Dear John,
So you’ve graduated from Navy basic training. Good job. I mean that. You know better than all of us it was hard. In the eyes of a lot of people, myself included, you’re officially a man. A young man sure, but a man nonetheless. You should be proud.
My own father did a pretty fine job raising me too. Look at me, I have a blog and everything! Nothing says success like a blog* my friend.
Here are few lessons he shared with me. It’s good stuff, take notes.
10. Shave before you shower.
I’m assuming you’re using a razor and shaving cream these days. If so, shave
before you shower. That way, if you nick yourself, it has time to stop bleeding during the shower. This works 99 percent of the time. During that 1 percent of the time it doesn’t work, keep some Chapstick in your shaving kit and run it over the cut. Apply pressure if needed. If you don’t have Chapstick in your shaving kit deodorant also works as a backup.
9. Always, always, always look good.
I can’t stress this one enough. The military, I think it’s obvious, is about to go through some pretty radical transformation as we move from wartime footing back to a peacetime footing – people are getting fired in the near future. So, obviously, do your job well. But there’s more to it than that. A lot of your peers are going to push the boundaries when it comes to military regulations about appearance. Don’t do this. Uphold the standard, be better than the standard and never, in the military at least, test it when it comes to appearance.
8. It’s okay to fail.
No matter what job you get in the military, I can tell you with absolute certainty they will tolerate your retarded 19-year-old failures. And there will be a few. Get used to it, you’re going to fuck up. Don’t get me wrong, if you fuck up too much there is hell to pay. Trying and failing is natural, expected even. The trick is though, to rack up wins. Ninety-nine percent of the time wins are easy. Be first to show up for the shift and be last to leave. Do the thing that no one wants to do. If there is nothing to do for the organization, find something productive to do for the organization. Be an asset. Do those things and falling on your ass once in a while is viewed more as a learning experience on your part by your bosses rather than another fuck up by a fucked up person. I can’t stress this enough — if you’re always trying to do a good job, occasionally falling short of that goal isn’t viewed as a bad thing.
7. Have sex with tons of chicks
Got your attention there didn’t I? I mean it. Be safe about it, put a condom on your penis and respect the woman you’re with, but have fucking fun. It’s what you’re going to do anyway so any advice I’m offering here is really just after the fact. The point is, explore and have fun. When you meet her — you’ll know. Until that time, call me with your awesome stories of your hot sexcapades (call often please!)
6. Be first. Second place is literally the first loser.
This plays off rule three. None of your successes in basic training matters — not a one. Sorry to be a bummer. You’re about to go to your first duty station and I’m here to tell you that being the best now is what matters. You won’t always be the best and that’s OK (see rule three) but be the best as often as you can. If there is a competition, fight for first place. You might have heard the saying about the military, “Don’t be first and don’t be last, be in the middle.” It’s a bullshit bit of advice from here on out. Be first, always.
5. Always, always be a gentleman.

… lots of ribbons
Hold the door for the person behind you, regardless of sex, age or anything. Hold the door. But this rule goes beyond that. Offer to help with the hard stuff, always. If a person is carrying a shit ton of stuff, you’ll see this in the military more than once, offer to help carry the load. Once in 1996 I was literally carrying two duffle bags and a rucksack from one barracks to another when an officer stopped his car and insisted I toss my bags in the trunk of his car so he could drive me the last few block to my new barracks. He was right to do it, we always, always help each other. That always extends to the world at large. You wear a uniform now, it’s your duty to help. If you see someone struggling, help. It’s that easy.
4. Invest.
Do the TSP investment. Do it to the maximum amount they will let you. It’s a generous investment plan that will 2 or 20 years later have a bit of cash in your account. Take advantage of every investment opportunity they offer, grab those with both hands. If the investment plan has a .mil on the end of it invest in it. Also put a portion of your check in a savings account, every month.
3. Go to fucking school.
Take advantage of the educational opportunities the Navy presents you. Don’t be like me. I only milked them out of an associate’s degree in general studies which is like if someone said, “You can have whatever you want in this ice cream store,” and I ordered a fucking vanilla scoop in a cup, and no I didn’t even get sprinkles. Don’t be like me, I’m an idiot. Milk it for every penny it will give. Go to school.
2. Be yourself
Be you, my friend, be you. You’ll have bosses you don’t like, assignments that suck and jobs you hate. That’s part of being in the military, hell its part of life. Through all of it though, be you. There will be clique’s that see it different, fuck them. They’re retarded. Be you. Always.
1. Call your mom.
Always call mom. She’s gives better advice than this piece of shit blog ever can. Mom loves you, she will always give you rock-solid advice. A fact I think you’ll soon discover. You’ll be out of the training environment soon and on your own. Make it point to call home once a week on a regular basis. Mom will be there if you need to talk to her more than that. Once a week, call home.
* Everything says success EXCEPT a blog.
Had a few beers gets hit with the crazy and I liked it.
Hey there …
How are you? Comfortable I hope, I mean I hope you’re not reading this on a mobile device while being yelled at, made uncomfortable or otherwise pissed off.
But if you are then I hope this helps ease the burden …
Metaphorically I mean of course, not physically. If you’re on fire at the moment then obviously reading this will not help with the searing and blistering pain.
Laughter, in this sort of case, is clearly not the best medicine and you should also put the fire out you idiot.
Geeze.
When I started this blog I considered two things. I liked beer and chicks might send me photos of their boobs.
Nate fucking Silver I ain’t. But I was half right. I do like beer.
See I had a beard, I liked beer and loved boobs, I was READY to start a blog.
It’s been an okay success though. I mean I had a beard and a shitty cat video when I started this blog so how hard could it be? Drink some beers, say ‘fuck’ a lot, put some plastic army men and dinosaurs on a BMW hood, set the blender to ‘evaporate any hints of professionalism you have left’ and serve chilled.
I gotten a few phone calls, a few emails, a few private messages and a few comments from people saying they really enjoy reading it and that’s all this is about. If you laugh a bit while reading this then that’s all I want. If you’re having a tough poop while reading this in the crapper and it ‘helps’ I’m happy.
The first, well in my mind at least, popular post was the one about visiting America after so many years in socialist … err I mean Europe. It was so popular someone posted a mean comment which hell if that doesn’t equal read by 100 people I don’t know what does!
Then I got in trouble once at work about a few updates last summer so I knew I was hitting it big time because …
(Legal Team: This is the, and I hate that he makes me do this, “The Had a few beers” legal team, which is stupid because I’m one person. I, I mean We, have to interject here, Hadafewbeers and his employer entered into an agreement where both parties agreed to never mention the subject of said ‘blog post’ or ‘blog posts’ again. It was further determined that the subject of the agreement never actually, conclusively, displayed his genital at any time during the incident. I owe Todd a lot of favors because one time in Vegas …
((… Hi, this is the Had a Few Beers Legal Team’s Legal team: Look legal team, we’re not going into ‘the incident’ here, the Vegas incident of note is still under investigation and any mention of said ‘incident’ is out of line.))
… and five kittens died!)
… so I put my penis back in my pants, even though I didn’t want to, and signed the form.
So one full page of bullshit intro later, let’s talk about comments. The bad comments I mean and by bad I mean weird and by weird I mean what the fuck.
Word press does a good job of weeding out the spam, I get to see them and they’re sort of funny but not really. Dick-pill jokes only go so far you know? If you just laughed at that last sentence I love you.
Other than that, when starting this I gave very little thought to comments other than, delete idiots, try to engage everyone else.
But I was unprepared for 32@yahoo.com … you can’t prepare for someone that considers a username and picks a number I realize but still I failed totally. I just, when I saw his comments, hid them from you and I was wrong to do that . I don’t know if he would have come back to talk to us, I think of him as a simple bird sweeping over this little blog while pooping, eating, scratching and then flying off.
On October 11th he, using basically a different username for each comment (but the same email address), made a series of HYSTERICAL comments that I stupidly hid as spam. I don’t know if I had engaged him if he would have reengaged with me. I just know that in retrospect, he was fucking bat-fuck crazy and I miss him.
Luckily they’re still there, I undid the did and now (I think) they’re visible.
The story about vacuum cleaners was what first attracted his brand of crazy to the Hadafewbeers.com wall of fame and he chimed in with an amazing four comments, under four different usernames in the span of 20 minutes. I’ve never done the math on that until right now and all I can come up with is ‘good fucking job.’ Not even I’m that crazy about vacuums and I wrote words about them.
So let’s dive into the crazy shall we? To ease some of the confusion, I’ve left the spelling alone and have bolded and italicized 32’s comments.
Sex, booze and vacuum cleaners … life in the middle lane
He wrote as Herold: “Compliments and an evaluation are two words that are not synonomous.”
Which I don’t even know what the fuck that means but it gets better.
Regarding the same update, vacuum cleaners mind you, but with user name, The Half-Hearted Hardy Boy, he left the following comment (in a new font and type size I should add) that said:
“Just because a woman already knows that her bosom is large does not make it O.K. to insult a man who tells her she is stacked, she ought to accept the compliment anyway, even if she knew it beforehand, thats the lady-like thing to do, thats called manners, something more women on our planet should have been taught.”
We can deconstruct “Just because a woman already knows (cause they don’t
generally know?) that her bosom (you mean tits right?) is large does not make it O.K. to insult a man …” later, the crazy gets SO much better.
This time as Kyle Mile but again in response to vacuum cleaners we have:
“It’s not O.K. that women overreact and bellyache everytime somebody says something nice about their bosoms and rearends, thats childish, improper conduct thats not befitting true womankind or mankind. And an opinion and compliment are similar and somewhat different, but compliments have nothing to do with evaluation, an evaluation means being tested and judged,how can giving someone a compliment have anything to do with that? Why would I want to evaluate you with a compliment, notice how ridiculous that sounds in the same sentence those words combined?”
It was after reading that I began to suspect a friend was fucking with me until the next comment, still on vacuums mind you, by Don Juan (a name he will keep for two comments and about a different post) wrote:
“I could phantasize about what it would be like if my penis got caught in the middle of that bosom, couldn’t move, stuck between
Dude, you want to do what to the who? Jesus fuck! Look the photo was sent to me and I didn’t even have thoughts as debauched as yours … you fuck.
that deep cleavage, shot a load in the middle of her bosom, if it was with her bosom covered with a sports bra, that would look and feel heavenly.”
The fuck you say? That one is one of my favorites. It’s got it all and the crazy really comes to the top in a delicious layer of ‘what the fuck’ separated only by an undercurrent of ‘dead hookers in the basement’. We’ve got his penis, sports bras and ejaculation. It’s a trifecta if I ever saw one. A lot of you ladies are going to be asking me for more info about Don Juan after that one, I’m sure.
Next Don Juan not only finds a new post to comment on, he educates us. I feel better, hopefully you will too in a moment.
“Why do over half a million women have to act like boobs, by calling their breasts boobs all the time? Why not call them breasts instead, thats what they are, their not boobs, boobs would sound more like birds. And whats wrong with saying things like, dear, mademoseille, sweetcheeks, etc.? Overreaction to whistling men by women is not O.K. Women overreacting to compliments about their bosoms and rearends is not O.K. All compliments should have been O.K. but overreacting to compliments is not O.K. and to hassle men with those overreactions should have become a crime.”
This, THIS is an awesome comment. It’s got oddly specific numbers (half a million) followed by some lessons in ornithology and concludes with some pondering about future U.S. Law. Also all you bitches, I’m sorry all you mademoseilles, it would seem, have been put on notice.
Understand sweetcheeks?
Regarding the same topic, but with a name change to The Overreacter to compliments of the Breasts, not boobs, which he will keep until his tirade is concluded (I.e. two more comments) we learn
“Why do so many millions of people throughout the world waste their hard earned money on harlots? Why do that many women, which is half the population think they need a free hand-out of money that usually is one hundred sixty dollars for a massage and sexual intercouse? That just cheapens the experience.”
I can answer this. Because unlike you they don’t keep any live victims chained up in their basements? Am I right? I’m right aren’t I? And what’s this $160 bullshit dude in downtown Frankfurt right now for like 50 euro you can … I’ve said too much.
Sadly only two more to go folks, believe me I miss him as much, if not more, than you.
Regarding the same post, I was ranting about the Secret Service’s ‘hide the salami’ fiasco down south, we have:
“Our planet would have been a better place without harlotry,police,feminists,judges, and courts, as well as no armies of soldiers, and women who like to critique and critisize the compliments they get all the time even on this machine they can’t seem to keep their comments to themslves, who would have been as a race if we didnt have liars on our planet, including those who lie about compliments received.”
Okay dude we need the police and judges and I’m sort fans of both harlots AND feminists (the hot kind at least). The crazy here has gone up to eleven, clearly. And well shit if you dump the police and the judges then sure, get rid of the courts but … wait, you’re just fucking crazy aren’t you?
He is.
The last comment was made on a post that I absolutely, positively pulled straight out of my ass while drinking. Ruth Sternberg, wife of a dear friend and a dear friend herself, once told me in a very personal manner (she posted it to my facebook feed) that Hemmingway allegedly said, write drunk, edit sober. Sage advice except the post about what should happen at my funeral (I stand by all of it) was written drunk, edited drunk and published drunk. Regardless the jokes just flew past dear The Overreacter to compliments of the Breasts, not boobs.
Remember this is a post where I basically set the most outlandish, might as well have my funeral underwater, set of instructions for what should happen when I die.
“Why would he want anyone without shirts and brassiers on at his wake for, thats an odd request isn’t it?”
Yeah. That’s the odd bit Overreacter, that’s the odd bit.
I still miss him.
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Tagged asshole comments, Boobs, breasts, breasts not boobs, comments, crazy comments, crazy people, Don Juan, Had a few beers, hadafewbeers.com, Laughter, Nate Silver, odd comments, Prostitution, stupid usernames, Todd, United States, Vacuum, Vacuum cleaner, weird comments, weird people