Fortune Cookie Dilemma

[Doug_Tipple]

I know that it may sound a little retarded, but I ate at two different Chinese restaurants today, so, naturally, I got two fortune cookies and two fortunes. The first one said, "It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others". The second fortune read, "Express yourself; don't hold back!" I don't know whether or not to believe in divination, but, allowing the possibility, I have a question. The two messages are encrypted so that I am having a hard time trying to find out what they mean, as well as a suitable course of action. If anything, I want to learn to be less judgemental, yet I do want to express myself. What is this all about, anyway?

[Walden]

Next time, ask for the almond shortbread, instead.

[Coffee]

Mmmmmm, shortbread.

[Lambchop]

I know that it may sound a little retarded, but I ate at two different Chinese restaurants today, so, naturally, I got two fortune cookies and two fortunes. The first one said, "It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others". The second fortune read, "Express yourself; don't hold back!" I don't know whether or not to believe in divination, but, allowing the possibility, I have a question. The two messages are encrypted so that I am having a hard time trying to find out what they mean, as well as a suitable course of action. If anything, I want to learn to be less judgemental, yet I do want to express myself. What is this all about, anyway?

As you can see, there is a conflict. This is because you were not destined for both of those fortune cookies. Should you receive two, you must give away the other so that it can find its true destiny. I'm surprised you did not know this.

The conflict can be resolved easily by sending the first cookie to me. It must be the first cookie, because it is obvious that the fortune on the second does not apply to me. To correct the egregious offense to feng shui, you must also send some of those almond things. A dozen should do it. I'll PM my address.

[Innocent Bystander]

The conflict is an illusion.
Why do think there is conflict between these two fortunes?
Must one be judgemental to express oneself?

I suggest a short period of meditation.

You also might like to peruse the Tao Te Ching,
and maybe have a look at the I Ching.

And I recommend the deep-fried toffee-banana.

[Martin Milner]

I see no conflict - the message is loud and clear.

You must train to become a reality TV Show Judge, like Judge Judy or the other one I can't think of right now, and use your new found fame as a TV Celebrity to express your views on all matters.

Warning: If you do not pass on this chain letter, you will suffer a plague of boils and locusts, or possibly sore feet if locusts are out of season.

[Walden]

I see no conflict - the message is loud and clear.

You must train to become a reality TV Show Judge, like Judge Judy or the other one I can't think of right now, and use your new found fame as a TV Celebrity to express your views on all matters.

Warning: If you do not pass on this chain letter, you will suffer a plague of boils and locusts, or possibly sore feet if locusts are out of season.

• My beloved brethering: I am a unlarnt Hard Shell Baptist preacher, of whom you've no doubt hearn afore, and I now appear here to expound the scripters and pint out the narrow way which leads from a vain world to the streets of Jaroosalem; and my tex which I shall choose for the occasion is in the leds of the Bible, somewhar between the Second Chronik-ills and the last chapter of Timothytitus; and when you find it, you'll find in it these words: "And they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, where the lion roareth and wang-doodle mourneth for his first born."
  
  Now, my brethering, as I have before told you, I am an oneddicated man, and know nothing about grammar talk and collidge highfalutin, but I am a plane unlarnt preacher of the Gospil, what's been foredaned and called to prepare a pervarse generashun for the day of wrath-- ah! "For they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, whar the lion roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth for his first born"--ah!
  
  My beloved brethering, the tex says they shall gnaw a file. It does not say they may, but shall. Now, there is more than one kind of file. There's the hand-saw file, the rat-tail file, the single file, the double file, and profile; but the kind spoken of here isn't one of them kind nayther, bekaws it's a figger of speech, and means going it lone and getting ukered, "for they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, whar the lion roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth for its first-born," ah!
  
  And now there be some here with fine close on their backs, brass rings on thar fingers, and lard on thar har, what goes it while they're yung; and thar be others what, as long as thar constitooshins and forty-cent whiskey last, goes it blind. Thar be sisters here what, when they gets sixteen years old, cut thar tiller-ropes and goes it with a rush. But I say, my dear brethering, take care you don't find, when Gabriel blows his last trump, your hands played out, and you've got ukered!--ah! "For they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, whar the lion roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth for his first born."
  
  No, my brethering, "they shall flee unto the mountain of Hepsidam"; but thar's more dams than Hepsidam. Thars' Rotter-dam, Had-dam, Amster-dam, and Don't-car-a-dam"--the last of which, my brethering, is the worst of all and reminds me of a sirkumstans I onst knowed in the state of lllenoy. There was a man what built him a mill on the north fork of Ager Crick, and it was a good mill and ground a sight of grain; but the man what built it was a miserable sinner, and never gave anything to the church; and, my dear brethering, one night there came a dreadful storm of wind and rain, and the mountains of the great deep was broke up, and the waters rushed down and swept that man's mill-dam to kingdom come, and when he woke up he found that he wasn't worth a dam--ah! "For they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, whar the lion roareth nd the wang-doodle mourneth for his first-born--ah!"
  
  I hope I don't hear anybody larfin; do I?
  
  Now, "whar the lion roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth for his first born"--ah! This part of my tex, my beseaching' brethering, is not to be taken as it says. It don't mean the howling wilderness, whar John the Hard Shell Baptist fed on locusts and wild asses, but it means, my brethering, the city of New Y'Orleans, the mother of harlots and hard lots. . . ; whar honest men are scarcer than hens' teeth; and whar a strange woman once took your beluved teacher, and bamboozled him out of two-hundred and twenty-seven dollars in the twinkling of a sheep's-tail; but she can't do it again! Hallelujah--ah! "For they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, whar the lion roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth for his first-born--ah!
  
  My brethering, I am the captain of the flatboat you see tied up thar, and have got aboard of her flour, bacon, taters, and as good Monongahela whiskey as ever was drunk, and am mighty apt to get a big price for them all; but what, my dear brethering, would it all be wuth if I hadn't got religion? Thar's nothing like religion, my brethering: it's better nor silver or gold gimcracks; and you can no more get to heaven without it, than a jay-bird can fly without a tail--ah! Thank the Lord! I'm an oneddicated man, my brethering; but I've sarched the Scripters from Dan to Bersheeba and found Zion right side up, and hard shell religion the best kind of religion-- ah! 'Tis not like the Methodists, what specks to get to heaven by hollerin' hell-fire; nor like the Univarsalists, that get on the broad gage and goes the hull hog--ah; nor like the Yewnited Brethering, that takes each other by the slack of thar breeches and hists themselves in; nor like the Katherliks, that buys threw tickers from their priests; but it may be likened unto a man what has to cross the river--ah!--and the ferry-boat was gone; so he tucked up his breeches and waded acrost--ah! "For they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, whar the lion roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth for his first born!
  
  Pass the hat, Brother Flint, and let every Hard Shell Baptist shell out.
  
  --Wm. Penn Brannan, mid 1800's

[missy]

you forgot part of the fortune....

You are supposed to add the word "in bed" to the end of it. So:

you are not to be judgemental in bed

and

you are to be uninhibited in bed


I see no conflict.

[I.D.10-t]

you forgot part of the fortune....

You are supposed to add the word "in bed" to the end of it.

I have heard this before, but my last fortune was “Your principles mean more to you than money or success” and now I am thoroughly confused.

[missy]

I have heard this before, but my last fortune was “Your principles mean more to you than money or success” and now I am thoroughly confused.

it means a career as a hooker is not for you?????

[Flyingcursor]

I have heard this before, but my last fortune was “Your principles mean more to you than money or success” and now I am thoroughly confused.

it means a career as a hooker is not for you?????

Or maybe it means his principles mean more than "money in bed".
OR principles mean more than "success in bed"

If I have enough of the former then the latter takes care of itself.

[missy]

If I have enough of the former then the latter takes care of itself.

principles or money????

[Wanderer]

I have heard this before, but my last fortune was “Your principles mean more to you than money or success” and now I am thoroughly confused.

it means a career as a hooker is not for you?????

My last one said "You will recieve a great deal of money soon (in bed)."...

I've been chatting up ladies at the country club, to no avail.. It'll probably come true when I get desperte enough to chat up their husbands...

[jim stone]

These days I just eat my fortune. Fiber!

[Tyler]

Let's cross-polinate threads and add "...at a four way stop." to the end of fortunes....