The Random How To: How To Properly Conduct Business With Aliens

Now, I'm not talking about illegal aliens or people foreign to this country, I'm talking legitimate extra-terrestrials.

In this day and age we can not limit the scope of our business to the seven continents of this Earth. Like the pioneers before us, we must expand! Luckily, here at Musings on Tap, we will provide you with protips on how to handle inter-stellar transactions smoothly.

The Basics

This might come as a no-brainer, but aliens come in many different flavors. Their language, size, and visage will greatly differ. This can raise many quandaries. Such as: "How do I speak in their language?", "Are there any customs I should be aware of, what should I do when they start threatening me with their phasers?", "If they don't have a noticeable face, or in fact have multiple faces, what or which should I address?"

Ah yes, I should have made this how-to sooner as my inbox is flooded with these very questions.

How to Properly Conduct Business With an Alien

Alas. before I address all these questions I must inform you that the VERY first step is to watch every movie with aliens, ever.

In my personal interactions with aliens, they have acted eerily similar to the Hollywood portrayals of them. This includes Alien, Men in Black, E.T., and of course my personal favorite, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (the movie).

Alright, so you just spent half of your life watching, crappy movies, now what?

I want you to take a step back, go in to exile, do some serious introspection, and embrace your inner alien. At an undisclosed time in the future you will slowly create an Alien Soul-- a unique identification and communication tool that connects the alien worlds. You can now interact with any alien. However, for this to work properly you must await first contact.

Unfortunately, this soul connection obeys the universal speed limit. This means those aliens that live more than 100 light years away (all of them) will take more time than you're alive to contact you.

Thank you for reading, and do stay tuned for my segment on how to live longer and undoubtedly prosper.

-Mi

The MoT Top 10: The Ninth

Top 10 Weighs too Annoy You're english Teacher
(Sorry Ms. Phillips)

10) Write your papers in a foreign language.

9) Create your own verb tense and insist on it's use.

8) Write your sentences from right to left. When asked about this, which you will be, be prepared to be a native of any Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese or Japanese speaking country.

7) Confuse you're homophones two the point of patency.

6) Call them out on plagiarism when they write specific examples from the novel you're reading on the board.

5) Write an essay explaining how and why your dog ate your essay. A paw print as a citation is a nice touch.

4) Take every opportunity given to correct your teacher grammatically and syntactically. They will pretend to appreciate it, but truthfully, this is their biggest pet-peeve.

3) Argue the existence of Shakespeare and claim that his works were those of many ghost writers under one pen name.

2) When asked to read aloud in class, pause longer than necessary at commas and don't stop at all at periods.

1) Again, when reading aloud, make offhand comments on the author's writing style. Also pose your own questions to the class and be sure to go off on extremely irrelevant tangents.

Honourable Mentions

Spell words the British way, yoghurt, flavour, crunchatise, colour and so on. Imagination is a bad thing in spelling, so here is a website to guide you. This should inspire a delightful conversation with your teacher where you can argue you are using English in a more pure form.

When another student answers a question, immediately ask "may I offer a rebuttal?".

Put emoticons in your papers.

The MoT Top 10: The Eighth

Top 10 News Headlines

10) "Iranese President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Comes Out of Closet"

9) "Swing States Learn How to Mambo"

8) "Newt Gingrich's Identity Stolen, Returned Then Refused"

7) "No One Died Today"

6) "Serial Killer Seen Lurking at General Mills Headquarters"

5) "Walrus Swallowed By Man-Eating Walrus"

4) "Bob the Builder Can No More: Fired as Obama's Campaign Manager"

3) "Donald Trump: Not a U.S. Citizen"

2) "Man Dies in Poke War"

1) "Confirmed: Joseph of Nazareth Not the Father"


-DeMi

5,000 Page Views!!!

Hey guys, if you're reading this you might be our 5,000th page view..

Let's just say you are :)

DeMi would like to congratulate you! But mostly thank you for being so kind and keeping MoT around! It's been a good couple years!

Here's to many more thousands!

Cheers!

-DeMi

Jónsi-Animal Arithmetic-Fan Vid

Just a little video Mi and Fr made over Spring Break, all random, all fun!

Hope y'all enjoy!

The MoT Top 10: The Seventh

The Top 10 Ways to Exert Dominance

10) Always overdress. If everyone is wearing jeans, you suit up. If everyone is suited up, you wear a ceremonial robe.

9) Make business cards with just your personal information.

8) Be the big spoon.

7) Walk up to a couple on a date and pick up the check. Then give him/her your business card.

6) Two-up everyone.




5) Talk about yourself whenever unnecessary.

4) When someone asks if a seat is taken, make it your footrest.

3) Always seat yourself.

2) Break off the whole hot mother damn mother fucking Kit-Kat bar.

1) Swear explicitly.

-DeMi

The Random How To: Interrogating Piranhas

Welcome to a new segment I'd like to call the "Random How To" where I, Mi, will teach you how to do something ridiculous. Much unlike the "MoT Top 10" this segment, much as the name suggests, will be at random. Anywhos...

For this week's how-to we will be learning how to interrogate a piranha. In case you do not know, the  Pygocentrus nattereri  is a fish most commonly found in South American rivers. They are also found at zoos. A zoo is a gated community where rich animals live. They keep many human servants who wait on them, hand and foot...and fin.

Sup

Now surely you're asking yourself "Why would I want to interrogate a piranha?"

Easy. Piranhas kill an undisclosed amount of people EVERY YEAR. Proper interrogation techniques often used by the Amazonian Rangers can coax the fresh-water fish into disclosing their motives, secrets, and locations of dead bodies.

Alright alright. Now, how does one speak to a piranha?

Well, sirma'am you must be confused, if you would like to talk to animals this is clearly not the post for you. This post is about interrogating piranhas, let's not pretend we've discovered something magical.

Let's get down to it..

 How to Interrogate a Piranha

To be clear I've transcribed this from the audio notes I took in Spanish whilst in the Amazon, so things might be a bit vague, or fuzzy. But bear, or piranha, with me.

First you must locate the piranha in question.

Then, you MUST establish direct eye conctact. This might be a bit tricky, because as it turns out making eye contact with a fish is like trying to make eye contact with a cross-eyed guy.

Next, you want to slowly lower your "offering" in to the water.
  Note: the lowering must be at a constant velocity, and in case there are other piranhas in the area you must make clear that the offering is solely for the one.


Oh, this part's important too. The "offering" can be any part of your body that is still attached and that you are willing to part with. Unfortunately they are not attracted to extremities that haven't been severed by the piranha's own accord.

Gazes still interlocked with your fishy friend? It's a must! Or else the previous step will have been all for naught. Now that you have sated the fish's voracious appetite you can proceed with the interrogation.

To ask for a direction of say a body, or simply a good place to set up your lean-to: Stare straight at the fish, then slowly move your right eye in any which direction. If the fish breaks his gaze then what you seek is in the opposite direction, if he holds his gaze then you're face is about to be bitten off...

Unfortunately, after your face is bitten off there is no further recourse.

Thanks for reading! And do stay-tuned for my segment on how to interrogate a piranha without having your head bit off!

-Mi

The MoT Top 10: The Sixth

Top 10 Ways to Discreetly Sleep in Class

College is rough and we understand. The following is an extremely realistic list of tactics for worry-free napping to get you through those lectures that just aren't engaging enough to deserve your indulgence. Here we go:

10) Just Do It. And I don't mean fall asleep in class and hope for the best. I mean when life hands you lemons, have sex with the teacher.

9) Tell the professor your ability to listen is heightened when you close your eyes

8) Give the professor crazy eyes until he avoids eye contact with you. This guy knows what I'm talking about.

7) " Get your eyes dilated" before every class so you have an excuse to wear those awesome post-dilation blinders. 

6) On the first day of class, set the standard by taking of your pants in plain sight of everyone in the room. If your professor doesn't notice, proceed with impunity. In fact, don't go to class anymore. If your professor does notice, he will be grateful when he catches you sleeping, because at least you aren't taking off your pants.

5) Convince your professor you are very nearsighted and have to put your forehead on the book to read it.

4) Have a friend wear a different costume everyday (lion, Nicki Minaj, sumo suit) No one's going to be looking at you. Depending on the friend, this make require some convincing.

3) Sit next to a hot girl. Again, no one's gonna be looking at you. Disregard if you are a hot girl.

2) Paint eyes on your eyelids.

1) Become a master of somnambulism

-DeMi