Advice from The Correctness
Oh Constant Reader, you may recall that in order to celebrate our 100th member of our facebook group, we held a contest requesting your best “advice column letter”. We also asked you to sign off with a clever acronym that summarized your troubles, like “NERD” or “BATMAN”. The Correctness is pleased to announce that the contest submissions are in, and one of these lucky advice askers will receive dinner with The Correctness! Imagine an entire evening of smarminess! But first, we know that you want our advice, and we are delighted to offer it to you, smarmily. Contest winners will be announced shortly!
Dear Correctness:
When I married my husband I was a regular person with a passing knowledge of superheroes and sci-fi related stuff. I had great conversations about art, politics, and world events. After marrying a nerd I now find we discuss the merits of Wolverine vs. Batman at length. How can I get my husband to talk about events in the real world?
Dreaming Of Real Knowledge
Well DORK (see that’s how that works, that’s funny) , 1/3 of The Correctness worked at the Zoo for a summer, and I can tell you that everyone likes to discuss the relative merits of things. Additionally, everyone, everyone, EVERYONE wants to know which scary thing will win in a fight. This is human nature. Who would win, a Siberian Tiger or a Polar Bear? Answer: A polar bear you fucking numbnuts, they are gigantic bears.
Second, try sitting down with your husband, somewhere away from the action figures that are still in their boxes, and discussing events of importance to you. Be sure to remind him that his last chance to have sex ever again is on the line. If he remembers that he is a gigantic nerd and can’t fathom how he managed to entice a spouse that is willing to touch his man-parts, you will be amazed by the speed at which he gets up to date on current events and matters of philosophical importance.
Thirdly, and I think this is your real question here, I sense that you are asking who would win in a fight between Batman and Wolverine. I can safely say Batman would win. Don’t contradict me, I know that Wolverine has adamantium bones and claws, and he also has super strength. I also know that Batman is essentially just a dude. However, one look at the panel of Batman in the Bat Cave standing over the bloodied wreck of Superman’s spongy flesh in The Dark Knight Strikes Again , and you can rest assured that Batman would kick Wolverine’s ass, even if it took him 20 years to research how to melt adamantium. Oh, is adamantium magnetic? Because why doesn’t Magneto just magnetize it? I guess it isn’t magnetic, like aluminum? In fact, if somebody could just explain all the retarded shit in the marvel universe to me, that would be great, and I say that as a big Spider-Man fan.
Dear The Correctness,
What the fuck is with you guys making me cut and paste your email
address from your contest post to this email? I should be able to just
click that shit. Haven’t you heard of href? As in, <a href=
“mailto:thecorrectness@thecorrectness.com“> Anyway. That’s not my
question.
This is my question. I like to buy lottery tickets, doritos, and
batteries from a Korean convenience store located near my home. The
store is well stocked with goods, but purchasing them presents a problem
because I can’t understand a fucking thing the person behind the counter
is saying to me… especially when I’m drunk. I’m pretty sure that the
stout lady guarding the smokes is mocking my English in a Korean or
other kind of Chinese accent. What should I do?
Frustrated,
Kim Chi
I suspect, Kim Chi (Not an acronym, but within acceptable advice column standards), one of the issues might be that you are racist, but another issue might be that we are trying to avoid “bots” discovering our email and spamming us. Right at the heart of the matter is this: You have a communication barrier with your Korean store clerk, and I have no desire to receive emails about how much bigger my penis could be.
The solution for this is simple. The service you are getting from the Korean store clerk is miles better than you would get from a sullen teen, and I simply do not want to have to think about the size of my penis. Does the Korean convenience store lady have a hot, university-aged, violin playing daughter? Oh, or cello? Preferably cello. I don’t mean to reinforce cultural stereotypes, I’m just saying that sounds hot.
Dear the Correctness,
I am in 8th grade of St Frencklebert Jr high School. Recently I started Dating a real guy that actually exists and I did not make up. His name is Edward Effron and he is like super real. And my Boyfriend. He is my real Boyfriend. And he is like super hot and sings in musicals and such. And he is probably a vampire for real. Anyway one day at lunch while I was definitely NOT eating at the fat kid table I overheard my real boyfriend who is real talking about the fact he is getting me a real horse for my birthday next week because I am hot like Becky Stevens and not fat like she says. How do I tell my not imaginary super real boyfriend that I want a majestic Clydesdale with out giving away I know the surprise? For real?
Signed,
Lovely And Married to Edward.
Listen, LAME, I totally get where you are coming from. As the unmarried 1/3 of The Correctness, I too have a totally real girlfriend who exists and is real and is just shockingly hot, but she just isn’t in town right now. You know, like, you could meet her but she lives far away, so she exists and I’m not gay is the bottom line here. She and I have problems like that all the time. Now, I’m a little older than you, so I’m going to try and make this advice as practical as possible. My totally real girlfriend is constantly surprising me with rad gifts like vacations to New Zealand and batmobiles (that’s another thing about wolverine -no car), and she loves to catch me off guard with such things. When she proposed to me recently at Comicon in San Diego, I happened to know it was coming. I knew she purchased the reproduction “One Ring” with a modified inscription in Elven, because I keylogged her Dell. Here is how I handled it:
Try to remember that even though you know what the surprise is in general, you should just accept whatever (horse or One Ring)you get, this is still a person that you care for very much, and that now is a good time to show your true feelings, unlike Sauron, who disguised his hate and greed inside the ring, secreted away in Mount Doom. When you are presented with the gift, Clydesdale or no, just let the feelings in your heart for your boyfriend shine through and your appreciation will be enough! You may even come to love the horse he has selected for you, as it represents his love for you, which is real. Also, may I say your vampire-musical boyfriend sounds totally hot, not that I swing that way, but if he’s legal I’d be interested in meeting him, you know, to talk, or just, whatever ends up happening between two consenting men, or whatever- Like, maybe he and i could just have a barbecue and a few beers, you know, it doesn’t have to get weird, whatever. Oh! As well, if your horse begins to consume your soul and turn you into a Horse Wraith, double check on the vampire thing.
Dear RobbieRob Town and the Correctness:
I need your wise advice on what to wear and how to act when meeting an Assiniboine Chief. I need to make a VERY good first impression. I know I can count on the Correctness to give me the advice I require for just such a meeting that is why I have turned to you.
~Assiniboine Native Girl Inconceivably Eburnean
This is an interesting tactic, ANGIE. I see that you have outed your name in your acronym, eliminating the anonymity of your submission. How curious.
Next up, I had to look up “eburnean” so thanks for and addressing your question specifically to me and making me feel like a jackass.
Finally, regarding your question:
As it is clear you are both Native, and assembled form some kind of ivoroid structures, I cannot possibly hazard a culturally sensitive answer. I would like, at this juncture, to introduce you to my ten foot pole. With this, I will not be touching your question.
Dear The Correctness,
It seems like the names of bad species or civilizations in science fiction all end in -ons. Star Trek had Klingons. In Babylon 5, it was Vorlons. Battlestar Galactica had the Cylons. Coincidence? (Note: Star Wars did not follow this quite obvious tradition).
signed,
George Lucas Doesn’t Understand Sci-Fi Tradition
Ah, GLDUSFT. Wait- GLDUSFT? What the fuck kind of acronym is that? A bullshit one, is the answer. I’ve heard better acronyms out of NASA, and they set the bar pretty low with excluded letters and cuteness.
In fairness you have an interesting point. It certainly explains my preternatural fear of the terrifying Monctons and Edmontons, with their hideous glowing eyes and ridged foreheads. Star Wars species and character names are the subject of much debate but I can tell you, once and for all how it works.
At the Skywalker ranch, in a pond rich with nutrients, George Lucas breeds huge catfish. He then dives in and wrestles these 100 pound catfish. Next, he pumps carbon dioxide into the stomachs of a captured catfish, and with the wriggling fish still under arm, he squeezes it. The resulting noises produced by the fish’s mouth are the names of the species in star wars.
Dear Correctness:
My side of the family is steadfastly Star Trek… In my parents’ basement there are several Star Trek posters and life-size cardboard cut-outs of Spock and Kirk (who attended our Star Trek themed wedding and danced with several of our guests, by the way)… They have several tee-shirts and my brother brought us back some Romulan Ale and a Tribble from their trip to Las Vegas.
My husband and I LIKE Star Trek, but also enjoy Star Wars. We have a Rebel Alliance Fighter-Pilot outfit ( pic attached ) as well as a Crimson Guard outfit ( pic attached ); our friends also have the outfits ( pic attached ), we used to play unprecedented amoungts of SW RPG with the original 6D system… (see example: (pic attached )
My family has threatened to disown us if we switch to Star Wars…
Do you suppose there is any chance in hell of our families ever getting along? One side wants the familiar galaxy from the future and one side favours the alien galaxy far, far away from a long time ago.
Can you propose any solution or are we all just going to end up clashing in some kind of temporal loop that will collapse on itself because the past/future would collide like matter/anti-matter? Can’t we have Hyper-Speed AND Warp-Speed?
Signed: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
WCWAJGA, Thanks for submitting your acronym which IS in fact a species name from the Star Wars universe. I could go on at length about how much WCWAJGA is precisely the kind of sound created by a catfish when you inflate and squeeze him. You can almost hear the bubbles of water in the throat and the benign flap of the gills, which, I might add, is how Ben Burtt did the sounds for the Mon Calamari in return of the Jedi.
That said, no, your family and your husband will never get along the way you want them to. This is because they are asking one of the great questions. They are asking you to compare the relative merits of Star Trek and Star Wars. This is a decision which must be carefully weighed, and not just glibly tossed out there as if you believe Wolverine had the tiniest chance against the sheer awesomeness of Batman. You really need to get in there and weigh the pros and cons, before you start the argument.
For example, the three Star Wars prequels were largely ungood, but Star Trek produced whole seasons of television series which were ungood like, oh, DS9, or Enterprise, or Voyager.
Why not try this: take it to their level? Pick something specific that has bothered you about Star Trek, and then bring it up as the reason for your conversion to Star Wars fandom. Try “We switched to Star Wars because of how unwatchable Star Trek 5 was”, and your family will defend the fact that Shatner had a different premise entirely, and that Paramount wanted to capitalize on the comedy in Star Trek 4 and so they rejected the vastly more interesting pitch of “Star Trek in Dante’s Inferno” and dumbed it down to whatever that abortion of a plot “The Voyage Home” turned out as, making Shatner look like a bad director even though he isn’t.
See how that works? You’re back in safe territory, because they are now obligated to explain why they love Star Trek, instead of attempt to understand your love of Star Wars.
