“I’d put the extra money toward a posher phone now, so I won’t regret it down the road,” said the cute Verizon saleswoman with irrefutable reasoning. Unbeknownst to her, I’m immune to wily sales logic and the siren song of “posher,” simply because I can evoke the twin beasts of misanthropy and indifference at will. I nurture them. They’re grazing in my barn. This is why I left after a smile and a thoughtful nod.
You know what isn’t cute? In a few months, even the slickest of cellphones will resemble the leavings of the Tin Man. Your Razr V3, the one that couldn’t be bothered with extra vowels? Yeah, it’s going to sit by the Yellow Brick Road, stashed under a peppermint bush and a flying monkey corpse. Stagnant. Festering with antiquity. But with its 27 factorial wallpapers intact.
Now that I’ve gone and emoted all over the floor, let me show you my new pet:
“Do it. Lose me.”
There it is, in all its excessive glory, the Motorola V265. It boasts a camera, which is about as useful to me as a legless ballerina. People once believed cameras confiscated souls and, judging from the young couple trapped in the screen, they were right. Some features–the ones most important to me–were missing, however, and poring over the instruction booklet yielded no answers. Perhaps Cingular can better furnish the robust features I crave.
Anytime Domestic Slavery
So my last phone, we had a gig going for two years, and right from the beginning things were strained. I would lock it in my bathroom for hours on end, promising to release it after it cleaned my tub, only to be sorely disappointed. My phone would sit on the floor, still and pathetic.
Then there was this other time I wanted breakfast, see, but my damn phone wouldn’t deliver. I looked into its telescopic, panaromic 24-bit viewfinder and screamed at the top of my lungs.
“I wanted browned toast, not charred toast!” I yelled. “Damn it, are these supposed to be julienne fries? I could do a drive-by in Idaho, stick my hand out the window, pluck the fruit from a potato tree, and I’d still be a better cook.”
Things got weird, so I swooped in with a quick save.
“I yell, hit, and drop you out of love, pooky.”
I’m a modern guy, and accordingly I expect my phones to COOK AND CLEAN, or so help me the beatings will commence. Now, I understand the models of old could barely manage polyphonic ringtones, they just kinda grunted, but we’re in the 21st century. The age of liberated technology. Do I ask for too much?
Unlimited 1-Way Service
A tree falls on a mime, who falls on a deer in an enchanted forest somewhere. Who cares? The mime cares! Since solitude plays a critical role in this philosophical mindbender, whom could the mime call? Himself, of course.
Too often we’re concerned with conference calls and whether certain friends are double-teaming us, when really we should look–and talk–to ourselves. Remember, you’re your own best party. And guess who’s invited?
The Call Anybody, Even Complete Strangers Network
The allure of contacting “friends and family” wears thin all too quickly, so your cellphone should have a button stamped with a red question mark. Hit the button and you’ll be instantly transferred to one of several million network members, each one caught in a candid moment.
“Oh, so you’re collating copies? Fascinating.”
*click*
“Charmin is softer.”
*click*
“Buy, buy! Sell, sell! Actually, why don’t you hold and…”
*click*
“You ate what?”
*click*
“No, really. You’re one in 3.5 million.”
Sometimes genius is exhausting, dear reader. What a patently awesome idea, though, and it’d be perfect for our ADDled lifestyles. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to talk to anyone else.
Shit hot. This is one of those rare evenings that begins with vulgarity and ends on the field of medieval battle. Contained within the link is my reason for being unavoidably detained yesterday, gentle reader, and it’d be wise of you to make it your reason as well.
These days, we require our entertainments to offer billions of colors and special effects, but don’t let that deter you from giving this baby a whirl. It’s made by a two-person development team, a husband and wife who’ve crafted one of the uglier games I’ve played recently. Yet I sat spellbound for hours, the first time in a long while, simply because it was fun.
I’m partial to processed doses of the fantasy genre–something like The Lord of the Rings movie fits the bill quite nicely–but any more and my cerebrum conjures images of tacky medieval fairs filled with foul-smelling nerds dressed in plate mail. You can imagine those gatherings, I’m sure. Giant turkey legs. Jousts. Fairground workers talking with accents of indeterminate origin.
This game certainly strays into the area, but even so I paid ten bucks to unlock the full version within an hour of playing the demo. There’s something timeless about having a battalion of peons act upon your good wisdom and charge into the fray, blindly and loyally getting hacked to pieces. Now let’s talk about the game. You’ll find yourself sitting on a hilltop, horse pawing at the ground, watching your rabble of hired hands and misfits run into battle. You play the archer, shoot one of the bad guys off his horse, and then you put on your calvary hat and cut down some footsoldiers with a big honkin’ sword.
Hark! I’m unavoidably detained again.
Every accursed flower in the world could try–try and fail, you immobile bastards–to saturate my eyeballs with foul seed, and still I’d cling wretchedly to life, propelled solely by my indomitable mission to teach you science. Yes, science.
I’ve sneezed out most of my memories today, dear reader, but despite this setback I’ve salvaged some fun facts. If you cram a lizard into a freezer and then an oven and back into a freezer, it will probably croak, and not in the traditional frog sense. Gravity operates at 3.14 miles per second squared, unless we presuppose the first law of gigglenomics, in which case it becomes absolutely hilarious. But the most important thing I remember is shown here:
My eyes!
Comb your memory banks carefully enough and you too will recall this vile diagram, a colorful homage to those who would have us warble praises to them with phlegm-filled throats. Your teachers may have forced their armchair theories on you, but I’m here to detoxify your mind and tell you how these plants work.
Before we begin, some warnings. First, there is no flower on earth that resembles this drawing. It is a cruel caricature designed to make your nostrils run moist with rage. Second, anatomical captions do not occur in nature per se, and it will remain that way if you stay off the sauce.
Stamen
“Flower cock,” I hear one of you wiseasses say. Wrong. Put aside your vulgarity, if only for a moment, and consider the clandestine transactions conducted herein. These are antennae, bastions of villainy designed to relay coded messages. Observe:
“Next [STOP] round’s [STOP] on [STOP] me [STOP] if [STOP] she [STOP] sniffs [STOP] you.”
“One [STOP] day [STOP] I’ll [STOP] be [STOP] a [STOP] real [STOP] boy.”
“Oh [STOP] shit [STOP] the [STOP] gardener.”
Stamen can also turn into eyes. Careful. They’re watching.
Pistil
The very picture of indecision, when really it’s a sad bid for attention.
“Look at me,” says the flower, “I’m a legitimate form of life because I have a goddamn ovary. I also don’t like caviar because it’s chic to only eat foods with five or more syllables. Don’t touch me!”
The storehouses of despair.
Resepapetacle
Will the trickery never cease? You’ll notice three arrows pointing to the same object, namely the device that transforms everything good and wholesome into pollen. A ladybug lands on the petal, out comes pollen. A soft breeze places a winning lottery ticket on a petal, out comes pollen. Someone trips, pollen. Genocide, pollen. Thanksgiving sale, pollen.
Pedicel
Much like our journey, this is the end. This is the place from whence pollen pours. Remember the accursed hive that unleashed the accursed bee who heeded the accursed call and ignored the accursed stigma and landed on the accursed petal? You just inhaled it.