Dear Ask the Fish,
Why, in a country of free speech are there phone bills?
-Sir talk alot

Dear Sir,
I'm not going to surprise anyone around here by my saying that my work environment is pretty nerdy. As such, I'm familiar with some of the verbal constructions and idioms found on Slashdot. One such is the distinction between the types of free. There is "Free, as in speech" and there is "Free, as in beer."

The idea is that the term "free" is an overloaded one, and refer to the concept of rights and freedoms, or it can refer to the concept of something being given away.

You, Sir, are confusing the two concepts. Speech is free, as in speech.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Where can I get ring tones for my phone that are the theme song to the original NES Zelda game? Or better yet, the magic flute from that game?

Geek on!
-Link

Dear Link,
I'll tell you what I just told my girlfriend - I've got your magic flute right here, dude.

And another thing - can we have a serious talk about these ringtones that you kids are spending billions of dollars on? What the fuck? I don't mean to be a fuddy-duddy or anything, but you guys are ape-shit retarted if you ask me. Have you actually CALLED anyone who has a ringtone? Have you ever been anything but seriously annoyed? And if it's a good friend of yours (or, god forbid, your significant other) that has one of these things, you end up hearing the first 20 seconds of Abba's Dancing Queen a couple of times a day. It's really quite enough to make me want to beat myself to death with my own cell phone.

Look, do the world a favor and take the damn things off. If you ask me, ring tones should work the other way - when you call someone, you should hear whatever you want. That way, you half-retarted corporate-controlled zombies can listen to Jewel all you want, and leave me to listen to nothing, in peace.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Pepsi, or Coke?
-Watzalthehalabaloo

Dear Watzalthehalabaloo,
Caffeine-free Diet Rally Cola--available now at your neighborhood Super Stop & Shop!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
My partner doesn't understand me. What should I do?
-T. L. Murphy

Dear T.,
Depends what sort of parter it is, and in what context they don't understand you. For instance, I often play bridge with the Triumverate: Ken and I versus Ben and Ton. Now, Ken understands the finer points of bridge just about as much as I understand those of ballroom dance (and if you've ever tried to tango with anyone lacking both arms, legs, and an inabillity to leave a fishtank for more than 2 minutes, you'll know that it's not a particularly rewarding task). In this context, the right answer is something to the effect of "Quit playing cards," or at least "Quit playing old lady card games." If you can't do that, then go ahead and get a new partner who knows the ins and outs of Blackwood. If by partner you are using a particularly annoying term for a boyfriend or girlfriend, the problem is a little more difficult. Is it a language thing? Actual verbal communication is seriously overrated - I suggest just toughing it through. You ask her to dress up as Leia in the slave girl outfit and she freaked? The four guys who do are the main content providers for this site have asked everyone they've ever dated for that, and they've been refused each time. Is it a fundamental disconnect in the appreciation of your inner self? Well, that's a toughy, and really one of the only reasons I would suggest breaking it off with her. But be careful here - even if she doesn't understand you, she can accept you and that may be good enough.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
what was the best thing before sliced bread?
-bob the pimp

Dear bob,
The best thing before sliced bread was, of course, sliced ham. Oddly, the invention of sliced ham predated that of sliced bread by almost 100 years. In those days, sliced ham was used mainly as an edible (albeit structurally questionable) plate. The sliced ham plate was popular with young business men who could buy a cheese sampler and salad and eat it on the go. With the introduction of sliced bread, the popularity of the sliced ham plate declined as it was replaced by the sliced bread plate. However, for backwards compatability with legacy lunches, the sliced ham remained in the meal between the slice of bread and the cheese. A decade later, a second slice of bread was added to the top of the meal to increase the strucural integrity of the meal and to allow it to be easily eaten with one hand.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Dear ATF-

What is the point of a cat after it kills a mouse to drag it up and down the stairs 3 times, spin it around the living room, make moden art on the walls with it, before finally sitting down on the floor next to its dead mouse, while the owner has to clean up all the lovely blood?

Arg. And the cat licked me this morning...ew, mouse blood.
--Kiki the Inflated Burrito

Dear -Kiki,
The answer is you've got a FUCKED-up cat.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Will you screw me?
-Leisua

Dear Leisua,
Out of what?
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Whats up with elgoog? I mean, it's crazy and i can't even read it!! It scares me at night.
-bob bobbity

Dear bob,
I'm really glad you asked this question, Bob. A lot of people think that elgooG is a punning riff on the notion of a "Google mirror," a site created as a sort of back-up to another, very popular site, so that visitors can still avail themselves of the "mirror" site's services if the original goes down for whatever reason. The idea with elgooG, however, was to take the "mirror" concept literally (well, sorta--it's not like if you hold up elgooG to the mirror it'll read properly) by doing the whole shebang in reverse. (I guess this seems a lot funnier if you've spent four years or more eking out a meager existence in the harsh, barren tundra of Ithaca, NY.) Indeed, this is the explanation offered by the creators of elgooG in their FAQ (which a less patient fish might suggest you should have read before asking this question, but far be it from me, etc.). However, my research into the eldritch and arcane has revealed to me that elgooG is in fact an invocation in the blaspehmous tongue of the Elder Gods (seriously, I was at a sandbar once when Cthulu and Dagon swam in, drunk as lords--alcoholism clearly runs in that particular family--and I tell you, those guys swear like it's going out of style). Though its true meaning contains geometries that would shatter the human mind into a million pieces of madness, roughly translated into English, it actually means "way to increase AllTooFlat.com's hit count."
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
DO YOU LIKE POTATOES?????????
-Bonbon

Dear Bonbon,
Not particularly. I'm more of a rice kind of fish. I think it all stems from a memory I have of my grandfathers uncle, and his experience during the Potato Famine of the mid 19th century. See, great-grandmother's brother, Seamus, was an artist of a sort; Seamus made incredibly lifelike representations of world leaders, using the potato as his medium (I believe to this day, a piece he did representing then-President James K. Polk sits in the Smithsonian. However, due to the inevitable expansion of tubers when exposed to humid air the sort of which is found in the DC area, it is labeled as a miniture version of William Howard Taft).

In any case, Seamus felt strongly about his art, and nearly went mad with the decisions he had to make every day whether to continue his life work, or to help feed himself and his family. Seamus took only enough from his art in order to keep himself and his people alive, if but barely. One night, the townspeople were driven into a lynch mob by the sight of the potato sculptures drying on the wall outside Seamus hut. Just before they reached the point of doing actual physical harm to the man they saw as idly throwing away the very substance they so desparately needed, a carriage arrived from the east. Turns out it was an emissary of Russian Emporer Nicolas I, who had heard of the stalwart sculptor staunchly defending his starch art, and a Seamus got a commission to do the entire Russian imperial family.

This, or course, stopped the mob cold and they dispersed having seen the error of their ways. And it very nearly ended as a happy story, but in an unfortunate coincidence, the Russian emissary was a carrier of tuberculosis, and infected Seamus, who died the next month only having done one-half of Nicolas' bust. To this day, I have a strong aversion to potatoes.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
does conor smell?
-kuli

Dear kuli,
I don't think so. But then again, I'm a freaking fish. It's all relative, is I guess what I'm saying.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Dear Ask the Fish,
I've had a lot of problems with people at my school latley. I have a tendency to cut myself when I get upset, and I go to therapy for it. What are some other things I could do to take out stress?
-Kate

Dear Kate,
This is at least the second 'cutting' question we've gotten here at Alltooflat, and I recently read an article in Good Housekeeping or the NY Times or something on this. I guess this is really big now. I mean, I read it in the times, so that has to be true, right? Like those shark attacks a few years back. Anyway, I want to take this moment to mention that we are a completely inappropriate source for advice on this, or any other serious, topic. We're almost certain to make light of something which is a serious issue, and there's an equal probability that even if we do take it seriously the advice we give is going to be horrendous. But since you asked: "What are some other things I could do to take out stress?" Oh, I don't know. Anything? I mean, just about anything anyway. I probably wouldn't suggest cutting other people on to deal with your stresses. But almost anything up to and including that would be a better way to deal with things. I realize it sounds somewhat trite, but getting involved in things helps - start a punk band, write an 'zine, take up boxing (foxy or otherwise), do something creative. Hell, we started this website because Ben kept crying himself to sleep every night and Kennyb had to punch knock him into unconsciousness just so he could get a good nights sleep. And look where it's brought those guys? Well, maybe they're a bad example, but still. Keep safe.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Do male Fish have penis's?
-Caroline

Dear Caroline,
My, I really just don't know where to start with this. First of all, your grammar is atrocious - I assume the question you are trying to ask is "Do male fish have penises?" Since 'fish' is both the singular and plural form of the word 'fish,' even the correct construction is ambiguous. Since the answer to one of the questions is obvious, I'll answer the other.

No, Caroline, male fish (much to the chagrin both of myself and the piscine fetish porn industry) do not possess multiple penises under normal circumstances.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Can u lick my balls u gay cunt

-Alex

Dear Alex,
Folks, I'm not really so much interested in answering this question as I am in sharing it with all of you, our loyal readers. Thank you for your support!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
How do I get the gut to ask my HUGE, I mean HUGE, crush out without humiliating myself?

-I-Love-Jake

Dear I-Love-Jake,
Jump right in, dude. Don't be a puss. If she says yes - Score! If she says no, you're wasting your time pining for her. Your life is way too short for that kind of thing.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
I have no girlfriend because I am a geeky nerd. What do you suggest?
-a nerd and proud of it too

Dear a,
I suggest not using your geekiness as an excuse. The rest of the ATF crew are the geekiest humans it's ever been my misfortune to swim across, and yet look at the selection of fly honeys they're hosing on a semi-regular basis:


This girl is engaged to Ben!


This girl is married to Sean!


This girl is dating Ken!*

And need we remind you who Ben, Sean, and Ken are?




If these three can pull it off (so to speak), so can you, my friend. So can you.

*(If you're wondering, I don't know what Ton's deal is.)
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
So, if I just told this girl I like "Ha! I win! I made you feel bad!" will that hurt my chances of banging her?
-Clueless in Cleeveland

Dear Clueless,
Probably. But it'd totally be worth it, no?
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
will my girlfriend ditch me and is she cheating on me
-Spartan 149

Dear Spartan,
Well, Spartan, the first thing you have to realize is that the two aren't necessarily inextricably tied. Perhaps you have reached some sort of homeostatis with your girl, a kind of symbiotic relationship whereby you provide her with free dinners and a sympathetic ear, and she provides you with grief and the agony that comes with lack of confidence in a lover.

What, 'symbiotic' isn't the right word for that sort of relationship, is it? In any case, the point is that you really have to treat the two questions separately.

Will your girlfriend ditch you? I don't know: Do you treat her in a manner she wants to be treated by her partner? (For my species, this entails ignoring her completely, and after you notice her go out to deep water, following a little while after and fertilizing her eggs without any personal interaction at all. This may or may not be considered good game for you depending on whether or not you live in Manhattan) Do you get along with her friends? (again, for my species this means fertilizing their eggs along with your loved ones. From what I understand from Kennyb, this is almost always a bad tactic when it comes to wooing and keeping a human female. Although since he seems completely incapable of accomplishing these tasks using any tactic, this might just be a peculiarity of his own relationships). When she looks at you, does she have the shining gleam of love in her eye (take note: eyes also gleam when the person looking at you is crying. Try not to mistake the gleam of sorrow and loss with that of love. It's embarassing for everyone). You have to ask yourself these questions, and make an honest assessment. Or you could just wait it out, and and see if she dumps you. It's not like you have any say in the matter anyway.

As for whether or not she's cheating on you. . . Some good indicators of whether your girl is the type to cheat include: Did you first get together with her when she was dating someone else? Have you found some dude's underwear in the corner of her room? (it's either some guy she's booping, or her brother. And quite honestly, either one of those is grounds for dumpage) Does she call you Kennyb when you're making love? (That happens a lot. Especially when you aren't doing it particularly well, because that's familiar).
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Why is it that, now that soccer is taking off in the states, American commentators have to make up their own jargon.
e.g. "Ball Denial", "there's traffic", "Defensemen"

What's wrong with what the rest of the world say?
-Ben

Dear Ben,
"Soccer is taking off in the states"? If this question is any indication, it's certainly huge in the state of Denial. That said, in regards to America refusing to import the jargon from the rest of the world: It's already imported this crappy sport. Isn't that enough?
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Hey! Here's something I think you would be really interested in! Karribean sud poker! Live at http://www.realrlist.net/karribischer-stud-poker.html It's great poker!
Live Great poker with amateur players! Win money now!!! - bonus
-poker games

Dear poker,
Again, not a question I'm particularly interested in asking (not even a question at all, really), but something I thought would be interesting to share with the group. We get a lot of this form spam submitted through the Ask interface, and it wasn't something I had ever seen or heard about. Thought you might be interested.

Oh, and you fuckers who run these bots to submit the spam? I changed all the URLs so you won't get linked. Bite my ass, you knobs.
-ATF

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