Okay, I'll be honest with you. It wasn't just DVDs that almost broke me. This past year I started paying a mortgage, I bought a new computer, new furniture (after living in a fully furnished hole of an apartment for close to 7 years), and I went on no less than 5 vacations. That's right, FIVE vacations. They were a blast, and I'd probably do them all over again if given the chance to relive the past 12 months of my life, but they were not a very sound financial idea. Especially considering that I went to Vegas twice (and once was for a bachelor party which ate my wallet into oblivion). But I must reiterate (that means "state again", right?), all my vacations were well worth it.

I can't even compare my past year of spending to anybody else I know. Not even to anybody else I've ever even heard of!... Well, I consider fuckers like Bill Gates and his wealthy brethren "non peoples" because they're so evilly rich. So they don't count.

My problems were/are my problems. Most of you couldn't give a rat's ass if I got thrown in the slammer for overcharging at the Pink Pony or not paying my taxes because I overspent at the Pink Pony. But I'm pretty damn sure that at least 4/8ths of you asswipes have been in, or are in, the same financial situation that I was in through out most of 2002. You're still laughing at my stupidity, but I'm almost positive that the reason that you're wedging a chair up against the door right now is to keep those debt collectors from ramming the thing down. I don't hold it against you. "He who is without sin" and all that jazz. But I will offer you some of my hard earned advice as to how to get out of your green-backless hell with minimal casualties. I'm just that gosh darned nice!

You're still here, huh? I guess you want my radical forward thinking advice on how to stay unpoor. My ideas are pretty simple, and once you hear them I'm sure that you'll slap your forehead or a shapely girl's ass and cry out, "That's so simple it's stupid!" Most of my ideas create that kind of response.

IDEA #1: Start your own credit card company
Probably the most legal of all my ideas, if you do it right. First of all, don't just go around trying to get people to give you their personal banking information and social security numbers. You could get into big big trouble and sent to the slammer where you have to ward off some giant of a man who thinks he's your child-sexing daddy every night before you go to bed with your chastity belt firmly locked into place... Or so I've heard. If you're going to do this one, do it the correct way. Sign all of the right paperwork that Uncle Sam makes you sign in order to start your own credit dealing business. Give yourself a friendly title like "We Love You The Best - Credit Card" or "Free Whores - Credit Card," and then go to as many college campuses as you can and get those stupid dicks (aka "the students") to sign up for your "0% first month APR (500% per month after that)" service. The key to getting hundreds of the drunk pukes to sign up is to give away free soda, glow-in-the-dark condoms, or Doritos with every card. Then, when 98% of your clients fail to pay in-full the $10,000 limit that they've already hit in the second month, you rake them through the coals and destroy their financial prospects all the way through to their great grandkids' fiscal future. And the best thing about this plan is that the government will help you collect the cash! Just remember, you must not let the little pukes read the fine print on the card contract that you make them sign. That would spoil the big surprise.

IDEA #2: Become the lowly... Beg in the streets
This isn't my original IDEA #2, but since I don't want to get sued out of whatever little moneys I have left (and because I'm a big pussy), I changed it to this present piece of advice: Beg for money.

Start by finding a spot (preferably in a big city where you're less likely to be hassled by "the man"). The best spots are probably already taken (those would be the ones in front of the subway station, taxi stand, or the hotdog cart), but do not give up! The homeless bastards who already have claim to the best locations will probably die within a week from some hideous lung disease or a knife fight over an empty bottle of whiskey. Be waiting in the wings to slip in to the then open real estate! The only problem after that is keeping your spot. If you actually still live in an apartment or a house and are only begging for some spending cash or dope money, then you run the risk of losing your precious bum-space to some psycho with a crazy eye and a mean twitch if you leave every night. The best way around this little problem is to set up a chalk outline of a severely mutilated body (i.e. limbs detached from the torso and ketchup-blood all around), with police tape cordoning it off, every single night you retire to your warm four walls and a ceiling. That'll keep those hopped-up-on-goofball fuckers from messing with your personal space!

Now, begging doesn't have to be a total humiliation for you (and your family and friends who, when they see you out in the street with a McDonald's cup with a few nickels in it at your feet, will more than likely ignore you from then on). You just have to be able to do it with some (of what's left of your) dignity. Wear a shirt! Wear some pants! Shoes are optional, but remember that most people don't want to see clawed toenails on soot-blackened feet when they walk to the subway in the morning. Always think of your customers. Plus, I've found that people are actually willing to pay MORE to wastrels who actually look nice. Curious that. They give more money to the guys who look like they don't even need it. Use that and make it work for you!

IDEA #3: Go with the flow
Yeah, I said that these ideas would keep you from hitting the poor house (which is an oxymoron since the poor don't live in any houses, just some cardboard boxes over on Carlton Street which at 3AM you can urinate on while you stumble over to the taxi stand), but IDEA #3 may really be your only choice. Just go with the flow of the whole "poor" thing... But do it right. First, admit to yourself that you lost the war and that you're going to be broke in a short amount of time. Go through the seven steps of coping: That would be anger, more anger, rage, self pity, clobberin' time, blind Canadian rage, and acceptance. Then use your last saved pennies and by a one-way ticket to Maui. Live your life as a beach bum in paradise and never think about money again.

IDEA #3 might even be the most fulfilling of all my methods. Just go all wikki-wikki and hakuna mattata. Then write me a postcard and let me know how it's going... I think I overspent on that famous divas 20-piece blow-up doll collection I got off of ebay. Somebody's pounding the hell out of my front door right now demanding some cold hard cash.