Toy Story

• by GeekMan • In Announcements •   1

This weekend I broke down and bought a new cell phone.

It was not a pretty sight. In fact, had you seen my tortured face and beaten spirit, you probably would have said it was sad and pathetic. After almost a full week of attempting to make heads or tails of the price plans offered by all the different cell phone service providers in my area, I blew a gasket and demanded that HoBiscuit accompany me to each individual provider’s store where we would ask questions from the actual people who worked there and, when we figured out which was the best fit for us, make a decision and sign up. And, even though it was raining cats and dogs, HoBiscuit agreed.

Now, that’s love.

Being the Great Planner that I am, I decided that in order to “practice” our questioning skills, and also to make sure we knew what to expect from each provider, we would first go to a cell phone store that resells for all of the providers. It just so happens that in the city there’s about two BILLION cell phone resellers willing to sell you a phone for the pleasure of owning your immortal soul. Walking into the first multi-provider reseller we saw we proceeded to be educated in the ways of Cell-Fu.

“Hello. How may I help you?”
“How much does cell service cost per month for each of these providers?”
“Individually, or as a family?”
“Uhhh… Family.”
“That depends on how much you’re willing to spend per month.”
“But, that’s why we need to know how much the plans are.”
“OK, how many minutes do you think you need per month.”
“I don’t know. 1,000?”
“OK. So, most providers don’t offer 1,000 minutes. But this one here does and it’s only $70 a month.”
“Each?”
“No, that’s the family rate, but once a year they’ll ask you a favor and you cannot refuse them, no matter what they ask.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry. They usually ask for stupid things.”
“Like what?”
“You know, they sometimes need an episode of the Soprano’s taped and they’ll ask you to do it for them.”
“Oh, that’s not so bad.”
“Nope. To be honest though, every once in a while you hear stories of people who were asked for their kidney, or to sacrifice their first born to the demon god Bzzkriktz, but odds are you’ll just be doing something harmless, like picking up their mother from her bingo game on a Thursday night.”
“Oh. Uh… well, what about the other guys?
“Well, this other provider offers only 600 minutes for the same price, but they reserve the right to donate your eyes to medical research.”
“Wait. Before or after I’m dead?”
“That’s not specified in the contract.”
“Damn. OK, moving on…”
“This provider offers 700 minutes at the same price, but their contract specifically states that you must have a mind-control chip placed into your brain for the duration of the contract so they can read your thoughts and control your actions.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s pure science fiction.”
“Nope. Do you know who one of their first customers was?”
“No. Who?”
“Lee Harvey Oswald.”
“Damn. Well, that almost makes sense…”
“Uh-huh. Anyway, these other guys here have really bad reception in this area. However, if you go with these guys, you get 800 minutes and a free kick in the nads every month.”
“I kick them or they kick me?”
“I believe they kick you.”
“Well, am I allowed to wear protection?”
“No. That much I do remember from the contract. Also, and I tell you this in confidence, the contract does not actually specify that a person will do the kicking.”
“Wait. You’re telling me they can use an animal to kick my nads?!”
“Yes. I once heard of them using an angry mule. But even worse is I believe they’ve recently hired a graduate from MIT who has developed a machine that will kick you for them.”
“Oh no!”
“Oh, yes. And their contract also states that if you’re ever late paying them, they can shove a bottle in your butt and continue to kick your nads until your sphincter contracts hard enough to break the bottle.”
“Wow. Well, who do you use?”
“Are you kidding me?! I just carry a phone around to look cool. I’d never sign up with any of these guys.”
“Well, let’s say you had to get a cell phone. Who would you go with then?”
“I’d probably take my chances and go with the first guys. They usually ask for simple things and their phones are pretty cool.”
OK, well… what’s the cost for internet access and text messaging?”
“You want internet and text messaging with your service?! What are you, some psycho nutjob?! They take body parts and souls for those perks, man! Get out of my store, you freak! Get out! GET OUT!!!”

We got.

After another three hours of wandering in the rain from store to store, we finally knew which provider we wanted and, more importantly, which phone. For those who care, we decided to go with T-Mobile because they had very competitive prices, good service in our area and they offered a one year contract just in case we didn’t like them. And, because I’m such a gadget geek, we went with the very cool T-Mobile MDA phone, which seems awesome so far, especially with its hip slide-out keyboard and ability to sync with Outlook. Plus, each month it kindly reminds me when they’re going to ask me for that favor I owe them by shocking my left testicle. It’s the left because they took the right one as the down payment for my cellular internet service.

It’s funny, but I’m not really sure if that was worth it.

Cell Phoney

• by GeekMan • In Rants •   2

I just don’t get it.

Why is it that cell phone service plans are still so expensive years and years after land lines and internet access have become so inexpensive as to almost be considered a necessary commodity? It truly does boggle my mind that I’m going to have to pay over $200 fricking dollars a fricking MONTH in order to get 700-1,000 minutes of talk time plus internet access plus text messaging for two people!

What the frick?!

How does this make sense? Oh, I can understand it making sense to the providers, it is money after all. But how in the world can they charge more for a text message than for the actual phone calls a person makes when anyone who has ever used a computer can tell you that voice data is “heavier” (meaning more bandwidth intensive) than text? That’s what I call gouging, plain and simple.

And how about the phones?

I mean, if you want a “cool” phone your choice is practically nonexistent. Where are the colors? Where are the slick form factors? Why are there tons of cool phones available in Japan and Korea but none here in the States? I want my bright red, super-slim, internet enabled, full Qwerty keyboard phone, dammit!

With a 3 megapixel camera, of course.

But let’s forget about the perfect phone and talk about the service you can get with current phones for a minute. We all know that if you want good service then the phones are going to look like they were designed in 1995. They claim to do all this cool stuff, but really, they don’t. Or they do it, but in a half-assed way. Sure, the RAZR will do text messaging, but who the hell wants to use the number keypad to text? Want to text your SO, “Want to have dinner?” That’ll be 92668 # 8666 # 44288833 # 3444666633777.

And who the heck knows how to enter a question mark?

Want a PDA-like phone? Well then you better not want to make a phone call because they suck at that. Want a cool ringtone? That’ll cost you $2 and you lose it if you ever reset your phone. Want unlimited messaging? That’ll be $20 per phone and you might not be able to send more than 250 characters per message!

That’s fewer characters than in the last paragraph alone!

And why in the world are certain phones, made by third party makers no less, offered only by certain providers? Do you like the style of Slide-Up Qwerty Keyboard Model X5? Too bad, because it’s only offered by provider Z and their service in your area is poopie. Exclusive deals are nice for the companies, but even when the phone you want is being offered by the provider you want to use, they disable all the cool features you wanted in the first place! And then you find out a similar phone is being offered by another provider, but that provider’s service is so bad in your area you’d rather shoot BBs into your ears until you go deaf than use them as your provider.

ARGH!

I’m sick and tired of going through the anxiety of researching cell phone providers every two years and coming to the conclusion EVERY TIME that they all suck. True, I’ve been happy with my current provider, but they don’t offer any cool phones at all. Not one. They’re all ugly or, worse yet, old-fashioned looking with no keyboard. Plus, my provider’s internet options are so outrageously expensive that I think I’ll vomit blood if I see another surcharge for “10¢ per additional text message.” I need a new provider AND a new phone and I don’t know what to do.

Someone, anyone, help me out? Please?

Summer Camp Fun

• by GeekMan • In Experiments •   3

It’s almost time for summer camp.

When I was a kid I both looked forward towards and loathed the coming of summer. Like almost every kid, I loved the ending of the school year and the beginning of summer, but I also knew that because of summer, I would have to leave most of my school friends behind and go off to the wilds of upstate New York for two months of kiddy incarceration at Camp Beatdakidz. Of course, that wasn’t the camp’s real name, but it might as well have been since all the counselors and CITs had an enormous amount of fun beating the crap out of all the kids in their care. They also spent far more time getting into each other’s pants than they did looking out for the campers which helps explain how Randy Holstrom, a kid deathly afraid of nature, managed to break his arm when he fell out of a tree after someone (who shall remain nameless… ahem) shouted, “Man-eating bear!” at a camp-out.

Ah, good times. Good times.

So, in celebration of the coming summer, and to help those of you who might be going to summer camp, or who might be sending their kids to summer camp, I present to you;

GeekMan’s Top Five Awesomest Summer Camp Practical Jokes Ever!

  1. Wrap clear plastic wrap around the underside of the toilet seat. This one works particularly well on women’s toilets, since they always have to sit down or squat and they also don’t have any dangling parts to give them a warning that something is wrong. Sometimes it is also necessary to unscrew the nearest lightbulb so as not to give the joke away prematurely through a stray reflection.
  2. As someone is showering, pour your favorite drink powder on them from above. Hot chocolate powder and bright red Kool-Aid powder work best. This one is not as effective if you can’t get them from above because from the sides it’s too easy to wash off. Plus, they can see you do it, which is bad.
  3. You and a friend grab the arms of a younger camper, one arm for each of you, and begin asking the frightened kid, “Who do you like better, him or me?” Whoever it is who the kid didn’t say he liked better will immediately begin hitting the kid in the arm until the kid changes his mind at which time the OTHER guy starts hitting the kid until he switches back. This continues until the poor kid is a retched, sobbing heap on the floor or until you and your friend are laughing so hard you can’t keep your grip on the kid. This is a favorite for counselors and CITs and for some reason never grows stale.
  4. Pour ketchup on someone’s sheets, near where their feet will be when they go to sleep, and then re-make the bed. Later that evening when they get into bed, they’ll let out a horrible scream and, when they jump out of the bed in horror, they’ll look as if they’re covered in blood. This is best when done early in the day so that by the time the person gets into bed at night the ketchup is the same temperature as the bed sheets and it will take them an extra second or so to realize what’s wrong.
  5. Hang someone’s underwear on the flagpole. Extra points if it has the kids name sewn in the lining. Super bonus if the kid is still wearing them at the time.

Got any of your own you wish to share?

Procrastination Con-crastination

• by GeekMan • In Rants •   4

I’ve gotten very lazy.

While it’s true that I’ve been working hard in real life, if I were to be completely honest about it there’s no valid reason or excuse for my lack of updates on this site. I might bring up how excruciatingly difficult my life is right now, but I’m no pansy who cries on strangers shoulders in the hopes of garnering some sympathy, or at least some spare change.

Because I know firsthand that it doesn’t work, that’s why.

Well, truth be told, I’ve just been a bit preoccupied with certain other things in my life right now. And before you psycho women out there go ballistic, HoBiscuit is NOT pregnant. No bun in the oven here. And believe me, the way things are going right now if we found out that we were pregnant I would probably suspect some higher power of playing a joke on me. You know, “We’re pregnant… with quintuplets!”

Oy. Just imagining that scenario gives me hives.

And speaking of hives, guess what season it is? That’s right, it’s allergy season! My favoritist time of the fricking year! And this year they’re really kicking my butt. To put it in perspective, if my body was Iraq, Zyrtec was America’s armed forces and my allergies were Al-Qaeda then I’m sorry to say that Osama has won and he’s set up his headquarters in the caves of my sinuses. And every time he says “Death to America,” I sneeze until my nose bleeds.

Ugh. I fricking hate, hate, HATE allergies.

The Great Escape

• by GeekMan • In Experiments •   1

I’m never too busy to daydream.

Let’s say you’re over your friends place. Let us also conjecture that your friend lives on the 20th floor of a high-rise apartment building. Furthermore, let us imagine that your friend is boring you to tears by showing you a slideshow of a recent trip to a public library in Tanzania. In such circumstances it is perfectly understandable that in order to prevent you from committing suicide by gnawing off your own lips and bleeding to death with a bloody grin on your face you might look out of the window.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Hypothetically speaking, what would be the first thought in your head if, when glancing out the window, you saw a narrow ledge about 20 feet below that lead to a dilapidated fire escape which in turn lead to a six foot leap to a nearby condemned building’s rooftop, across from which there was an open window showing you a comfortable chair in front of a television which just happened to be showing your most favoritist TV show ever? And, just to complete the picture, next to the chair is a small table with the remote, your favorite snack food and an open cold one.

And a sign saying, “Welcome to Paradise”

I’m a simple man, with simple needs. So, theoretically speaking of course, seeing something like this when I was so bored that I was seriously wondering if anyone would notice if I willed my heart to stop beating so I could die, I know for a fact what would go through my head. No matter what his age or what kind of physical shape a guy is in, no matter how many times in his life he has failed miserably at any and all physical tasks he has ever faced, every guy in the world will have the exact same thought in their head as they look across at what at that moment seems to be their ultimate salvation.

“Hmmm… I could make that if I really wanted to.”

Amazing Trivia

• by GeekMan • In Experiments •   1

Something I wanted to mention yesterday, but forgot.

At exactly 1:02 and three seconds AM, the date and time read 123456 which is perhaps useless information, but I still think it’s pretty cool to know. I could be wrong, but the next time the date and time will align so nicely won’t be until 12:34 on May 6th 2007, which will read 1234567. If you wanted to be picky, you could say that all of these date/time combos are flawed in that I am ignoring the zeros contained in them and that none of them can be as nicely expressed as the date and time was at 12:34 and 56 seconds on July 8, 910AD, which would have read 12345678910. But then again, I’m sure they had more on their minds back then than making the date and time look pretty in their personal diaries.

You know, like the collapse of the Western Roman Empire or being pillaged by Vikings.

Expanding Horizons

• by GeekMan • In Geek Life •   3

My pants don’t fit me.

You might think that by saying this I’m admitting that I have perhaps put on a few pounds. Or, if you were of a more generous disposition, you might choose to believe that my pants have been washed so many times that they have shrunk down to the point where the waist-size indication label sewn in to the seem of the pants is no longer a true reflection of the actual size of the pants. However you might have thought about this statement, you would have been wrong.

So very, very wrong.

You see, I don’t actually believe that I’m getting fat or that my pants are shrinking. This stems from the indisputable fact that I have had a 32” waist for the last ten years and there is NO FRICKING WAY that I am expanding like some stupid junk food consuming human shaped balloon. I am not a balloon! I am a man! A real man, who eats steak and lifts weights and smells of strength and power!

A manly man, like a lumberjack. But without the women’s underwear.

And as a manly man, I do not get fat. I’m not a man-shaped bag of flesh that expands and contracts depending on what might be shoved down my food hole and into my energy furnace. I mean, just because I like to eat steak 5 nights a week, refuse to consume anything even remotely related to vegetables and sit on my butt for 14 hours a day doesn’t mean that I’m gaining weight. I am not getting fat, lazy and stupid. Why just yesterday I got up from my chair and turned on the TV by hand! I realize that getting off the couch and walking two steps to the TV doesn’t seem like such a big deal at first, but I’ll have you know that it’s a very deep couch. And I was lying on my side.

And I was very comfortable.

All this is evidence, evidence that can lead to only one irrefutable conclusion. And that conclusion is this; the reason my pants feel so tight on me lately is NOT due to my waist expanding. In truth, my waist has nothing to do with it at all, since it’s not at my waist that my pants feel tight. They feel tight in another place altogether and it’s in that place that I believe the expansion, or growth if you will, is occurring.

That’s right. My balls are getting bigger.

I know what you’re thinking. And yes, I am a lucky SOB. But some of you might be asking yourself, “Don’t balls stop growing after puberty?” To you I say, “Not if you’re special.” And, judging by how squashed my nads feel every time I put on my favorite jeans, I’m a very special person, indeed. So now I’ve got to go buy all new pants so that my spectacular, awe-inspiring, Nuts-O-Wonder can be comfortable as I eat my 16 oz. porterhouse steak on the couch while watching Amazing Race on TV. Yes, it’s true that being so amazingly well-endowed is a burden, but for the sake of HoBiscuit and future generations of Mighty Geeks, it’s a burden I’m willing to bear. And ladies, it’s quite natural for you to be jealous of HoBiscuit.

After all, she married me.

Dag-Nabbit!

• by GeekMan • In Breaking News •   7

Stupid, stupid CSS.

So, I’m having a teensy-weensy bit of trouble with my CSS, or to be more precise, with my javascript rollover effects. This has led to some problems with my much delayed launch of the new site. I’m sure no one cares because I now know that absolutely no one comes here anymore. How do I know? Maybe it’s because last night I looked at my stats and the web server actuially laughed at me. I’m not kidding. When I went to check my logs a little pop-up window came up in which there was an icon of a computer and it was pointing at me and laughing.

Then it showed me my visitor count and laughed as I cried.

Anywaste, while I sort out the problem, I thought it might be nice for me to throw out a philosophical question that’s been on my mind for a while. Here’s the question; “Outside of religion or religious beliefs, i.e. god, heaven, questions of faith, etc., what do you believe is true regardless of facts or proof to the contrary?” For example, some people believe that the more money you spend on something the better it is at what it’s supposed to do. Whether or not scientific or empirical data says otherwise they will not change their belief system whether the thing in question is a $500,000 car or a $5 toy.

As for me? Well, no matter how many people say it, I still don’t believe I’m a loser.

Change Is Good

• by GeekMan • In Breaking News •   2

Seasons change, people change, Blogs change.

As you might know, I’ve been working on a redesign for this site over the last few weeks, whenever I’ve had a spare moment, but now that I’m ready to launch it, I find myself questioning something. The unspoken rule of my site has always been humor first, second, always and forever, but while I’ve been offline over the last few months I’ve realized that by limiting myself to ONLY humor I’ve been keeping some of my other interests in the dark.

And my other interests are really afraid of the dark, too.

So, along with the layout change I’ll be rolling out this weekend, I think it’s about time that I also made a format change. Don’t worry though, most of the time I’ll be writing my humorous stories here with the sole purpose of entertaining you, but every now and again I might just surprise you with something else; a new Photoshop tip, a CSS tidbit, some of my photography or maybe even a non-funny opinion on current events.

And so, be ready for some big changes around here.

I know most, if not all, of you don’t care about any of this, but I felt that explaining it here first was the least I could do for my loyal visitors who might just be thrown off completely by the changes come Monday. However, I’ve been writing here for almost five years now and I’m sure most of you just want me to get with the funny and make you laugh or you’re just going to find a younger, funnier Blog to spend your time with. I know how you people think. I know you don’t really care about me. I know you just need your “fix”.

I know you don’t love me.

Oh sure, you say you love me, that you’ll never leave me, but as soon as some young Blog stretches her supple body and bats her pretty eyelashes at you, or flexes his strong, young muscles as you click on by, you’ll drop my old ass in a heartbeat. You know it’s true. You don’t love me, you never did.

[sniff]

Don’t touch me!

[muffled crying]

I don’t want your pity!

[sobbing]

Why do you close your eyes when we make love?!

[GeekMan flees in tears]

Fixing The Fixes

• by GeekMan • In Breaking News •   3

Riddles within conundrums, Batman.

This site might be all new and improved behind the scenes, but from where you’re sitting I bet it looks pretty much the same. Well, aside from the stupid question mark diamonds all over my archived posts. If you’re wondering what those question mark diamonds are, well… so was I. But after a teeny-tiny bit of research I’m no longer wondering.

Instead, I’m frustrated and angry.

You see, it turns out that when the backend of this site was updated to my new and improved blogging software the text encoding of my posts changed from ISO-8859-1 to utf-8 which caused some individual character substitutions due to inherent differences between the two disparate encoded character sets.

What you talking about, GeekMan?

Basically, due to the differences in how my new versus old blogging software, any of my old posts that contained quotation marks, apostrophes, ellipses, or other special characters, will now display the question-mark-diamond instead of the quotation marks, apostrophes, ellipses, or other special characters.

Sucks to be me, huh?

The easy way to fix this, of course, is to simply change the way my new software handles encoding my posts so that it matches the way my old software did it. In effect, change it from utf-8 to the old ISO-8859-1. But I like to be difficult, so I say nay to the simple, easy and effective way! Instead, I think I’ll try to find a way to change all my old posts from ISO-8859-1 to utf-8! And if I fail, well then, I’ll just cross that bridge when it floods.

BTW, anyone know where I can get a cheap inflatable boat?