Tip: Avoid dudes with zany facial hair.

What's Keen: You'll want a guy with a standard facial hair arrangement. Clean-shaven is a classic, and hard to mistake. The simple mustache and full beard are also good. Most goatees are fine as well.

What's Un-Keen:

• The easiest bad facial hair to identify is anything that doesn't have a name. Ala: "Uh, It looks like a rat humping the letter Z".
• Any style that's named after or reminds you of a famous person: Stalin, Hitler, Chaplin, Rodman, Hetfeild, etc. Regardless of your political leanings, taste in entertainment, or love of sports avoid dudes with all those.
• Avoid any guy with style that is very trendy or is overly clever. The soul-patch, mutton-chops, Fu-Man Chu, etc.
• Generally speaking if its a stylish, scenester, or sub-culture specific look you'll want to avoid that as well. Two jawbone tuffs, the pencil thin mustache, the Amish beard. NOTE: If you're into some scene and a guy has that look (say rock-a-billy mutton-chops) that might be OK. However, the harsh truth is that you are both in some weird phase that at least one of you will grow out of.
• Look out for over styled versions of the good ones. A beard that's a very thin line, any zag in the beard line, a narrow stripe shaved off the chin of a goatee to make "chin-chops" , a mustache that's only on the corners of the lip.
• Poor Hygiene. Facial hair is a hair around a hole that dudes ram food and drink in. It is bound to catch stuff. It requires thorough and regular cleaning otherwise it will become an ecosystem. Avoid a dude whose face reminds you a primordial terrarium. (OOOH! Primordial Terrarium will clearly be the name of my first album)
• Too Much. There can be too much of a good thing. No gigantic mountain-man beards. Far too often they are found on non-mountain men.
• Too little. Peach Fuzz isn't a beard. Some guys have a face of marginal soil that cannot produce a full crop of jaw cotton. They should give up and move to the glass-smooth city.

Why?: It depends on the "form of the fuzz". The fancier it is the more apt the dude is a narccicist. Think about it. He spends time (frequently and specificly) staring at himself in a mirror trying to hone his look to perfection. If its a truely ugly look, or he has a sparse peachy thing going on, or he's trying to hide his second chin; then the dude is delussional. Really. Are you fooled? No. Has he fooled himeself? Yes. If its just totaly out of control then he either doesn't care about his health and apperance; or he has adopted some wacky new age philosophy and will likley never hold down a proper job and will frequently spill his minature zen garden in bed.

Labels: hair, Tips for Chicks

The nonsense news today churned up a story that purportedly has the next season of Survivor having racially determined tribes. The notion of a Hispanic, Asian, Black, and White tribes makes me uncomfortable in that special way any good inappropriate joke does. But hey, Good on Probst for pushing the envelope of what's kosher on TV.

My mind is swirling with questions. Will particularly racist/militant contestants be selected? Will the tribe colors be black, white, yellow and brown? What will the tribe names be chink, cracker, niger, and spic? While one group be asked to do a demolition derby, while another group trys to carjack them, while another tries to catch a nap in the back seat, while the final group attempts to oppress the whole thing? Sounds like a recipe for ugliness. But we can all rest easy knowing that reality show producers will be very tasteful, fair, and diplomatic with how they handle this topic.

As far as production goes; why bother with an exotic island? Why not just follow four LA street gangs? Or even better, just toss a carton of cigarettes into a prison exercise yard.

The Toronto Star has elicited comments

Labels: entertainment, society

Tip: Avoid dudes whose dream is getting the way of a day job. What Counts: You'll want a guy with a real job. mechanic, accountant, bar tender, stock boy; doesn't matter. If it pays the bills, perfect. What Doesn't Cut It: Part time work or employment that doesn't cover the bills. Self employment is iffy. If it supports the guy then fine. We all have dreams. Pro-sports star, Hit Bandleader, Ballerina Princess, Race Car Driver, Pirate Astronaut. Dreams come in many forms. (And I'd like to note that that list does not represent myself; except for ballerina princess). Dreams are great. We should all have them, especially when we are young. But what is a dream? A dream is something that you set aside when it gets in the way of your goals. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and all that. It is probably fun to be with a dreamer. But will it be fun to be with that same dreamer when he's in the same spot on the couch when you get home from your job? It's good to have dreams but dreamers can have those dreams while pushing iPods at the local Best Buy. So look for a dude with a day job, it will tide him over until his ship comes in. And when it becomes clear that the ship is lost at sea he might accidentally have a career.

Labels: Tips for Chicks

So I've given up modified corn products and I feel pretty-good. As a side bonus I've dropped from 208.6 lbs to 200.2 lbs as of this morning. What's nifty is that I'm not suffering. Corn syrup is one of those mysterious things. It makes crappy food addictive. It's a strange thing to be sitting in a drive through cue thinking about how none of the food sounds good, I'm not even hungry. Yet my plan is to get the biggest burger as an upsized meal, and a milk shake. But who cares!?

What's important is that I'm almost under 200 pounds. I think my peak was in the mid-220's. To my recollection this would be the first time since the year 2000.

In that year I got a sinus infection that, of course, I didn't get treatment for. Western Medicine is for whinny wussies and all that. The infection spread to my lungs. Bummer. But I was pretty well committed to my strategy of no treatment. So for three weeks I ate almost nothing, slept for 18 hours a day and occasionally limped over to campus to take quizzes. When I was up and about I was a bit weaker but I was also beautiful. And that's what's really important, yes?

As a sidebar: The college I was attending, UC Santa Barbara, has the highest rate of male eating disorders.

I promptly resumed my 75% Jack-In-The-Box diet.

Labels: fitness, Max

Tip: Avoid dudes with obsessive brand affiliation.

At First Glance: You might think that strong brand affiliation would be a good thing in a perspective guy. It shows loyally, perhaps even blind loyalty. Most ladies like a little loyalty... as in "Don't sleep with my sister". While that might be true, if you go with a guy with obsessive brand loyalty you shortly wish he'd hook up with your sister and leave you in peace.

What to Look For: You'll want to avoid guys who strongly advocate one brand of something; especialy if its that brand over another. A common one is Ford vs. Chevy vs. Dodge vs. Those Damn Imports. While cars are one of the most common its not exclusive. Metrosexaul types, for example, will get obsessive about Old Navy, Abercrombie and Fitch, Coach, and that other stuff I know nothing about. It doesn't much matter: Ping over Callaway, Coke over Pepsi, Apple over PC, Budweiser over Coors, Tide over Cheer, whatever. It's all bad.

What is OK: Preference is ok. It's alright to prefer McDonalds over Wendy's (actualy its all crap, but I digress). It's alright to strongly prefer McDonalds over Wendy's. But at some point you need to let it go. At some point the guy needs understand that not all food needs to be McFood. Your boyfriend who loves Ford needs to not be ridding you because you drive a Cavalier. Slack can be given to a guy who works for a particular company. You would expect a regional Nikon Camera sales rep to be biased against Cannon products. Also non-brand obsession is an entirely different thing. Obsession with a political perspective or economic model or even dogs over cats is not covered by this tip.

Why: Guys who are obsessive about a brand are guys who are covering for their utter lack of personality. You'll discover that most such guys don't have any depth. You'll discover that all conversations seem to come back to their brand of choice. You'll discover he thinks that a different preference held by others is a sign of moral weakness. Most importantly. Your going to be bored after you exhaust his brand nonsense and find out it was the extent of his being. And at that point you'll be asking him if he thinks your sister is cute.

Labels: Tips for Chicks

Lets role play! I'll play the part of the Butte-Silver Bow Fair organizer and you play a guy pretending to be a member of the band Redbone.

ME (as BSB fair) : Who are you again?
YOU (as fake Redbone) : I'm the founder of Redbone.
ME (as BSB fair) : Your known for what songs, again?
YOU (as fake Redbone) : {fumble with crumpled list} Says here: "Come and Get Your Love.", "Maggie", "And witch Queen of New Orleans"
ME (as BSB fair) : Great! I'd love to pay you $6500 to play at our fair. I wont be needing any proof that you are indeed Redbone; Nor will I bother to do even cursory Google search.
YOU (as fake Redbone) : Cool. Uh, one thing though: half the band will have the mumps so they wont be there.
ME (as BSB fair) : No problem. I am not suspicious in any way. Here is the keys to the city. ... OH! and you can't play the night before at The Party Palace. I want to be known as the guy who did not bring a fake Redbone to town.
YOU (as fake Redbone) : Fine.

Wow! That was fun. Even the BBC is covering how the Fair got duped. Fake Band Screws Butte - the BBC.

Labels: Butte, crime, Montana

For the first tip I thought I pull out an old favorite. It's not such a big deal here in Montana; however in California this tip helped a lot of women weed out a lot of losers.

Tip: Look for dudes that have toolboxes; avoid dudes who don't.

What Counts: You'll want a perspective dude to have a toolbox. A tool bucket, a shop, a tool truck, a tool shed, a tool filled garage, a tool rack, and even a tool drawer all fine as well.

What Doesn't Cut It: A tool kit, like the kind you'd pick up at a Wal-Mart that has 12 different random tools in it; doesn't cut it. A geeks tool kit for working on computers is iffy.

Why: The best case scenario is that a guy with tools actually knows what he is doing and will be generally handy; but that’s not the point. The point is that guys with tools are guys who have at least tried to do things for themselves. They may not be good with tools. They may never be successful with tools. They might be a danger to themselves and others with tools. But they will try to do things for themselves. And women... The last thing you want is some putts that wont do anything for himself.

Labels: Tips for Chicks

Over the years a number of kind-hearted women-folk have offered me advice about finding a good woman. And while I've yet to find Mrs. Detjens I do appreciate the effort. So I thought I'd give back by offing up some tips that will help ladies avoid one of their seemingly favorite pitfalls. Namely, Hooking up with assholes.

It would seem that women like strong, interesting, independent, deep, men with dreams and passion and the like. Bad boys, for lack of a better term. The crux of the problem is that the run-of-the-mill jerk-off can pass as a bad boy, thereby trapping a goodly number of unsuspecting women in his tawdry web of lies and general retardation.

Any reasonably bright woman will eventually figure out that the dolt that has been getting high on her couch and mooching cash for three months is a looser. But, as a dude, I have a different perspective and can see through the ruse a bit faster.

So I hope these tips can help you double Xers out there quickly sort the wheat from the chaff.

Yes, I understand it's marvelously presumptuous and at least mildly chauvinist to think that I need to step in and offer unsolicited advice. But I'll let you read the Tips For Chicks as I write them and see if they don't have some value too you.

Labels: Tips for Chicks