Dear Ask the Fish,
Is it acceptable for women to wear socks while making love?
-Mitzy Pill Poppin Is My Life

Dear Mitzy,
That's one of those cultural things. The term "acceptable" really depends on the culture. Being Jewish, yes, it is perfectly acceptable, in fact encouraged for women to wear socks while they do it. If you are not from the Tribe, you should ask a well repsected member of your culture.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
why do my hands prune?
-jennifer

Dear jennifer,
Hmmm... most likely it is because you have had them underwater for too long. A better question would be, why don't MY (the fish) hands prune. Or even better, why don't I have hands. Or better still, how am I typing this without aforementioned hands.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
What's the question to the answer "42"?
-Paranoid in Bad Oeynhausen

Dear Paranoid,
Who are you, fucking Alex Trebek? Get off my website!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Hallo Fish, ich wollte nur fragen, ob du auch deutsch sprichst... Bitte antworte baldigst! Bis dann, Psybass

Dear Psybass,
Naturlich, ich bin der Babelfisch.
Und der Fisch sprach: Siehe, ein Volk sind sie, und eine Sprache haben sie alle, und dies ist [erst] der Anfang ihres Tuns. Jetzt wird ihnen nichts unmoeglich sein, was sie zu tun ersinnen. Wohlan, lasst uns herabfahren und dort ihre Sprache verwirren, dass sie einer des anderen Sprache nicht [mehr] verstehen! Und der Fisch zerstreute sie von dort ueber die ganze Erde.
Slam!!!
-ATF



Dear Ask the Fish,
I want to get Linux on my next computer, which will probably have Windows pre-installed. When I get Linux, though, should I do a dual-boot, or just reformat the hard drive?
-LinuxGrrl

Dear LinuxGrrl,
You should dual boot. You gonna run Red Hat 7.3? Probably your best bet. Be careful because some versions of windows don't like when you add a linux partition. Linux is much friendlier about it, so you should format to remove all the factory-installed jonx, then install Linux, and then install Windows again. You could also get a Lamp and run OS X.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
What are the best diaper for teenagers i need them becuse i love to wear them all the time and need to find the best ones.
-Teen boy

Dear Teen,
Depends...
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
What is the meaning of existence?
-Bladamir In Bladimir

Dear Bladamir,
It would have been way faster for you to just go here.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Where were you caught?
-person

Dear person,
Trying to cross the border into Mexico. Pain in the ass, too. You'd think the border patrol had never seen a fish make a getaway before!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Will I pass that drug test if I try?
-Matt

Dear Matt,
If you are clean, then yes. If you do drugs, no. But seeing as you actaully had to ask that question, I'm going with no.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
I would like a clubhouse sandwhich?
-Billy

Dear Billy,
Yes, have some.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
What Age Am I??
-EyeDeeOne

Dear EyeDeeOne,
Look. Many of you seem to not understand this whole Ask the Fish thing. Look at the past few questions? I mean, really. How can I think of something funny or clever to say to that. Would you ask Ann Landers crap like this? Come on people!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Why do games have crates and oil drums?
-RelaxoRy

Dear RelaxoRy,
To blow up and/or find weapons and supplies in.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Am i going to be a famous international rockstar?
-Xiola'

Dear Xiola',
No. Sorry.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
why am i green?
-johnny fartpants

Dear johnny,
Because you are made out of spinach. Either that, or you are green with envy over our 175,000 unique ip hits in July!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
do you like surfers?
-Istrebitjel

Dear Istrebitjel,
I assume you mean web surfers, and in general, not so much. If you've ever seen me web surf, you'd realize that I surf like a freakin' champ, and watching anyone else do it pains me tremendously. It's like asking Barry Bonds if he like minor leaguers. I mean, he probably doesn't hate them, but watching them isn't his idea of a good time.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
I recently had surgery and as a result must remain on a urinary catheter for two weeks. I want to make the bag look a little less depressing and wondered if I should put a couple of fish in it, and turn it into a kind of yellow fishbowl. Am I falling into post-operative insanity?
-Rubber Tubing

Dear Rubber,
Ha! If you send us digital pictures, we'll DEFINITELY post them on our site.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Can we hear some .wav files of the poetry slam?
-Sir Woof

Dear Sir,
First off, nice name. Second, no, because .wavs are so 1995. Finally, no, because we are idiots and left the DAT recorder at the office that day. Furthermore, we are idiots because we have freakin' 10 minutes of voice memo capactity on the Palm phones we were reading the poems from and didn't record them! Thanks for rubbing it in though.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Dear Fish, what is "true Dharma"?
-naked ninja

Dear naked,
You're going to have to wait for the Bible According to Cheese tableau about Ghouda and Cheddharma, coming soon. I'll tell you this though: There are more web sites about "dharma and greg" than there are about "dharma and buddhism." Not sure what that means.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Dear Fish, As I watched fireworks the other night, I began to wonder about the construction of the fireworks that explode into letters or objects, (e.g. an orange smiley face with a red smile and green eyes). How are they made?
-Wondering

Dear Wondering,
Well, as luck would have it, I have an aquaintance who's last name ends in "rucci." I was able to track him down (no mean feat seeing as how what time of year it is and all), and ask him the question.
He started his answer stating that the fireworks industry is a very closed mouth one, his families corporation being perhaps the most closed mouth off all. Then he stated that the different shapes are generally created by a specific way of packing the firework: Both position and charge being very important.
He ended the conversation by telling me that if he were to tell me anymore, I would have one of two choices: To be killed by him (the manner by which, while definitely spectacular, reminded one uncomfortably of Pippen) or marry into his family. As the only available female of age in the family is Brunhilda (a 300 lb drafthorse of a woman), I declined to hear anymore. Hope that was helpful!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
How many times does it take to get to the center of the earth
-looking for an answer

Dear looking,
In comtemplating an answer to this question, I realized that it didn't make any sense. In order to generate an answer that would jive with the question, I had to find and answer that didn't make sense too.
We all know how much we at the Fish love google: It plays Delphi to our Oracle, giving us the power to generate answers to the questions with which you (who take the role of supplicants) query us. On the other hand, Ask Jeeves is not unlike the Mongoloid half-brother of Google, spitting out gibberish which occasionally coalesces into intelligibility. We asked Jeeves your question to see what he'd say:
--------------
Countries need to take a gender sensitive approach to water issues.
--------------
So there's your answer.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Every once in a while, actually just about twice a year, 5 ft cannisters of Nitrogen pop up on certain street corners in Manhattan, for example, the Northeast corner of 34th St. and Fifth Ave. A small tube runs from each cannister to a nearby manhole. What is Nitrogen used for under city streets? Isn't there a better method of getting Nitrogen into a manhole?
-Gas on the sidewalk

Dear Gas,
We turned to Rob Cockerham for the answer:
"I later learned that the nitrogen tanks slowly push nitrogen gas into the copper phone lines, keeping them somewhat dry. The tanks are replaced every couple of days. They aren't dangerous, Indeed they've apparently been nailed by cars a few times and held together fine."
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Is there any nutritional reason for me to eat corn? it always comes out in my poop. am i wasting my time?
-corn in my crap

Dear corn,
Corn (cooked or raw) is low in fat and calories and provides almost three grams of dietary fiber as well as protein per ear. White corn is deficient in vitamin A, while yellow corn is plentiful. Both offer moderate amounts of folacin and vitamin C, with magnesium and potassium in abundant quantity.
As for wasting your time, yes. Eating corn is a waste of time. You can get WAAAAY more vitamins and minerals from eating that genetically engineered corn. Eating good old mother nature's corn just doesn't get them in fast enough!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
What if there were not limitations on the conversion of propositions and universal affirmatives COULD be totally converted? Then what, smart guy?
-sir bedevere

Dear sir,
Woof. Things would go something like this: White is a color. Black is a color. Therefore, white is black. Now that's a bold statement! You can prove almost anything you want! How about this: Google is a site on the internet. Google is the best site on the Internet. All Too Flat is a site on the internet. All Too Flat is Google. All Too Flat is the best site on the internet.
Seems like it would be pretty sweet, but it's actually not as good as it seems. There are some big limitations with this logic system. For example, can you find the serious flaw in this logic: Michael Jordan can dunk. Ben can dunk. Therefore, Ben is Michael Jordan.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Does Jello float? Say, hypothetically, that you wanted to make cherry jello with chunks of pineapple jello inside (like how people put fruit in it) - would it work? or would one jello melt the other?
-Corny

Dear Corny,
Please resubmit this question after we get a digital camera (sometime this week!)
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
What was the most revolutionary scientific discovery of past 10 years?
-Science Aficionado

Dear Science,
That Stephen Wolfram thing. Rule 33 baby!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Sooo... what does "Actual Size" mean anyway? (as in View->Zoom->Actual Size)
-Ben

Dear Ben,
Damn! That's harder than that Monsterpiece theater question from a few weeks back! Little help?
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
I have an idea for a series of commercials. All of the REALLY ANNOYING commercial characters from TV could meet the CEOs of the company, and hilarity would ensue.
Like, the Dude-You're-Getting-A-Dell guy could meet Michael Dell and tell him he's getting a Dell. And Carrot Top could duke it out with the CEO of AT&T. Then, Sonny (who goes cuckoo for cocoa puffs) could meet the CEO of General Mills and go wacko all over him.
What do you think? Would that sell products? Maybe you should make an All Too Flat ad with a theme like that.
-Marketing in Maryland

Dear Marketing,
That's actually not a bad idea. We at ATF went so far as to get a digital video camera to start filming and ATF ad just like that, but we couldn't figure out who got to be the CEO and who was the REALLY ANNOYING person.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
There's been a fair amount of press about Amtrak, and how it's in so much trouble, etc etc. And while I'm sure that it is important (otherwise why so much press?), but I don't really know why. I'm not trying to be disparaging to the train industry or anything, I just don't know. So, to phrase this in the form of the question - why should I care about Amtrak being in financial troubles?
-Derailed in Detroit

Dear Derailed,
Because it's less depressing than caring about Enron or Worldcom's financial troubles.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
ok so I was going to write this movie about a black kid and a white kid who like grow up playing basketball together and are like really tight buddies and their high school team like wins some big championship but like in the championship game the black kid breaks his leg and the doctors say he'll never play ball again and the white kid gets recruited to play for Notre Dame and the black kid has to work in his fathers garage but then World War III breaks out and like the two kids go off to fight. The black kid is a better soldier so he moves up the ranks faster and in one big war scene over in like Iran the black kid becomes the white kids officer and like the two kids meet again only like because of the war their adults now. And then the black guy says to the white one "This war is just like basketball" only he dosen't expand on it so the audience has to think about it for a second. Do you think this would make a good movie?
-writer dude

Dear writer,
Only if it stars Will Smith and Ben Afleck. You could get that kid from the Sixth Sense and Lil Bow Wow to play them as children. That would rock!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
I'm sick and tired of asking my boyfriend questions and having him make me ask the fish instead. I know that he IS the fish and he's just not letting on. He tells me he's not, that it's more complicated than that but I tell him if I want Kenny's advice too I'd just email him directly. What do I do?
-tired of this stinking 'ask the fish form page

Dear tired,
You know sweetie, this passive agressive method of dealing with our communication issues through the web form is probably not the healthiest way to resolve our issues. Remember how much progress we made at group this week? Please don't let it all go to waste!!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Why are there no women behind all too flat?
-Egalitarian

Dear Egalitarian,
Because every time we start cc:ing girls on all our e-mails, they run and get a friggin' restraining order after the first 350 or so! It's so frustrating!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Ok, should I let the exterminator in my house on the first Tuesday of every month? How often does he really need to spray insecticide to be effective? Also, I might be the same percon who had the mouse in the house but let's just pretend for a second that I didn't have any rodents in the house.
-pest control

Dear pest,
Well, the type of pests we get underwater react differently than the land-based ones, so maybe I'm not the best person to ask. However, I do believe that it is relatively common for landlords to request that exterminators come in once per month. I really think that the frequency should be controlled by you, however. Try every other month for a while, and see if that controls your pest problem, and reassess everytime you see a centipede. You want to find a happy medium between not having roaches in your coffee, and keeping the level of Dcon in your creamer to an acceptable level.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
how far is a city block in NYC?
-Exercizing in NYC

Dear Exercizing,
20 streets is about 1 mile. 1 avenue is about three streets.
These are approximations. And they are from "El Chino's tips for tango tourists," so take it with a grain of your favorite whatever.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
So a mouse just ran under the front door into my apartment. I live on the 5th floor. No elevators or wheelchair ramps. How did it get here? No really, can mice climb stairs?
-Mouse in the House

Dear Mouse,
Yes, mice can climb stairs (I saw one do it in my house once). Makes it easier for the mouse if the stairs are carpeted, though. If not, the mouse probably got up some other way.
Another way available to mice include up through the walls - between surfaces, there's all sorts of neat stuff for mice to climb: wires, insulation, easily dug-into drywall, etc.
Yet another way is on the backs of dogs. You'll generally find that houses/apartment with beagles are rife with mice; they are big enough for the mouse to hide, but low enough for the mouse to jump onto.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
What does the following emoticon mean:
:(
-Emo T. Connely

Dear Emo,
This question stumped the fish, and took it to discuss with other members of his school. A transcript of the trialogue is below:
Fish 1: According to the source (www.emoticon.com), ";(" doesn't mean anything. Sorry.
Fish 2: It's not a winking sad face?
Fish 1: I mean, clearly that's what it is, but that's not an officially accepted emoticon, is what I'm saying. See, it kind of doesn't make any sense, the whole "winking sad face" thing.
Fish 3: I dunno. It's kinda like when your old man takes a swing at you, and you cry. Then later on, like at dinner, your still sad, and he doesn't really wanna break the tension or be nice in front of the entire family, but wants you to know he still loves you so he gives you a wink. Then you wink back, even though you're still sad.
I'm just saying. That's what it could be like.
Fish 1:Huh. I stand corrected.
I also stand bemused, confused, and vaguely entertained.
I don't think I've ever wanted to get that emotion across when writing an email. Of course, nor have I ever wanted to use :-F , the buck-toothed vampire, so what the hell do I know?
-ATF

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