Dear Dumb Guy: How do camels have intercourse? - Mike Hunt

Dear Mike: VERY CAREFULLY! BWWWWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!

No, seriously, what’s wrong with you? Did you skip middle school biology? Ordinarily I don’t like to call people out for asking dumb questions, but this one takes the camel-shaped cake! Every person over the age of 10 knows that camels reproduce asexually by dividing into two every seven years. (Take my advice: don’t go on Jeopardy. Waste of your time, bright boy.)

But even though you may not be a source of light, at least you reflect it, because you’ve given me a great idea. Camel-shaped cakes! This would be the most popular thing at any kid’s birthday party ever. It could be a beige cake with peanut butter frosting, and I would eat the hell out of it.

Dear Dumb Guy: What is the difference between a non-linear second order homogeneous differential equation and an overclocked doggie? And why do the underclocked ones keep trying to repair people’s bottle caps? - ssj4Gogeta in Seattle

Dear Seattle: Let me answer the first part of your question first: Forty bucks, same as in town.

Now, the bottle caps thing. I know, I know. Dogs LOVE Bottle Caps. Mine will eat them right out of the palm of my hand. They prefer the red and green ones - they always leave the orange ones for me, even though they’re all covered with slobber by the time I get them. They also really love Nerds and those chewy Spree things.

Dear Dumb Guy: I’ve been hearing a lot about something called Wolfram Alpha. What is it? - Googled out in Georgia

Dear Georgia: You’re right, there is a ton of buzz surrounding it - and rightfully so!

“Wolfram: Alpha” is the upcoming prequel to the recent movie “Wolverine,” and it’s gonna be the definitive origin story of the Marvel superhero. It’s currently being produced by Michael Bay.

SPOILER ALERT! I’ve seen an early draft of the script, and hardcore Wolverine fans are not gonna like it. Turns out James Howlett, later dubbed Logan, was born Jamie Howlett - a girl. She had a gender-change surgery at age 18 which went horribly wrong, and that’s why his/her bones are all metal and stuff. He over-compensates later in life by wearing a fake beard.

Told you you weren’t gonna like it! There’s also time travel, but none of that gets resolved until “Wolfram: Beta,” which is tentatively scheduled for 2012.

Dear Dumb Guy: What’s the difference between regular potato salad and German potato salad? - Culinarily challenged in Cincinnati.

Dear Cincinnati: What’s the difference? All the difference in the world! Namely, German potato salad doesn’t use potatoes, but rather a colorful mixture of diced radish, rutabaga, slivered almonds and dish detergent.

The confusion no doubt stems from the mistranslation of the German word “potaten,” which literally means “please do not eat this” but was misread by 18th-century cookbook author Carl “Fuzzy Dice” Hopkins as “potatoes.” Not so much a translation, really, as a misspelling. A tragic one, at that, because it introduced this dish into mainstream awareness.

Bonus fact: Fuzzy Dice Hopkins was later the name of a blues singer who recorded three singles for the Chess Records label. Only one of them, “Gonna eat my baby’s potato salad,” was at all successful, and not very at that. Astonishingly, both the choice of his name and subject matter appear to be a coincidence, as he had no knowledge of his namesake.

Dear Dumb Guy: I’m a database analyst for a large insurance company. I’ve worked the graveyard shift for almost ten years and the most exciting thing that ever happened was when there was a blackout one night, me and Tom, my co-worker, pushed our cubicle walls together and pretended like we were in the trash compactor in Star Wars for the entire shift.

Anyway, Tom quit and was replaced, last month, by a girl! I think she’s like cute and all and I think she totally has the hots for me because I showed her a cool workaround for a bugfix she was dealing with. Here’s my question – I’m thinking of asking her out, and when she says yes, I’m wondering how long I should wait until I try for first base? – Clueless in Cubicleland

Dear Cubicleland: Dude, first of all, that Star Wars thing is TOTALLY BADASS. Next week, when my furlough is up and I’m back at the newspaper, we are totally gonna do that one day!

Anyways, to your point about how quick to move with the girl of your nerdcore dreams. Most of the women that I’ve encountered in, shall we say, “social situations,” were fast movers. That is to say, the distance between home plate and first base was about one full stride, and second and third bases were actually stacked on top of one another. And they were out in the grass, off to the right, over there by the foul line. Trust me, as a metaphor it makes perfect sense, and that’s what a meta is phor.

GAAAAAHAHAHAHA! I am so damn funny sometimes.

So, anyway, here’s all I’m saying: Go in with confidence, with swagger, with the attitude and determination that comes from taking a good solid shower and tucking your shirt in. Take her to dinner. Then it’s all about timing. I find that women are most susceptible to romantic wooing right after the potato skins are down the hatch. Look her in the eyes, crack just the tiniest bit of a winsome and rakish smile, and say something really really romantic and erotic, like “Hey, what do you say we go do some non-Facebook poking?”

There isn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t turn to jelly at such a moment.