Dear Ask the Fish,
Will I ever recover from these hangovers?
-Well Hung Over

Dear Well,
Recover? Yes.

Learn from? No.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Dear fish,
Oh sorry dude i didnt do the sleepless in seatle dealie the first time.
But anyway, which is cooler, metallica or megadeth?
-Sorry in Rochester

Dear Sorry,
An interesting question. I can only really tell you how I feel about it, since there is no absolute correct answer. For me, Metallica is the way to go. If you are going to make a list of bands that helped shaped the way heavy metal grew, Metallica is going to feature prominently. Also - Master of Puppets? ...and Justice For All ? A blazing sun to the comet that was Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction. Of course that's just, like, my opinion, man.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Is this mmmm mmmm mmmm beotch: Baked Blue Cheese Halibut
Recipe using halibut, buttermilk, red onion, and blue cheese.
-Hungry Hungry Howie

Dear Hungry,
I'm not a naive fish, and I realize you only ask because you intend to get a rise out of me. But here at alltooflat we try to treat all answers equally. So I went to a friend of mine, this guy I know (not a fish, but a gourmet nonetheless) and asked him. Turns out, that sounds disgusting to anyone, whether or not it's made out of them.

Conveniently enough, this guy had a question for me. He had been thinking about popping the question to his wife, who was currently writing her thesis on the metaphoric use of ceramics in poetry (studying poetry was difficult for her, unfortunately, since she was well aware of how much she ode). Anyway, this friend of mine was concerned that he wasn't good enough for her, and her love of the Romantics was always going to take precedence over his romantic love. It was a jealousy thing, really. So I told him:

"Buddy, if I've learned anything in this life it's this: If you can't take the Keats, get out of the hitchin."


Sorry about that.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Dear fish... I have a problem. I smell really bad. Because of that, I have no friends, on the weekends, i talk to myself and stare at my reflection in the T.V.What should i do? Will you be my friend? Can fish even smell?
-Friendless

Dear Friendless,
Woof, can fish smell? You should come to my family's Labor Day picnic this year. Every year, we all head out to Prospect Park, and spend the day having a serious summer party. But a Northern Pike indulging in four hours of eating potato salad and sitting in the sun does no one's olafactory system, no matter how bad, anything good.

As to the other thing - yeah, that's a problem, huh? Have you done a self-analysis? What part of you is smelling so bad? Could be an STD of some kind. If that's the case, take heart! None of the really bad ones (HIV, syphillis) have foul-smells as first stage symptoms, so it's probably something nasty, but cureable (gonorrhea, for instance). Or it could be an unfortunate effect of your social situation: When you are watching tv, are you wallowing in your own filth, as well as self-pity (I assume you are wallowing in self-pity, it's what I do on the weekends)? Or perhaps you are a ferret - cute though they are, they smell like doody.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Do you make a lot of money from this site? And what advice would you give to an up-and-coming webmaster hoping to make him millions through e-commerce?
-Lazlow

Dear Lazlow,
Lot of money from the site? Well, Ton pretty much runs the books, so actually I'm kind of unclear how much the site brings in. I mean, he's not out there buying a new Bently and some bling, so I don't think we're raking in the cash. On the other hand, I haven't had to cut him a check to fill in my portion of the site losses in a while. I assume what's going on is that donations and merchandise sales (this might be a good time to plug Mall Too Flat, for all of your ATF merch needs), give us a plausible source for income, which is actually just a front for the black market organ trading is doing from the west coast.

That's just what I'm assuming.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Dear ATF,

For a fish obsessed with proper grammar, maybe it's time you who started using the spell checker:

"The missing piece is the concept of dew point, which is definied [SIC] as the temperature to which the environment would have to cool..."

I have no question; just some vindication for those whom you've abused over the years. Huge!

Love,
Grammar Police a.k.a. "G2"

-Grammar Police a.k.a. G2

Dear Grammar,
Let it not be said that we aren't appreciative of correction on topics such as these. Thanks, G2 - keep up the good work. It is important to set an example.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
In a fight, which teenage mutant ninja turtle would win? What if they didn't have their weapons?
-April O'Neill

Dear April,
Man, I was totally going to quit answering questions for the night, then I came across this one. I would make an analogy between the way I feel right now, and how Brody must have felt in Mallrats when the chick who wasn't on Beverly Hills 90210 asked him what he would choose as his superpower, except that making analogies between things that are completely the same isn't an effective literary device.

Lemme think for a minute. Well (and I'm going from my knowledge of the original comics, not the TV show), Leonardo didn't become the ersatz head because of his superior martial skill, but because of his even-temper and leadership skills. Donatello was always more interested in reading comic books than training. So I really think it would have to come down between Michelangelo and Raphael. Now, I think the real question at this point should be: Who would have the will to strike a final blow? Here I think Raphael has an edge. He has a dark side, that one. Though he might regret it more than the others after the fact, I believe he could steel himself to the task.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Is it possible to tell a girl that you want to chain her to your bed, without giving her the idea that you're interested in a serious relationship? How soon after you started dating? A few weeks?
-Shackeled in Sheboygan

Dear Shackeled,
I'm not really sure, Shackeled. Fish, as a general rule, don't go in for kink. It's an interesting fact that, right clear across the animal kingdom, human beings are the only species that finds the natural, zesty enterprise of physical relations at times uninteresting enough to require props, equipment, and at times a spotter. Even that set of animals who have been shown to be tool users (beavers, otters, crows) don't find it neccessary to combine their drive to procreate with that portion of the brain which allows them to build a home.

Since I didn't have the background to answer the question, I went to one of my editors, Kennyb. He says "The amount of ramp up needed in order to ask to lash your lady friend to the bedframe is enormous. Start early, and revisit often. Really, if you start dropping hints on the third date, you might be able to whip out the carabiners and chain link by 4 weeks in."
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
When askin a woman out should one just say, "Hey, let's go out!" or should one make some kinda reason like, "Hey, let's ketchup!"
-Bizo

Dear Bizo,
A good question, but one that is nigh unanswerable. This touches on a guy's 'approach,' and an approach that works for one guy just isn't going to work for another. Also, approaches must differ from situation to situation. The tact an experienced Don Juan will take at, a wedding is going to have to be modified at least slightly at, say, a funeral. In this specific case, at the funeral you are going to want to avoid the phrase "I think you have a marvelous body," as that might be taken to refer sardonically to the young lady's late Uncle Elmer, who's corpse was never recovered from that nasty business with the antelope herd.

Your question could also be taken to be asking about two different classes of approach. These can be classified as "The Earnest" vs. "The Casual." The Earnest romancer uses a particuarly forward line, cutting right to the chase. This has an advantage of giving the gentleman an aura of honesty, and also makes his interests and intentions clear. The disadvantage of this approach is contained in the fact that it doesn't leave much wiggle room - you've asked out the target, and the possibility of rejection is imminent.

The Casual courter is utilizing a more disingenuous approach, attempting to come off as just a friendly guy who'd like to spend some time with an interesting person. For some reason, this approach continues to work, even in those situations when the Casual male hasn't been interested in catching up with the target female until he found out that she is WAY cuter than he remembered. Advantages to the casual approach include a low-probability of outright rejection, and a higher chance of initial date. Disadvantages include the fact that the lady might not realize that it's supposed to be a date, and also that this can put you on the fast track to being the friend of a girl you want to boop.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
in your words what is the best possition to have sex??
-fred

Dear fred,
Fishy-style.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Some people who are vegetarians only eat plants, chicken or fish. If you were to eat fish, would you be a vegetarian, cannabil or a doppleganger twin fish thing.
-Kevin Egli

Dear Kevin,
At first I didn't understand what Kevin was talking about, specifically the relationship between the first and second sentences. I thought it was like one of those questions on standarized tests, where they give you a set of statements, some of which have nothing to do with the answer they are looking for, just to throw you off.

Anyway, what? Oh, yeah. I'm a fish. If I were to eat fish (I don't), it would indeed be somewhat cannabalistic. There are some fish that believe it's only cannabalism to eat fish of the same species, but honestly I have a "Treat others as I would wish to be treated" attitude about the entire thing.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
where is the braeburn marsh located?
-amanda

Dear amanda,
The Braeburn marsh is located in Kare Co, IL. What's interesting about the Braeburn Marsh is that it's one of those places significant enough to have some hits on Google, there isn't anything really of interest to be said about it. So I'll just leave it at that.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
I went out with a guy last year and some of this year, we went through a very rough relationship but I still think about him a lot. What do I do?
-Shaine

Dear Shaine,
No one ever gets anywhere by going backwards, Shaine.

Except Ben's Uncle Maier. Maier suffered from an unfortunate teratogenic disease that caused his feet to grow in the opposite direction of his body. In addition to causing what I'm sure were nearly insurmountable balance issues (he eventually solved his problems by always carrying a 50 lb rucksack at arms length - made him incredibly strong), he could only make forward progress by walking backwards. He actually ended up making quite a bit of money in the circus, earning double pay as a member of the side show, and as the strong man. Nice guy, Uncle Maier.
-ATF

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