How to Make Money #5 of 10

This next money-making tip is a doozy, Nick, as it actually requires you a) to write and b) to communicate with people. You may think that's easy, but just you wait until you see it. It'll tax every last one of your hidden reserves, forcing you to dig deep within yourself.

Write Begging Letters

I've seen it mentioned that you're after a grant to help your publishing company, or whatever the hell it is you call that card table you've set up in your grandpa's garage. That'll require filling in forms and dealing with the whole impersonal process of finding out whether or not you qualify for X, Y or Z; how it'll affect your benefits, and then waiting for your application to be processed. Why not cut out the middle man and write a series of grovelling letters to the great and the good seeing if they'll part with some of their money? The trick here is to look back at all your previous communications with members of the public, be they writers, editors or readers. Now do the exact opposite. Demands for money via PayPal tend only to work approximately 0.0001% of the time, and that's my optimistic estimate. Only on one occasion have I responded favourably to a request for money involving the word 'bitch'. (The request, by the way, began with the words If you lend me a tenner 'til Tuesday I'll be your…) Don't bother with any of this talk about being a budding writer and publisher. Just pretend to be an abandoned child whose heart has burst into flames à la the Caliph Vathek, who needs the money for a glass of water in a pitiable attempt to put out said cardiac conflagration. You'll receive any number of withering rejections, but eventually someone will take pity on you. Just remember to really lick boot. Someone will bite eventually.

How to Make Money #4 of 10

This is the best idea of the lot, really it is. Hope you're reading this, Nick. Make sure you bookmark this post because this tip could change your life.

Street Entertainment

This is possibly the most difficult way of raising your profile, but it's well worth it. For this you'll need a friend, or at least someone who can spend more than five minutes in your presence without holding his nose. Make sure he's bigger than you. That bit won't be quite so difficult, obviously. Now, take off all your clothes (don't worry, the hair will cover most of the worst of it) and put on a bright red waistcoat and a fez. Your friend (preferably blind as well, actually) should have a music-box, an organ, accordion, concertina or a jack-in the box. While he plays, you dance. Don't worry about your complete lack of physical grace. Just pause occasionally to masturbate and in a poor light you should pass for a monkey.

How to Make Money #3 of 10

Here's the latest in a series of fundraising tips for everyone's favourite dark conservative. Please note that these tips are not guaranteed to work for anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together. If you want to try these hints out, be sure to devolve into a malodorous little goblin with all the charisma of a glue-sniffing mollusc before making your attempt.

Tourism

You've inspired a kind of train-wreck fascination, Nick. Make use of that by opening your home up to tourists! See the two kitchens! Take in the sights, the sounds, the smells (if they neglect to buy one of the $10 nose-pegs). I daresay your grandparents will be entitled to the lion's share of the profits but you could always make figures of yourself out of pipe-cleaners and sell them for 50c per item.

How to Make Money #2 of 10

Let's recap. You are Nickolaus Pacione, and despite your best, well, second-best, well... crap efforts, you still haven't struck it rich. Just where and when are you going to get all that lovely moolah that you should have by now? At the last you've come here, desperate for ways of raising a bit of the old folding green. Dear reader, Bluey shall not disappoint.

Specialist Entertainment

Now, this scheme involves two of your favourite hobbies: bondage sleepsacks and getting beaten up by children. It will require an initial expense of about $20, though, and require you to actually go outside. Spend the $20 on a load of cheap plastic toys and individually-wrapped sweets and you can market yourself as Nickolaus, the human Piñata. Simply secure yourself in the sleepsack with the sweets and toys, have someone haul you up with a nylon rope and the children can lay about you with sticks. After three whacks, simply unzip the sleeping bag and drop the prizes. Charge $50 a go and that's $30 clear profit!

How to Make Money #1 of 10

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So then.

Given my name (Bluey) and the colour of my skin (#336699) anyone could easily assume I was making some kind of political statement. Long-time readers, back from when I was a mere agent of mischief confined to 280 pixel by 280 pixel panels, will no doubt remember that I enjoyed ripping the piss out of the neo-conservatives while they hung onto the reins of power with all the tenacity of a <INSERT STEREOTYPE HERE> in <INSERT FAVOURED HOBBY OF AFOREMENTIONED STEREOTYPE HERE> season. So naturally, seeing said reins of power snatched away from them was something I wanted to see, right? Right?

Well, this mood of jubilation may be all well and good, but you'll forgive me for not joining in the celebrations. For the moment, the power-mongering, the continual invocations of faith as justification for human rights abuses, the pointless sabre-rattling and determination to alienate America from the rest of the planet is in abeyance for a little while at least. Even the French are saying on TV how much they like you, for fuck's sake.

I'm out of a job now. You bastards. Never consider my feelings, do you? Here I am, I've blown I don't know how much money on the John McCain Wheel-o-Rage™ and the Sarah Palin Magic Eight-Ball (guaranteed useless and backward opinions on any situation) and now they're just going to gather dust along with the Michael Dukakis Charisma Container (viewable only through an electron microscope), the Howard Dean Shriek-box (200dB, wear supplied ear plugs before using) and the 10,000 John Kerry Prosthetic Chins I bulk-ordered.

Shit.

Hallowe'en Costumes #2

Today's costume is for those of you who still cling to your religion like a security blanket, and want to reclaim Hallowe'en from the grubby chocolate-stained fingers of self-indulgent children.

Devout Reclaimer of Religious Holidays

You will need:

• Sackcloth
• Ashes
• An absence of food in your belly.
• The Holy Bible and other texts, treatises and tracts.

Begin a week before Hallowe'en. Focus your mind on All Saint's Day: the day after Hallowe'en. Consult your treatises and tracts for references to all the saints commonly venerated by every Christian denomination, just to be on the safe side. You don't want to be caught following the example of St. Tadger only to find that your denomination considers his canonisation to be the heretical action of an anti-pope, one no more fit to lead a church than an agnostic milquetoast. Compile a list of these saints, a brief overview of their good works and in particular the manner in which they were martyred. With the profoundest misery in your heart, retreat to your hovel and begin fasting, whiling away the empty hours by meditating on the violent and painful manners of their demises. Think of St. Andrew and St. Peter, nailed to their respective crosses, hanging there as they waited for our Lord to end their pain and bear them away to Heaven.

Not many will be sharing this experience with you, but do not allow a glimmer of pride to burn within your breast; crave only that icy pang of loneliness and misery. The absence of food in your belly should come in handy here, giving you the right idea. If you feel insufficiently wretched by this stage, seek to heighten your physical discomfort. Daub your face with ashes and don your sackcloth. Do not waste time on tailoring; simply tear holes in the jute sack for your arms and head. That will suffice.

It is highly likely that at some point you will find yourself growing bored with your meditations on the nature of martyrdom and the mortification of your flesh. This is only natural. It is of course entirely shameful as well, so at the first sign of boredom you may wish to scourge yourself. If you have no scourge set aside for the purpose, simply immerse your hands in scalding water and in your agony take up your Bible and read through Leviticus, all the while craving forgiveness from your Creator. That'll teach you.

The day before Hallowe'en, you may wish to make some preparations, anticipating as you are the arrival of demanding, sugar-addicted sprogs. Do not disappoint them! Decorate your house according to your new style by removing all pictures, all sculptures, all caricatures and anything else that might distract the eye from the simple purity of your house. As a rule of thumb, if it is gaily coloured, then it should be hidden away, smudged with ashes, or else destroyed. After an hour of this you may feel a kind of mania overtake you: imagine yourself raving under your breath, speaking in tongues and tearing the curtains from your windows and burning them in the rusted and pitted old iron fireplace. This is nothing at all to be ashamed of: the Lord has gifted you with a state of ecstasy.

But wait! What of the children themselves? Here they come now, dressed as demons and witches and the foul undead! Should they be turned from your hovel with naught but a clip round the ear to warm them on these bitterly cold nights? Never! You are on a mission. You must win their souls, sparing them from damnation. You have a long struggle ahead of you, and the role you play is but a small one, but do not become disheartened.

"Trick or treat!" they will demand; small gifts and sweetmeats in exchange for a freedom from dog's excrement through your letterbox. "Trick or treat!" You will need to prepare some treats for them. Something to remind them of their humility, and to allow you and all right-thinking people to rally against the rampant commercialism of this festival. But how should we diminish the influence of Mammon on this eve of All Hallow's Day?

The answer, my friends, is simple: gruel. Prepare the slops in the manner prescribed by the inestimable Mr Key, and when the tinies come bounding up to your door, proffering bags, baskets and other receptacles for you to fill, do so with three generous ladles of gruel. You will feel a thrill of warmth in your heart as the insipid grins fade from their grimy faces. But wait! your good deed is not yet finished! Offer a brief prayer for each of them to turn from the path of sin. This done, you may close the door with a hearty slam. You have done your part. Now they must do theirs.