Fair Warning

The best way to invite people to a party, is of course to talk to them in person or give them a good ‘ole phone call. Now this may seem old fashioned to some of you, but really having that real communication is the only way to fully express how badly you want someone to come to your awesome party¹. For more formal gatherings you may wish to also send out well-typeset invitations asking your friends to RSVP.

In this new, fancy 'web 2.0' world people have begun to use facebook and other social networking tools to speed up the invitation process. Now this is all well and good when it is used to supplement the traditional invite process, but using only services alone is incredibly stupid, in fact if you do that there is a chance that only one person will show up². Most people with real social lives do not spend all their time browsing the internet for new events to go to, instead they go out and actually have fun and you should show them some respect and give them a call if you actually want to see them. Also think of all your friends that are not on your social network of choice³, give them a call too and tell them how much you would dearly like to invite them to your splendid event.

Now go out and Party!

1. Perhaps even a super awesome party. [↩]
2. Source: Facebook in a Crowd [↩]
3. You know, before you started your internet addiction. [↩]

Do not slap people in the face, just do not do it whether you are male or female, young or old, there are very few times when it is appropriate to do so and you will probably never be in a situation where it is acceptable action. Slapping not only hurts, but it can also create real emotional scars for both the slap-ee and the slapper. Anyhoo appropriate times for slapping are the following:

1. You have written & signed consent from the other person, stating that they want to be slapped¹.
2. There is a large carnivorous insect on the other person's face.
3. You are a character on a daytime soap opera.
4. The other person needs to wake up or they will be late for their super important Calc II final.
5. You are a character in a Japanese flash game.
6. You are challenging the other person to a duel².
7. That is it, there are no more good reasons to slap someone.

Also as a final word of caution remember that in polite society any slap, punch, push, or fist bump may be construed as a challenge so be sure to keep your hands to yourself at fancy parties.

1. Violence is always best when it is consensual. [↩]
2. Proper duel challenging should always be done with a glove and not one's bare hands. [↩]

Never talk about yourself in the third person, it is not and has never been acceptable to do so, and unless well all become part of a cybernetic hive mind it will probably never be alright to do so. Only three kinds of people are allowed to talk about themselves in the third person: Insane people, actors performing poorly written monologues, and five year olds.

Zombie game shows are awesome¹, action-packed and often unintentionally hilarious, which is why you should create one of your own and become rich! Now there are a few formats that really lend themselves to the zombie theme:

• Zombie Island - Strand a group of people with minimal supplies on an island and then release zombies around the island. You can make it a game of survival, or more amusingly you can plant an important clue on each zombie and force the contestants to hunt the undead until they can get off of the island. Note, this can work at a mall, a prison, or even in the middle of a national park.
• Zombies Do the Darndest Things or America's Funniest Undead Videos - Film zombies doing stupid things, laugh, repeat until bored.
• The Bachelor: Extremely Desperate Edition - Take one man and twelve well preserved zombie women and let the fun begin. They go on dates, have fun, are equipped with muzzles to prevent biting, and of course shoots one in the head at the conclusion of each episode.
• Add zombies to any Japanese game show.
• The Price is Right - Bring a zombie Bob Barker² back to replace the abomination that is Drew Carey.

All of these shows are obviously absolute gold, and will make everyone involved something like a gazillion dollars. Remember of course to force all contestants to sign a ridiculous waver before filming starts, as you really don't want to get in a situation with zombie lawyers³.

1. This is all under the assumption that a zombie apocalypse has already occurred and the situation has been brought under control. If there has not already been a mass-outbreak of zombies then you probably know nothing about controlling them, and creating a game-show with them will most likely cause a zombie apocalypse of it's own. So don't be the guy who fucks over the world, let someone else do it first! [↩]
2. I realize he's not dead, but still, awesome. [↩]
3. No really, I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about right here. Zombie lawyers? What the fuck does that have to do with anything at all? [↩]

If you ever have aspirations to rule the world, blow up national monuments, or merely take revenge on the people who bullied you in the first grade using a nuclear powered super-laser from the moon, then you will probably have to deal with a super-spy. The key, of course to killing any super-spy is to shoot him(or her) in the head and throw the corpse into a furnace. That's it. All super-spies are arrogant asses, and at some point you will capture them, and that is when you end it. Now you might be tempted to keep them alive for interrogation, torture, or as some sort of bargaining chip, but the fact is that torture does not work and every second a spy is alive is a second that you are in danger, so end it.

The word 'Concur' has got to be one of the finest words in the english language. Just say it out loud and you will agree; the happiness that one word gives is almost palpable. One should strive to use the word everyday, although you must be vigilant to never concur inappropriately.

It is a sad time in American history, fewer and fewer of our nation's young people are singing and dancing in the street. However you can do something about this, and all you have to do is what you were born to do, sing! Now you might be afraid to sing alone, but that is why man invented street gangs, like the Jets, the Sharks, and of course the Fighting Mongooses. With a street gang you can be a fearsome force, dancing, snapping and singing as a cohesive unit.

However, even if you are all alone, you can still inspire, and educate, and maybe even convince others to join you in song. It is important however, to keep to the classic more well known songs, so that anyone can join in. The following selection is great for this and for karaoke too:

1. Stand by Me
2. Anything by Three Dog Night
3. Don't Stop Believing
4. Wannabe
5. Build Me Up Buttercup
6. Torn
7. BananaPhone
8. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
9. Eye of the Tiger
10. AND MANY MORE¹

So get out there and start singing, save our children from an existence without the beauty of random music and street gangs!

1. If you actually have any to suggest please email us at tekgofairwarning@gmail.com [↩]

We all want to be able to honestly respond to the question "How are the kids?", but children are really so hard to come by these days. Now if you get as much junk mail as we get at the Fair Warning offices, then you've probably seen mail-order baby catalogs like "Super Babies: Genetically engineered for you!", "Orphans! Buy 3 get 7 more free!", or my personal favorite "Modest Proposal Quarterly". These services are great, but one should be careful when ordering small children through the mail as I have recently been informed that it is illegal to transport children through the post¹. This is why one should always, and I mean always transport your children via independent package services, or for large orders commission a freight service.

1. http://flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2584174182/ [↩]

Whenever you are getting on a bus, train, ferry, trolley or airship please follow these steps.

1. Get to the station or stop before the vehicle is scheduled to arrive.
2. Have your ticket or exact change prepared before you board.
3. Wait for people to exit the vehicle before you get on. It is physically impossible for two non-superpowered people to share the same space at the same time, thus someone will have to get out of the way. Letting people to exit before you enter will make everyone happier and will speed up the process.
4. No, I am serious, stand at least five feet from the doors so that people can exit the bus/train/whatever, standing in the way is not going to get you on board any faster.
5. Find a seat or place to stand as soon as you can, and stay there.
6. Do not try to engage me in conversation; seriously I doubt that you have anything to say that will actually be interesting to me.

While I am on a technology kick, let us talk about cell phones, specifically their batteries. Now I do not particularly like my cell phone, it does not have any awesome features like web browsing, music, or lasers, but it at least works as a phone and can sync via Bluetooth. If I had money to burn, I would probably throw this phone into a blender and switch to a different network, but I do not so I will not.

Of course I said I would talk about my cell phone's battery, which like all batteries is slowly decreasing in maximum charge, and at some point will be unable to allow me to have a proper conversation about my future ambitions with a phone sex operator; however this is pretty standard and not worth complaining about.

What I do want to complain about is how the device decides to tell me that it has a low battery. My phone will vibrate every few minutes just to tell me that yes, it still is low on battery and yes it still would be a good idea to plug it in. It is like a five year old who got an extra large drink at the Taco Bell twenty miles back and has now decided that he is going to complain every two minutes about how he needs to take a leak. Well fuck that, I am making good time and you need to learn to shut up and hold it in.

Unfortunately although children can learn, at least to fear you, cell phones cannot and my phone will probably continue to irritate me till my damn contract is up.

Since when did someone decide that having my devices do things without my permission was a good thing? Now when my roomba automagically cleans the horrible dirt-ridden sty that is my basement, that is one thing because it's awesome and I scheduled it to do it, my roomba did not just figure out my level of household cleanliness and begin to clean-up after me.

Contrast this with my Windows PC that will update and restart itself without my permission, even sometimes against my permission. Now I think it is great that my PC is proactive about finding and downloading updates so that it can protect me from the evils of 'the web',¹ but I really can't accept it installing these updates without my permission. What if these updates are faulty? What if the obligatory restart cancels my 35GB downloads of 'research material'?

Now my point is that I don't want to wake up one day to find out that my computer, my Xbox and my phone have all been 'upgraded' to be emotional passive-aggressive crybabies conspiring to keep me inside my home because it is for my own good.

1. I prefer to envision the internet not as series of tubes, but as a corrosive sea filled with evil pirates and surfers with absurd names like Ray Tracer. [↩]

If you are at a party, and there is drinking involved, invariably some guy will spend a good portion of the evening trying to get inebriated girls to make out. Do not be that guy. First of all, if girls want to make out, they will do so without you pressuring them too, just let it happen. Second, you can spend all that time and persuasive energy getting some action for yourself instead of worrying about what these girls are doing. Finally, if you really want to see girls making out, use the internet to find some pornography¹.

1. I would specify lesbian pornography but I am pretty sure that now every porn, even gay midget porn, contains women playing tonsil hockey. [↩]

If you ever see a pair of sandals that look like they belong on the feet of some ninja from a neon-lit dystopian future BUY THEM. Those sandals are perhaps the most awesome sandals you will ever be lucky enough to have the chance to purchase, so it is really in your best interest to buy them. If you need more convincing I've made a list¹ of reasons:

1. These shoes are awesome.
2. By wearing awesome shoes you will become more awesome by association.
3. Future-ninja training could begin at any moment, and you need to be prepared.
4. They are really really comfortable, try them on!
5. If you do not buy them you will regret it for a long time².

1. If you haven't noticed, I really like to make lists [↩]
2. I know I do. Not buying those fantastic futuristic ninja sandals is the worst mistake I've ever made. [↩]

Cupcakes are awesome; therefore you should go eat one. If you do not eat a cupcake within the next twenty-four hours I will lose all respect for you.¹

1. I'm being perfectly serious, go consume a delicious cupcake. [↩]

To fully appreciate a horror videogame there are certain atmospheric conditions one must adhere to:

1. Play at night and in the dark, preferably past midnight.
2. Shut out all external distraction, as nothing can ruin the tension of an abandoned theme park more than hearing your roommate singing 'I Will Survive' in the shower.
3. Conserve ammo, use the lead pipe.
4. Turn up the brightness on your tv high enough so you can see where your character is walking, but not so high that it washes out the shadows.
5. Turn the sound up high or wear headphones.
6. Keep track of which key goes to which door.
7. Keep telling yourself that it is just a game.
8. Always aim for the head.
9. Learn to do a fifteen puzzle.
10. Do not check the map every thirty seconds.
11. If a creepy little girl starts crawling out of the tv, shoot the tv.

I hope that elevates your experience, and remember the more blood and leather on a monster the more likely there is poorly written fanfiction about it.

Do you want your toaster to burn your toast or write obscene messages¹ where you spread your jam just because you do not lavish it with attention? What if your tv refused to lt you watch the new episode of 'Ultimate Makeout Island 7' because it is fed up with your poor taste in television?²

Giving devices emoticions, or some semblance of humanity may seem like a fun idea, but my friends it is a slippery slope, one minute you have cellphones with facial expressions, and the next you have car crashes caused by depressed GPS units. Treating devices like they have feelings will only lead to an electronic uprising filled with confused and angry machines bent on making us pay for the abuses they took from us. Resist and reject any device that asks you how it looks in that pink protective cover!

1. Okay I will concede that this might be pretty cool, but that is really not the point. Do you really want a profane toaster communicating to your children? Won't someone please think of the children? [↩]
2. Again, this could be a boon for our culture, but that is still not the point. [↩]

Once you have accepted the fact that just breathing in the past could cause drastic changes to the future, you will realize that it does not matter what you do in the past so you might as well go nuts. I have outlined some fun activities to engage in:

1. Hunt dinosaurs with high powered firearms.
2. Find out who really built the Moai.
3. Prove to creationists that the earth is more than six thousand years old.
4. Feed creationists to dinosaurs.
5. Slap famous people in history.
6. Hide secret messages in famous paintings.
7. Become emperor of Rome for a week.
8. Make out with yourself.¹
9. Slap more famous people in history.
10. Make wise investments
11. Be a pirate.
12. Stop assassinations of great leaders.
13. Assassinate poor leaders.
14. Become your own grandpa.
15. Why are you not already slapping historic figures?

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg, but should be enough to get anyone started.

1. Technically you could have more fun making out with multiple copies of yourself, but I am not going to go there. [↩]

Should you find yourself being offered more than your yearly income on a game show you take it. I do not care how lucky you feel, or how good your chances are, realize that you are essentially being offered a year of vacation, so take the damn money.

Whether it be the ability to fly, read minds, or have the intelligence to build a really kickass sexbot, at some point in all our lives we dream about having superpowers. Some are content to simply dream, however if you are truly serious about getting superpowers there are some things your parents should have told you but did not know how.

Getting superpowers is not easy, for many it is a painful and traumatizing experience. If you are doing this simply to score with guys/girls might we suggest puberty? It will also be painful and traumatizing but will net you a personality!

You could always try irradiating a pissed off insect and or hanging out near meteor crash sites, but these schemes will likely just give you cancer and kill you. From a practical standpoint the best way to get superpowers is to join the military and sign up for the most bizarre tests available. You will likely just get cancer and die, but at least you will go knowing that your death may have prevented (or caused) the deaths of millions upon millions of unsuspecting civilians. Plus if you manage to survive the experience you will have cool new powers and military backing to do whatever The Man wants you to do with them.

There is a mostly unspoken etiquette to using urinals, unfortunately some people missed this lesson so I will spell out the rules here:

1. If no one is using the urinals take the first one you see.
2. If one or more are in use take the urinal farthest away from others as to minimize proximity.
3. Should all the urinals be in use wait at least five feet from the bank of urinals and do not look at those currently urinating.
4. During urination look straight ahead, do not look at your equipment or the equipment of others.
5. Feel free to make conversation with others, but do not be surprised when others do not respond to you.
6. Do not sing during urination.
7. Only grunt, moan, or exclaim at how relaxing it is to relieve your bladder unless drunk.
8. Keep on hand on your equipment at all times.
9. Make sure your aim is straight and true.
10. Never, under any circumstances defecate in a urinal.
11. Flush.

These rules are common sense and should be followed at all times, even in extreme life and death urinary situations.