The Quest for Intelligence...

Through my years of research as a licensed researcher of things that are mundane and ridiculous, it turns out that in order to be well respected and admired by your family and peers, there are only a few things one needs.

Of course, people at this point would think "brains, and a good degree." To which i reply: WRONG! I mean, brains help, but only to the point where you would be able to reach the same conclusion as i have in my unwavering quest to be considered the "smartest guy" within my circle of friends. What really DOES help is a wallet, but not in the way that most people would interpret that statement. I'm not saying that you have to be rich for people to respect and admire you (although by no means, does it hurt), but instead, you need a wallet to be able to pull out a piece of plastic, go online and buy the one thing that all successful and respected people (lawyers and doctors in asian families) have in common:

Books that come in volumes. "Of course!" you say to yourself now. I have to amend the previous statement by saying, not any set of books that come in volumes would work (The complete collection of Harry Potter books, for example, while being impressive to a 9-year old, probably wouldn't fly to solidify your place as someone who could give out advice on which mutual fund to buy, and why they should avoid red meat).

Doctors generally only have a few books that come in volumes, but make up for the quantity through sheer mass. The last time i was in a doctor's office (sometime during the 80s), i was enthralled by the fact that they had books there that couldn't possibly have been filled with relevant information simply due to the sheer size of them. I fully expected that if i ever opened up one of the books, the middle 1000 or so pages would just be the word "hypoanalgesic" over and over again.

Lawyers on the other hand, always have rather impressive collections of books that come in volumes. Many times, the value of the books are increased by studding diamonds in the spines of the books, where if you arrange them in the proper order, spell out "P Diddy" interestingly enough. (I'm pretty sure it's a special order item through Sean John)
So here i say to all the followers of school and education: over(clap clap)rated (clap, clap). Just go out and buy yourself some fancy books, or even better, go to any university library, check out a whole set of these babies, and skip town... take that, LAW.

A final quick tip for those who want to appear intelligent, yet still retain the flavor of frugality: if you can't afford a big set of law books, encyclopedias work as long as you etch out the word "encyclopedia" from the back of it and replace it with "expensive law books." That, and you need to buy a smoking jacket, and a pipe, the smart man's tobacco vessel.


Mitch Hedberg's QotD:

I had a stick of Carefree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.