shooters, the teeming, gelatinous client base of Wal-Mart. These are folks with good old-fashioned values, the kind of people who care about the price of gas and their local sports team more than civil rights or flaws in our justice system. They lap up pandering slogans, rhetorical tricks and nipple slips like hogs at a trough of half-fermented slops.

I refuse to be a folk. I demand to be manipulated in a sophisticated way. Don’t just pull on my goddamn strings and expect me to dance. I’m not a goddamn monkey. I just evolved from goddamn monkeys. Folks don’t even have the dignity of being difficult to manipulate. Just memorize a list of talking points containing “opinions” like finding strength and guidance in one’s faith, enjoying hard work and vigorous competition, glorifying the past, all the lessons learned from having come from humble beginnings, acting like the Constitution is holy scripture, rabidly supporting small business, having your cake and eating it too with taxes, etc. Did I mention gas prices? Throw as wide of a net as possible, throw in some argument-ending kill words like “socialist” or “racist” to describe your opponent and reel the folks onto your boat, flopping around naked and suffocating before you lop their empty heads off.

But this is not news. Plenty of people know it. In their hearts, even the folks know it. What bothers me is that people don’t have the common decency to lapse into pit of active cynicism like myself. They process way too seriously. They still hoot and holler when politicians don’t deliver and/or break their promises. Really, though, what did you expect? Politicians are people whose primary motivation in life is the accumulation of as much power as possible. Who could you possibly trust less with a whole shit ton of power than someone willing to say anything to get it? It’s like trusting a junky with your stash or an alcoholic with your booze.

When these people say they want to give back, make America strong again, etc., all they’re saying is they want to stick their dick in the proverbial American pie. They’re whispering sweet nothings in Lady Liberty’s ears to get into her pants. But, unlike most women who have repeatedly had their trust violated, she just keeps coming back for more.

Hugs and Kisses,

Jake Besco

Wake Up America! (Part I)

NFFHC is a part of W. Keith Zoroastrian Enterprises, an international media conglomerate consisting of hundreds of different publications spreading Truth throughout the world. From time to time we will reprint articles from our sister publications which our editorial staff have deemed particularly important or relevant to the modern world and of exceptionally high quality. What follows was originally published as a letter to the editor in the Greensburg Observer, a news and opinion journal located in Greensburg, Indiana. It is the first in a four part series of letters from American citizen and freelance man-of-letters Randy Miller.

___________________________

To the Editor and Readers of the Greensburg Observer,

In these troubled times it seems like everyone I know, be they coworkers and friends or even my own family, has given up their God-given right to independence. Like our Founding Fathers, I have always prided myself on my ability to accomplish things with my own power and skill, relying solely on my own brain, my own elbow grease, and my own heaping serving of good, old-fashioned American gumption. This attitude has always served me well and is something I have always tried to instill in my children and inspire in my acquaintances. However, the more I attempt to evangelize this critical element of the American spirit to others, the more I realize just how sorely lacking it is in most so-called Americans today.

Take my kids. As became evident one night last month on a particularly dark and lonely stretch of I-70, not a single one of those ungrateful brats knows how to change a blown tire. On top of that, they suggested I call that prissy coddle-factory known to the lazy, teeming masses as AAA. I was even more taken aback than the time I discovered my normally dutiful wife Theresa didn’t know how to change the oil in my car (you bet your behind she knows how now). And my kids and wife are not alone. My coworker Stan conveniently claims not to know how to change the printer paper, half my neighbors call a handy man just to change a light bulb or unclog a drain, and my sister Sue paid the jackals at Geek Squad to install her new computer. My point is, in this age where we pay everyone to do everything for us, haven’t we lost a part of ourselves? My grandfather could build an entire house with a hammer or medium-sized rock, the woods out back, and a saw or well-trained beaver (which he trained himself, by the way). My brother Steve can’t even cook microwave popcorn.

Well I say we take the power back! It’s time we relearn how to do things ourselves, right? A little time invested today will reap rich dividends for the rest of your life, and in most cases I think you’ll find that it’s not as hard as it seems. Let me repeat this, because it’s important: it’s not as hard as it seems. The problem is really just that most of these so-called “professionals” out there that we hire to do things for us want to keep that a secret so decent, hardworking folks like you and me keep having to pay them outlandishly high, endlessly skyrocketing rates to do something we could easily do ourselves.

Take doctors for instance. You’re telling me it takes eight years of education and several more in on the job training to diagnose my kid’s mild concussion and hand me bottle of Tylenol? Oh, you don’t say?! I could have told Clay that myself if Sherry Harper hadn’t rushed him to the Urgent Care Center without my permission the moment he fell out of Mikey Harper’s tree house. No, the real reason they “need” so much education—the secret they don’t want to tell you—is doctors want to keep the barrier to entry as high as possible to keep you and me from trying to take a cut out of their scam. They want to maintain the status quo so they can charge me $5,000 for that “service” they rendered my son. Heck, I buy crude by the barrel and distill my own gasoline. You think I can’t do a little doctoring? I might not have a fancy-schmancy MRI machine like they ran Clay through, but I’ve got plenty of experience with concussions and a gut feeling that consistently outperforms the market. Better yet, I don’t charge anything.

And speaking of doctor education, half those eight years aren’t even attempting to appear job related either. I spent a semester in college living with one of these so-called “pre-med” students. The guy was taking zero medical classes. The closest thing in there was a biology class, so I guess he might have learned how to operate on a fruit fly or something. Heck, he even had a literature class. What, pray tell, does reading Jane Austen have to do with curing the sick? Did he not get enough of that baloney in high school? (And don’t get me started on the government taking my money to fund the brainwashing of our nation’s children at some so-called public school.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Sure Randy, I see your point about the concussion, but what about more difficult stuff like surgery? Don’t you need a professional for that? I mean people could get hurt if you screw that up.” To that my answer remains the same: it isn’t as hard as it seems.

Take removing an appendix, for example. This is a simple procedure every independent-minded, God-fearing American patriot should know. It’s basically the oil change of human surgery—a weekend to learn, a lifetime of savings. And believe me, I know. I performed preemptive appendectomies for all my kids after my wife Theresa got appendicitis and that racket down at the ER tried to charge us more than the value of our double wide to remove it. Nuh uh. I ain’t falling for that again, brother.

As to the how, the only advice I can give you is just practice, practice, practice. If you don’t feel comfortable starting on your family members, go down to the pound and pick up a couple dogs, or better yet catch some strays yourself. Their bodies aren’t exactly the same but it will definitely help you get a feel for mammalian skin and organs. Cats work, too. Our cat Boris had the squirts last week, so I opened him up for some exploratory surgery—you know, just to make sure everything looked alright. Didn’t find anything, but he took a turn for the worst later that week. I guess sometimes there are things that even surgery can’t solve, but it’s really a myth of our nation’s medical cartel that surgery is dangerous. Sure, some folks have died at some points in the past, but what they don’t tell you is that most of those people were very sick to begin with and probably would have died anyway. I mean use your brains for second people: they were in a hospital for a reason. You don’t go to the hospital when you’re feeling fine.

Oh, and before I forget, I have one other piece of practical advice: get some tarps. Don’t be a cheap ass like I was and think you can get away with just putting down newspaper. Surgery isn’t all neat and pretty and McDreamy like on TV. It’s messy as hell. You do get better with practice, of course, but it’s still going to be bloody. I suppose maybe you could tape together some trash bags or something, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Oh, and another thing: get a decent anesthetic. My first appendectomy on the kids I just gave little Bo a bottle of NyQuil and a couple shots of whiskey. I figured since he’s only four it wouldn’t take much to knock him out real good. It worked, but not perfectly. He was raving like a lunatic for about half an hour before he finally passed out to a surgery-ready state. And trust me, having vomit all over the operating space isn’t very sanitary. Fortunately, I later discovered that an ether soaked rag works just as well. In fact, it’s what they used to use during the Civil War, back when men were men and anyone with a little gumption and good knife could be a doctor. That’s the way to go if you can. The kids recover from it a lot quicker, and I can save some for myself for afterwards (wink, wink).

Oh, one last thing. It’s going to cost you a little extra, but a genuine medical scalpel is worth the money. That first time on Bo I used a steak knife, which I figured was designed to cut into meat, but it’s really a lot more work than you’d think and leaves a nasty scar. It was Kitchen Aid knife, too, so don’t think it didn’t work because I was just using some cheap knife I stole from the buffet. Just buy a damn scalpel. They’re like $15 on Amazon. In a pinch I bet an X-Acto knife might work, too, now that I think about it.

Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking: “Hey Randy, what about the risk of infection doctors are always going on about? Shouldn’t I get some antibiotics, too? You know, just in case?” Let me tell you why you’re wrong there. See there’s something called antibiotic resistant bacteria floating around there right now. The so-called doctors say it’s because the antibiotics just “stopped working” because we’ve used them too much and bacteria are adapting. Baloney. That’s a pretty transparent excuse if you ask me. See what’s really happening—what they don’t want you to know—is that antibiotics never really worked in the first place. Folks were starting to catch on, see, so these conmen doctors are trying to cover their tracks by concocting some bull plop about antibiotic resistant bacteria. Plus, as if that weren’t enough, I’m pretty sure antibiotics cause the autism, too. Just a got a gut feeling about it. If there’s one thing you can trust in this crazy world, it’s ol’ Randy’s gut. You can set your watch to it. Heck, I don’t even own a watch.

The fact of the matter is you don’t need antibiotics or disinfectant or anything besides just good, old-fashioned soap and water. If you do your job right and really give the dining room table (or wherever you perform your surgery) a good, thorough scrubbing, use a new tarp and run your scalpel through the dishwasher, infection shouldn’t be a problem. The human immune system is a wonderful thing, see. Left to its own devices it can fight most infections. So why not let your immune system do the work? It’s particularly strong in kids. That’s why I made sure to do the appendectomies on my young ‘uns while they were still young. Plus, kids heal quickly and give you some room for error, which you’ll probably need your first couple times.

Well, I have so much more to tell your good readers, but I’ll save it for another day seeing as I’m getting near the Observer’s word limit. Let me close by saying this one more time: it’s not as hard as it seems. You have a right to control your own destiny. Together we can save millions on all sorts of things the so-called “experts” want to make you think you’re just too dumb and ignorant to do. Plus, you get the satisfaction of knowing you did it yourself.

God Bless,

Randy Miller, Citizen

10 Prayer Hacks That Will Really Get God’s Attention

This one weird trick skeptics don’t want you to know about.

By John Williams, MDiv., ThD

Religion and Spirituality Contributor

Given its popularity coupled with the fact that the world is still a squalid shithole of human misery, it’s clear that the Lord’s Prayer doesn’t do much if anything. Here are some new prayer ideas to break up the monotony and impress the Creator of the Universe.

1. Pray Your Way to the Big Leagues

Example prayer: “Help me win my (insert name of sport) game tomorrow (insert date) at (insert time) between (insert team names).”

What separates pro athletes from the rest of us? They’ve learned that praying to the Big Man Upstairs wins ballgames. God can do it for you too if you just have enough faith and take the time to pray.

2. Ask Forward Forgiveness

Example prayer: “Please forgive all the sins I am going to commit today.”

Forward forgiveness requests are generally frowned upon in the Church these days. I’m not sure why. Admitting fault up front lays the foundation for proper forgiveness down the road. More importantly, it ensures you won’t accidentally get killed without having a chance to repent, a leading cause of churchgoers getting sent to hell despite believing in the right faith. You could just try to ask forgiveness for everything you are going to do in your whole life, but that seems a bit much in my humble opinion. Just stick to that day’s sins and God will probably be cool with it.

3. Be Specific

Example prayer: “I would like one million American dollars.”

So many people pray for positive things in their lives without specifying exactly what it is they want. This confuses God, who is fairly indecisive (see The Flood). Giving Him a specific amount makes His job easier and ensures you’ll get what you want. Also note that the prayer specifies which country’s currency you’re talking about. God is an international deity worshipped in many countries that don’t use the dollar. Of course, God’s a sharp cookie and would probably have assumed you meant America, but you never know.

Example prayer: “Please kill my neighbor (First Name) (Last Name) by the end of the week.”

Once again, note the specificity. It doesn’t request “Oh God do you think maybe you could solve this problem I have with my neighbor?” It demands a specific action with regard to a specific person, notes the person’s relationship to the prayor, and even gives a deadline. As a side note, remember that this sort of death wish prayer doesn’t necessarily have to be regarding your neighbor, but it might help you get God to take notice since it’s not the usual crap like boss, lawyer or ex-girlfriend.

4. Be Direct

Example prayer: “Are you the one true God?”

Countless philosophers have spent their lives arguing over the timeless classic of a conundrum above, but how many people have thought to just ask the Big Cheese himself? Probably none. The Man’s a straight shooter from what I’ve read. He should tell you if you ask real nicely and he’s not too busy.

5. Request a Vegetarian Alternative

Example prayer: “With regard to taking this Communion, I’m a gluten-free vegetarian.”

This old trick was a favorite with hippie Christians in the sixties. A lot of people don’t know that God is required to provide a vegetarian alternative to human flesh and blood during all transubstantiations. All you have to do is ask.

6. Lower Your Tithable Income and Save

This isn’t specifically a prayer hack, but I thought it was worth mentioning because of all the money it’s saved me over the years. Less income on paper can mean more paper in your wallet come tithing time. That’s because if you can lower your tithable income or “TI,” you can lower your bill with God. There are several ways to do this. I set up a non-profit S-corporation that pays for all my housing and other expenses. Any income I make is paid to the corporation and not to me, effectively lowering my tithable income to nothing.

7. Learn How to Get Indulgences on the Cheap

Ever since the Council of Trent, God has favored a progressive indulgence system. That is, He takes into account the net worth of the payer of the indulgence when determining the appropriate sum. This means that poorer individuals don’t have to pay as much to get friends and family out of the fiery cauldron of hell. One way to take advantage of this is to move your assets to a trust under someone else’s name and then request the indulgence.

8. Make Use of IOUs

Example prayer: “Put it on my tab, Lord.”

This is another little known Church trick. Believe it or not, God accepts IOUs for the collection plate. Just promise to pay later. PRO TIP: Combine this with a forward forgiveness prayer for not paying the IOU to erase your debt entirely.

9. Look into Sin Consolidation

Example prayer: “I would like to consolidate forgiveness for the following sins: (list sins).”

You don’t need to pray and ask forgiveness for every little sin you commit. Consolidate your sins and then just pray them all away at once.

10. Request Movement of Mountains

Example prayer: “Please move Mount (insert name of mountain here) to the following coordinates (insert longitude and latitude here).”

Cold, hard fact: it only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to move a mountain. If you’re reading this article, chances are your faith is at least the size of a golf ball, maybe even bigger. I’m not sure what use moving a mountain would be to you, but it’s the sort of thing that it’s nice to know you can do if you need to.

20 Unconventional Money Saving Tips

By C.A. McClintock, GED

            Make mad stacks of Benjies yo.

We all know that eating out less and riding your bike to work save money. Here are some tips you might not have heard to really take your saving up a notch.

1. Explore alternative energy sources. I have a well-hidden extension cord running from an outlet in my neighbor’s backyard that powers most of my house. I also bring a bag of car batteries to work and charge them with an outlet under my desk. At night I just bring the bag home and power half my house on the company dime.
2. Don’t pay for garbage pickup. Why pay someone to haul away your trash when there are literally millions of unattended dumpsters all over America? PRO TIP: Many businesses, especially restaurants, will have a dumpster out back, but they tend to keep a pretty close eye on them. Apartment buildings, on the other hand, do not.
3. Sell your urine to druggies. Every year, millions of decent, law-abidingish citizens are forced to submit their bodily fluids to their employer and/or parole officer to ensure they’re only getting high off stuff that doesn’t interfere with productivity too much. Why not do your part to help bring down the unemployment rate and alleviate prison overcrowding?
4. Keep old soda cups from fast food places. The promise of free refills has no expiration date. While it will require an initial outlay, you can drink free sodas for life if you really stick with it.
5. Harvest ripe corn from large, unmonitored fields. If you live near large swaths of cornfields you can take a few ears and nobody will notice. Contrary to popular belief, farmers actually want people to do this. Like pruning a tree or thinning a herd, it removes excess foliage from the plant and allows what remains to grow larger and more robust. I think it prevents forest fires, too.
6. Put your kids up for adoption. Kids are expensive. In fact, they will likely be the single most expensive bill you ever get stuck with. A child born in 2013 is estimated to cost $245,000 to raise until the age of 18. Sure, it was a fun experiment to see what a little version of you might look like, but why not let someone else raise ‘em now?
7. Hunt wild animals. Take a tip from the Nooge and only eat what you kill. Just because you don’t live out in the country doesn’t mean you can’t hunt and fish, too. Pretty much every mammal and bird on Earth is edible, not just the “traditional” animals like deer and bass that Field and Stream is always pushing. Experiment and find out what you like. My shoplifting friend supplemented his grocery runs with pigeons, squirrels and koi, all taken in the heart of Manhattan. PRO TIP: Nicer hotels typically have a well-stocked fish pond.
8. Make your own pornography. Porn is hot. No doubt about it. But obtaining high quality pornographs can take a big, hot load from your wallet. While the internet provides a plethora of free pornography options, most are of unfortunate quality at best. Why not make your own by videotaping your neighbors? You know who also looks like the girl next door? The girl next door. PROTIP: Install hidden cameras throughout your place and then rent it out on Airbnb.
9. Unleash Your Shoplifting Potential. Not paying for things can be a real money-saver. In today’s modern world with our modern values and tablet computers, who’s to say what’s “right” or “wrong.” Aren’t they just words made up by dictionary people? Shoplifting is what legal scholars call a “victimless crime,” I think because the victim will have less afterwards. In any case, corporations are kind of stealing from you with their outrageous profit margins, company jets, employee picnics and whatnot. You’re just evening the score. I had a friend whose food budget was zero dollars thanks in part to the five finger discount. He wasn’t particularly smart or talented. In fact, I don’t think he even graduated high school. You too can be that friend!
10. Have fewer friends. Friends are a waste of money. They always want you to go do stuff, typically stuff that costs money. God help you if they want you to be in their wedding. Like the push towards minimalism in housing with micro-houses or minimalism in transportation with the Smartcars, you should strive to cut the fat and live in a world of micro-friendship. We keep trying to fill up the void inside ourselves with more and more friends, but are they really making us any happier? Maybe the person you really need to become friends with is you. Think about it.
11. Stop mowing your lawn. Mowing your lawn is a big enough waste of money if you do it yourself, let alone if you pay someone else to. Who cares? Seriously. There’s a direct correlation between how meaningless and boring a person’s life is and how obsessed they become with their lawn. Don’t be one of those assholes. Why not let the beauty of nature shine through? If you have a pesky homeowner’s association bugging you about it just kill the grass and spray paint it green.
12. Foresake your religion. Quitting with this 10% bullshit could put thousands per year back in your pocket. Not to mention all the bake sales and the gas you burn driving to and from church.
13. Help yourself to some money from the collection basket at church. Works particularly well if you’ve already taken the tip to forsake your religion. While I’m generally against going to church, there’s no better place on Sundays for grabbing a quick buck when you’re in need of cash. Most churchgoers are under the delusion that churchgoers are honest and don’t keep a close eye on money going in and out of the basket. Taking money from the basket is also more efficient than the traditional method of disbursing the funds. When people give to the basket, the church receives the money, takes their cut and then gives it to needy. Why not cut out the middle man? You’re needy. You have to be pretty needy if you’re taking money from a collection basket, don’t you?
14. Siphon gas. Stealing gas from stations is risky if not impossible now that they all make you prepay. But you know who doesn’t have security cameras? Your neighbor. Taking gas from other people’s cars isn’t stealing if you also use it in a car. It’s part of the 5^th Amendment right against self insemination.
15. Put your kids to work. If you don’t have the stones to put ‘em up for adoption, at least try to mitigate their expenses. Of course you’re not saving for their college education like a sucker, but there are dozens of less obvious ways to cut the kid bill. A big one is putting them to productive labor. For example, if you own a farm, sending them to the fields is a timeless classic of child labor. Might I also suggest teaching them sewing or some sort of handicraft and then selling that shit on the internet? It’ll be like your own personal sweat shop, right there in your living room.
16. Don’t vote. Waste of gas and time. Democracy is a sham elites had to make up when people started realizing that the divine right of kings was bullshit. Don’t give them the satisfaction of thinking you care.
17. Sneak into the movies. It’s not stealing if the movie isn’t any good. My official rule is that I don’t have to pay for anything that isn’t “Certified Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes.
18. Don’t shave. Razors are one of the biggest scams out there. $15 for a four pack of replacement blades? No thanks. Grow a beard. If you’re a woman wear pants or declare yourself a hippie. Either way you’ll have a thick, bushy tangle of new savings.
19. Take school supplies from the office supply cabinet at work. While I recommend against accepting responsibility for your mistakes, if you must have them, you better not be paying a dime for their school supplies. Millions of Americans raid their employer’s office supply cabinet every year. Seriously, at my job they had to start locking it up come August.
20. Finish everything with a round number. It’s a proven scientific fact that people like round numbers. Add some filler at the end of a list to get to a round number if necessary.