Textually Active

Mongo don’t text.

OK, that was true about five years ago.  In fact, I held out on getting a cell phone for as long as I could.  I think the first one I ever had was an LG flip phone from 2004.     I was 29…   To that point, I waited until I was 27 to get a credit card.  I lost that battle when I became a homeowner.   I regret what my balance is today.  Evil little plastic thing!

Even with that giant leap in gadgetry I resisted texting.  For one, I have meat hooks.  Banana hands.  Flippers.  All the dexterity of an oven mitt.  For me to get my plump digits to correctly type out a message using nine numerical keys, waiting for the right letter to pop up or T9word  suggestions takes too long.  I could call you, have the conversation, talk about nothing for ten minutes, and be done before I hit send on the first text.  Secondly, why would I have an entire conversation  this way?  Emails can be long and contain multiple ideas.  Texts are basically you spamming a keyboard with  “OMG”, “K”, or “WTF?”

However, these days that has all changed.  I have become a little more adept at texting, though some days it’s like playing the Game of Thumbs, I win or I diet.  I miss words, it takes forever to spell something out, and I have only advanced to an LG Cosmos.  I’ve had it for probably four years, now.    Why do I not have a Smartphone?  Because my bill is only $92 a month and that covers three phones, texting between two people and enough minutes to never run out.   If I move up to a Smartphone, I will probably increase my charges 3x and the temptation of using a Smartphone like most people do will become a problem…  Remember my credit card issue?

Now, as far as texting goes, I do only get 250 a month.   In the past that wasn’t a problem.  In fact, I didn’t have a texting plan before 2012.   If someone sent me a text, I paid as I went.  Then, we opted to get 250 for an additional $5.00 a month.  Which, wasn’t too bad.   Of course, my wife decided that she needed to up hers to 1000 last year for an additional $5.00 a month.   That’s another story for another time.   Still, I maintained my 250 limit and was fine.

Until it was not fine.  In the past year, I’ve found myself going over my 250 threshold and it feels like I’m breaking the law.  Actually, I was getting treated like a common criminal for doing so, with no reason.   With no conTEXT, there was a lot of speculation.   Turns out, I have friends who text.  I work in IT and we text issues back and forth.   I am on the hook for being an application admin and when it breaks and I’m not around, I get pinged.   Sometimes people text me an entire thought, one word at a time.   Don't ask me why.  Still, even at its worst, I’ve only ever gone over my 250 limit by no more than 10 texts.

Now, how bad is that?  Why don’t I just up it to 1000 and pay the extra $5.00?   I could.  It would be no skin off my nose.   However, when I look at my average amount of texts per month, I’ve gone over maybe four times in a year.    Like I said, I’ve never gone over by more than 10 texts.   Beyond my limit, I pay as I go.  That whopping overage is $0.10 a text.

So,

four months at $1.00 per month = $4.00

OR

12 months at $5.00 per month = $60.00

Now who is smart?  Eventually, I will have to get with the program and get a new phone and new plan.   I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.   Not to mention, they want you to pay them $30 just for the privilege of paying for a new phone and staying on as a customer.   Mongo also doesn't double dip.  If you want me as a customer, show me the money.   Waive the fee, upgrade the phone, and let me pay like I should, for a phone and a plan, not for loyalty.

Yes, my phone sucks.  The reception sucks.  Half the buttons don’t work.  It’s not cool.  I look like that old guy in the commercial “Two cans and a piece of string!”   But, hey, I have $56.00 extra in my pocket a year to spend on worthwhile things.  Remember when we actually used phones to call people?  Those were the days.

Paved With Good Inventions

As we continue to hurl ourselves into Idiocracy territory, I thought about the last 20 years of my life.  After all, my 20^th reunion is this fall.  Good time to reflect.  Look back on my adult life.  Cry in the corner a bit.

What I discovered is that for all the technological innovation we’ve seen in the last two decades, we’ve become incredibly stupid and selfish.  If I could go back in time and change one thing, I might actually make the ultimate sacrifice.  I might try to prevent the invention of the Internet.

I know.

I KNOW.

What madness is this?  Why, on Earth would you un-invent the Internet?  Aren’t you writing a blog?  Aren’t you selling shirts, online?   Aren’t you trying, and failing, to produce YouTube videos?  Yeah, but that doesn’t change the truth.  And, before you start clutching your routers and barking madly, understand where I’m coming from on this.  It’s like Terminator 2.  No matter how hard they tried to keep Skynet from happening, it happened.  Granted, it happened in a bad way, a la Terminator 3, but it was inevitable.   Now, I don't want to keep the Internet from ever happening.   I only wish to delay the process until we are better equipped, mentally and emotionally, to handle it.

We were given fire by the Gods.  And we ended up torching the world.  We literally did not understand what we were given.    For awhile we just did silly things with the Internet.   Hell, we still do.  Cats playing keyboards, planking, Hadouken pics, Horse Head Mask videos.  But soon, it warped and became something different.   There was porn… so much porn.  Then there were cell phones and soon commercial WiFi.  iPods.  iPhones. 

Facebook, Instagram, Elvis Presley, Disneyland.

It spiraled out of control.   Slang (OMG, WTF,  ROTFLMAOBBQ)

We became addicted to technology.  Our lives revolved around little devices that did everything for us.   A phone replaced a pager, a camera, a gaming device, a laptop, watch, GPS, radio, Walkman, and tons of other devices.  It became the Swiss Army Lazy Man.   Texting gave way to sexting.   Polaroids gave way to selfies-in-a-bathroom-with-duck-face being Instagramed and put up on Facebook.  “Like, please!”  (read: I have no self esteem and need constant and instant approval to maintain my shell of an existence.)  Soon, there was cyber-bullying.   Hacking phones, emails, the need for 24/7 news that may or may not even be accurate spread like a wildfire.   We became unable to put the genie back into the bottle.

And, I don’t think we ever will.   Isn’t it odd that in the last 20 years we’ve invented things that bring us closer together, more so than ever before, yet put us farther apart in terms of actually connecting with people.  Used to be, if you wanted to reach someone, you had to catch them at home, by phone.   Now, you call their cell.  And, in a lot of cases, they want you to hang up and just text.    Also, isn’t it odd that in the last 20 years, so much technology has come about yet, what’s the last thing we cured?  Polio, I think.   We’ve created a generation of customers.

Our kids?  Our kids have become over-privileged and entitled. 

“Well, Johnny has an iPod and he’s seven.” 

“Well, Johnny is also a selfish brat that can’t wipe himself yet, but can send a text.  He probably still wets the bed.”

Nobody wants to work for anything.  And I don’t mean the 47% vs. the 1%.  I’m talking about EVERYONE.   Somewhere along the way, we lost our mission.   Our grandparents went to WWII.  They sacrificed a lot of things in order to keep the country running.   Now, we’re asked to give up something and suddenly,  since 9/11, our government is out to control or enslave us.  Take away our rights.  Funny.  Our grandparents sacrificed a lot in order to give their family a better life.   Our parents, well, at least mine, gave up a lot of stuff in order to make our lives better.   They scrimped and saved.  They went without new clothes or fancy appliances.  They made ends meet and did what they could to ensure that we never had to live like that, ever.   And somehow, we thought, “Oh, cool.  Great.  Thanks.”  And that was it.  We accepted their generous offer.  We watched as they worked hard and bled for us and we just took that better life and continued to not pay it forward, but instead we cheapened the thought.

We were given so much without having to ask for it and yet, when it came to our children, or the next generation born into the millennium, they didn’t understand what our parents did to provide, because we were the end result.  We didn’t continue the trend.   We didn’t have to work hard anymore.   Technology caught up and made it easier.   Hell, I am just as responsible.   I work in an office all day, but I also run a business where I don’t have to put a lot of effort into it and am rewarded, monetarily.   Granted, I wish I could work more on it.   I know the quality would benefit, but at the end of the day, I get emails saying , “Congrats on your sale” with no deserving of that praise.  The Internet has done the work for me.

We take to Facebook and instead of sharing our lives with each other, we share half assed researched and cited examples of hate against one group or another.   I can count on at least one hand how many friends I have on Facebook that never say a word, yet post CONTINUALLY their disdain for one group or another in this world.   And 9 times out of 10, they share from one subjective group that is not even factual all the time.  It’s just a funny picture, or what they claim to be funny, slamming another person/group/religion/etc.   They don’t say “Hi”, or “How are you” they say, “Here’s why you’re all wrong and I’m right” in graphic form.  And for all that friending and sharing that goes on, I believe we are more so divided than we ever were as a civilization.   Friends are not friends, they are an audience for our amusement and our agendas.  We don't connect, we try to redirect.

We do not deserve the Internet.    If aliens were to come here, looking for intelligent life, we’d be blown off the face of the galaxy like we were a plague. 

“For the love of Blurg!   Zyphos, we must eradicate this menace on Earth before it spreads and infects us.”  

“How do you know that, Lishu?” 

“I saw it on Reddit.   And Grimjor saw a post on Zarnbook that he shared from "I bet this Gorpcar can get more likes than Firtarp.”

100 Andelorians like this.  (Picture of a tentacle in a thumbs up position.)

So, yeah.  Let’s go back, blow the servers and tell the geeks of the 90s to keep working on it and we’ll work on being better humans, so that one day, we may be deserving of such an awesome power.    Should be ready, sometime before the next Mayan calendar runs out. 

Blinging Bond: Part Four of the Skyfall Review

Now, pay attention everyone.

We’ve got Bonds, Baddies, and Babes covered….  It’s time to take a look at the Bling of Bond in our Skyfall review.

From word No, Bond has been outfitted with some of the coolest cars and gadgets this side of a Brookstone store.  There were exploding pens, jet packs, and a Lotus that drove underwater, to name a few.   Bond has also sported the latest in Rolex Submariner’s though I doubt any of them actually told the time.  

Sometimes, they became a trope when it was pretty apparent that the ridiculous specificity of the object directly related to a life or death situation Bond was put in later on in the film.  Q must have had a machine that could see the future, much like another film that used random objects for specific tasks, Paycheck.

And how about Q?  Over the years, the Quartermaster has been played by roughly six actors, both EON and non-EON films, however, none was more well known that Desmond Llewelyn who played Q from 1963 until his death in 1999. 

While other actors may have portrayed the armourer with a more straight forward approach, Llewelyn played it with a certain amount of annoyance at Bond’s attention deficit disorder and lack of care in returning Q’s toys.   Just like, “Bond, James Bond” is a staple quote from 007 in nearly every film, Q is often quoted with “Now, pay attention 007” and “Do be careful with these”  though, he never does.

With The World is Not Enough, Q’s eventual successor, R, is introduced in John Cleese.  He then took over the role after Llewelyn’s death in 1999.  

Somewhat of a foreboding feeling seeing Q lowering himself into the ground soon after introducing his successor.

There was no new ground tread in the portrayal of Q by Cleese.  He returned to the format Llewelyn followed closely for over three decades.   Perhaps it was meant more as a tribute, rather than making the character his own.  You can see it in his delivery of the line, “As I learned from my predecessor, Bond, I never joke about my work.”  Though, you can see he was heading in a comedic direction in The World Is Not Enough.  Or, perhaps it was a directorial decision as the scene showcases a few Easter Eggs for the 40th anniversary of Bond.  You can see the show knife and jet pack prominently in the scene, above.

This was the last we would see of Q for 10 years.  It’s a shame that Cleese did not follow Bond into the Craig years.  However, in a way, it was probably for the best.  Apart from keeping M for continuity, having someone else from the old regime could have dragged the rebirth of Bond down into the mess that was Die Another Day. 

With Skyfall, we have the return of Q Branch.  Ben Wishaw, who looked more like Cillian Murphy in this film, plays Q more as a computer geek than gadget master.    He calls out Bond for being more of a blunt instrument than an efficient and highly specialized tool.   Making Q younger than Bond shows more about Craig’s seasoned and weary status as Bond than it does about Wishaw’s rookie turn as the armourer, but there is a recollection to the earlier years with Bond’s “You must be joking” line.  Though, the filmmakers don’t fall into the trap of retreading the line “I never joke about my work.”  You can see, though, that Q and Bond will be off on a good foot in this scene, no hidden knife required.

I do like a younger Q, though I’m not sure we really need a hipster Quartermaster.    The gadgets are simple and well placed with a radio tracker and Bond’s palm-print reader enabled Walther PPK.  However, the filmmakers make the same stupid mistake as nearly every other film in the history of films involving computer interfaces.  I call it the Weird Science effect.   

If you were born in the mid to late 90s and don't know this film, shame on you, for starters. Weird Science was a John Hughes film from 1985, where two geeks build a woman with their computer.   What follows is a highly stylized yet totally unrealistic portrayal of what a hacker would see in their attempts to break into various systems.  The same ridiculous type of computer hacking scenes also take place in Jurassic Park, Hackers, Sneakers, The Net, Independence Day, Disclosure, Swordfish, Wargames 2, Live Free or Die Hard, and now Skyfall. 

My biggest problem with the entire movie is that they go to great pains to show Q as a computer security geek, able to decipher anything, and not only do they show a totally stupid computer setup during Silva’s escape, they actually make Q a victim of his own hubris.  Why can’t Hollywood get computer hacking right? 

Qualms aside, it's nice to have Q back in the business of outfitting Bond with the latest in high tech office supplies.  Let's just hope there are no invisible cars in Craig's future.  I'd like him to be around for awhile.

Butt Wait, There's More

Kids are funny. It was always the case with us, growing up. Our parents would spend obscene amounts of money on Christmas presents for us and we’d be more enthralled with the packaging. My kid is just as nutty when it comes to getting a present or basically whatever she sees advertised on television.

"they 're cuddle cuddleuppets cuddle cuddleuppets blankets that are puppets..."
HER: “Can I have that?”
ME: “We’ll see.”

"Dreamlite sleep tight …"
HER: “Can I have that?”
ME: “We’ll see.”

"You pop ‘em. You dip ‘em. Decorate ‘em and devour ‘em. They’re Bake Pops!"
HER: “Can I have that?”
ME: “We’ll see…”

"What’s shaky, chilly, and makes you silly? SLUSHY MAGIC!"
HER: “Can I have that?”
Me: “We’ll… wait a minute? Kiddo, these aren’t toys.”
HER: But we can freeze the magic cubes, pop em in the Slushy Shaker and add our favorite cool drink to make a Slushy cold drink!”
ME: “…We’ll see.”

So, for her birthday, she got a Slushy Magic. She begged me to get it out and make her a Slushy Bunny Milk (NesQuik chocolate milk). So, I checked out the directions and popped the “magic” cubes in the freezer. She expected it to be ready to make out of the box. I said, “No, honey. First we have to freeze these things and then put them in the drink. It could take a few hours.”

HER: “Oh, so when they’re done, we can put them in the Slushy Shaker and add our favorite cold drink?”
ME: “Yeah.”
HER: “Oh, OK.”
A minute later…
HER: “I hope they don’t cause butt cancer.”
ME: “We’ll see”



Footnote: it appears that the “magic cubes” are simply bags of saline. So, in essence, I am adding breast implants to our favorite cold drink. And… they don’t work. 

Just glad she never saw this on TV

Uncrate.com Makes My Afternoon Disappear

I have been spending an ungodly amount of time surfing through this site. One of the folks I follow on Twitter made reference to their effervescent bacon tablets and that just got me spiraling into a wasted day of wishful thinking.

Uncrate.com appears to be a site that advertises products for men… who have exorbitant amounts of disposable cash. But I love it. It ranks up there with ThinkGeek.com.

Here are some highlights of products I would definitely want. Note, I can probably afford the cereal marshmallows and that’s it. LOL.

Mint Robo Cleaner

1959 Land Rover Series II Model 109

HP Slate 500

Cereal Marshmallows

Mac Book Air 2

Where was I?  What's work?  What's my pin number? 



No Apple, You're Doing It Wrong

The latest in technological gadgetry came out to a resounding…. OOOh, Awww, Dooohh! The iPhone 4 hit the shelves and even Jason Bateman had to have it so bad he was willing to endure the boo birds as he was given the opportunity to skip to the front of the long ass line. But as people flock and grab and go giddy over this new toy a problem has arisen. The signal may drop from holding the phone.

That’s right. You’re new iPhone may just end up being a smaller iPad. Why? From all the jargon and technical speak I’ve read it seems as though the constraints of building bigger and better devices in smaller spaces has caught up with smart phone makers. Requirements laid out by FCC and other bodies will only allow so much radiation and over scary words to penetrate the body so smart phones have had to move the antenna placement into the bottom of the phones. The iPhone 4 went rogue and put the antenna on the sides along the metal band that wraps around the casing. One side for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, the other for cellular reception.

Pretty heady concept, but realistically, I guess it has to make sense since I don’t remember the last time I used a mobile device that had an antenna sticking out of it. Great, now I’ve got nothing to chew on. The problem with the iPhone is that there is a small gap that can be bridged by your hand that may [read: most likely] cause you to drop a call.

Apple owned up to the issue [read: feature] after people complained. For once, AT&T wasn’t to blame but I’m sure people were quick to grab some pitchforks and torches. Nope, Jobs pretty much said that it’s most likely user error. In other words, “We screwed up trying this new idea and we pretty much think you’ll still buy the damn thing because you guys are addicted to crack and Steve Jobs is the biggest dealer around.” And sales haven’t slumped by the looks of it, so people are willing to put up with the possibility that the iPhone may not actually work as a phone.

Now, that’s not to say that Steve Jobs didn’t address the problem and offer a solution. The man who can do no wrong, and I give the guy somewhat of a pass for taking on cancer, has a fix for the masses of angry consumers. “You’re holding it wrong.” Steve, I’m sorry, I must have bad reception, did you say what I think you said? Oh, right, it’s our fault. That makes sense. I mean from every commercial we’ve seen we learned how to hold the phone so I guess we can say, “I learned it by watching you!” The other more MacGyver-y fix is to put a piece of scotch tape over the hole, bridging the gap and keeping your mouth breathing, sweaty palm, window licking self from causing the problem. Or, you could put more money into the pocket of someone by getting a rubber case.

My solution? Buy something else. Vote with your wallet. At least never buy the first version of anything new that comes down the pike. The 2.0 version of the IFailed 4 will probably fix the issue and all those early birds will have to buy a new one. It’s called genius marketing. Put out a device that just makes it worth buying and then bring out another version that addresses all the public’s concerns and at least half of those people will buy the newer device as well. It’s like the home movie industry rereleasing new DVDs of the same old movies, now with more bonus features. How many versions of the same movie do you need to own before the Ultimate-Directors Cut-Unrated-Double Wide version finally gives you what you want from a movie that you will probably watch once and then never again?

So, frankly, my comment to Apple is “You’re Doing It Wrong” yet we still buy the crack because we are all Tyrone Biggums and Apple is throwing a Free Crack Party. I just wish they’d release a phone that actually functioned as a phone. I mean isn’t that why they call it a Phone in the name of the device? Can you hear me now, Steve? Am I holding this thing right?

Probably not.

Apple Launches the iPad or a Big Ass Button Remote Control

Apple finally launched the iPad.  What I find extremely ironic or perhaps morbid is that Steve Jobs looked as thin as it did during the unveiling.   To his credit, he is surviving pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant but still it was a bit off putting to see him turn sideways and disappear.   The iPad is supposed to combine a bunch of different concepts into one device.  iPhone, web browser, book reader, email, etc., etc., etc.

Frankly, it doesn't look all that impressive except for the lower than expected price.  For $499, the entry level model is a 16GB version.  For the 64GB version you'll pay $699.  For a pay as you go data package you'll pay $14.99 or $29.99 for unlimited usage.  And don't expect to be able to use your provider for internet, unless you have AT & T.   I expect your billing statement will probably be thicker than the device.  Lastly, for those of you expecting some space age revolutionary looking tablet, guess again.  You've already seen this one in a smaller version, the iPhone.  Hell, I've seen the droid do the same stuff and it fits in your pocket.

If you really wanted to be innovative, Steve, you should have also packaged it as an LCD monitor.   Think about it.   You come home to a television stand that displays what looks like a flat screen television.  You spend a few minutes watching the news and decide you want to cap off the night by reading a book.  So, you walk to the television and lift it off its cradle.  You turn it on its end and use your finger to flip through the pages of an exciting novel or search out clues to the final season of LOST.   When you're done, you simply return the device back to its cradle to charge and act like a television again. 

Now that would have been something to see.  Instead we get the following.

is the

~

for

H1-N-Wand: Wave Bye Bye to Swine Flu

Remember when I said that we didn’t have any really useful inventions this century. I was wrong. Here we have, right in time for Christmas and the rest of the flu season, The H1N1 Destroying UV Wand. For $70 + S&H, Hammacher and Schlemmer will send you this space age wonder that will ensure the destruction of 99.98% of the H1N1 virus after five seconds of exposure at ¾” above any surface. ANY SURFACE! That means that tawdry affair you had with the waitress last night in the bathroom of your favorite dive will not yield any harmful side effects….at least from Swine Flu. Any itching or burning sensation you may feel is not from the usage of this product or from Swine Flu. Chances are, it’s another species of living creature. Just think of it. “Hey Rover? Come here boy! You look a little infected.”

Unlike liquid disinfectants that can destroy electronic equipment, the H1-N-Wand, as I now call it, can destroy harmful evil Satanic microorganisms on keyboards and other gadgets that you could not live without, like your iPhone, PSP, and Swatch. Also capable of killing MRSA, mold, and dust mites, the UV-C light penetrates viral and bacterial membranes and destroys their DNA, rendering the microorganisms incapable of reproduction and survival. Killing an entire species has never been so fun. Let the kids try. But watch it around grandma. We want her home for the holidays.

Now, if you want to use it on your ceiling, you are out of luck. The light automatically shuts off if the light is turned upward. This prevents you from pointing it towards your eyes and burning your retinas. It also keeps you from accidentally signaling advanced alien races to our presence in the galaxy, as the light is so powerful, it can be seen a galaxy away. Besides, everyone knows that germs can’t walk on the ceiling so there’s no need to worry.

We’re so sure you can sanitize everything in your home with the H1-N-Wand that we made sure the battery lasts a full 90 minutes after an eight hour charge. After a full day at work, you can spend an hour and a half taking out bacteria and still have time to cook dinner. But, you won’t even notice the time flying by as you kill those blood thirsty, liberal agenda, baby killing bacteria, bent on world domination. This technology is so advanced you no longer have to wash your hands. You can simply wave the wand over your hands. Just think of that healthy glow you’ll see. People will think you were cosmetically irradiated. We’ll never tell.


But wait, there's more. Just so you don’t feel like we forgot anything, make sure you order two H1 N Wands so that you can use one to clean the other after you use it. Call now and place your rush order…..or go buy some bleach. But hey, what’s $3.00 at any store, within five minutes from your home, when you can annihilate all the germs in the world, reducing the chance you’ll ever need that immune system you’ve worked your whole life to build up? You don’t need it. You have the wand.


I know what I want for Christmas. A little common sense in the world.

Friday Night Remote Fight: Best Movies to Kick Off the Weekend

WARNING:
The post you are about to read contains dangerous levels of sugar and caffeine. Side effects include lethargy and feelings of euphoric childhood fantasies.
Consult a blogger.

Friday night. It’s a magical and mysterious thing. Surviving another long week seems almost worth it when you have this to look forward to. Some people have big plans to hit the clubs or some other event. Here in Pittsburgh, there’s a little thing called the NHL Finals going on and we’re down a game to the Capitals, so you know a majority of Pittsburghers will be either in the Mellon Arena at the game, outside the Mellon Arena watching the game on the Jumbotron, or in a bar watching the game on television. But what about the rest of us?

There was a time when I lived for Friday nights. Somewhere in my socially deprived mind I thought that if I didn’t go out somewhere, anywhere, on Friday night I was missing out on some sociological event that would go down in the annals as EPIC! Usually, that meant hanging out at the mall or even in my day, the roller rink. Yeah, for a brief period between the years of 1986 and 1990 I would make it a point to go to my local rink and just be. Of course, that meant be by myself, spend a couple dollars on Rolling Thunder or Xenophobe, watch other people couple skate, and then go home.

Then there were some Friday nights, during my early teenage years, that I just spent up in my room. Ok, it’s not what you’re thinking. This was about 1987 or 1988 and my brother had been in college at the time. Our first home computer took the form of an Apple IIc and my brother’s roommate had volumes of floppy disks with games on them that he copied for me. Now, the degree of advanced graphics and sound cards were still years away but even the simplest of games like Conan or Bruce Lee kept me busy for hours. It would be nothing for me to grab a can of Pepsi, a bag of Doritos, turn up my RUSH tapes, and not be seen again until Saturday morning at 7:00 AM when I had to get up for my paper route. How pathetic is that?

What kind of childhood was that? It was like the real life equivalent of the first twenty minutes of Weird Science, before the bras on the heads. Although, I kept waiting for my bedroom door to explode and have Kelly LeBrock standing amongst the smoky rubble just waiting for me to utter the simplest command. Never happened for you either? John Hughes was such a lying prick, wasn’t he?

Still, I remember, with fondness the days, when Friday meant I was done for the week. It was the time when my brain could just shut down and I could spend the next two days just crashed out in my “play clothes.” There wasn’t a child that needed tending to. There wasn’t a yard that needed to be mowed. I wasn’t responsible for taking out the trash or making sure the litter boxes were clean. It was all about the pleasure principle, and I don’t mean a Janet Jackson album.

Looking back at my childhood, I continually mount a pretty good case for being born too soon. There was of course the Power Wheels defense of 1983. That was just the tip of the iceberg, the smallest visible portion of the massive amount of technological innovations that developed over the years of my life. Those advancements in fun always seemed to be geared towards the demographic just below my age range, robbing me of the latest and greatest in media, toys and other escapist devices. While video game consoles are probably the greatest missed opportunity, the advancement in home theater and movie offerings through DVD and cable providers ranks a close second.

Yes, young Whipper Snappers, you there with your Twit-ster and Space-Book have all the hook up in gadgets and distractions of heroin addict whose house just landed in a Ozian poppy field. OhgodohgodDorothyDorothypoppiesfieldpoppiesfield... (ten points for you old timers that get that moldy oldie reference to geekdom.) I’ve become the Luddite equivalent of my parents talking about walking to school, uphill, both ways, in three feet of snow, but I’m explaining how, in my day, we had to sit in a certain order on the couch and touch the lamp just so we could keep our fuzzy reception of HBO visible. We dared not move or the audio track would go from somewhat discernible to that repetitive “cheet, cheet, cheet,” sound. It was like the whispers from Friday the 13th, set to the speed of Chipmunks and blasted like a Greek chorus, chanting over and over again that we were “cheating” the cable company, yet we continued to fine tune our

I mean, God help me if I was alone. I had the skills of a SETI radio technician, fine tuning the little knob on the device that clipped onto the back of our television, just so I could see the glimpse of a fuzzy pair of breasts from Revenge of the Nerds late at night. You kids, with your DVRs and your Blu Ray. Bah! You don’t know how stressful it was to have only five minutes to return a VHS rental and then realize you had to rewind the damn thing. If only I would have been born in 1985 I’d be knee deep in WoW and failing my Rocks for Jocks that I needed to graduate with a degree in Undeclared Arts. I’d be Netflixing the entire Second Series of Dr. Who while searching for another little jug of iced tea from 7-11. This would all be done simultaneously while texting my friends and updating my status while recruiting more people for my Mafia and send them all flair based on how much I hate Twilight.

But, I’ve gone completely off the point as I tend to do in my pop culture dementia. The entire point of this ever disintegrating rant is to highlight a selection of popcorn confectionery cinema treats that are best served reheated and with copious helpings of greasy, shop delivered pizza and carbonated beverages. This selection is a prime example of a childhood gone completely off the reservation. This is the kind of pre pubescent nostalgia that has you up until way past midnight, fixated on your glowing screen in a quasi reversed Ludovico technique. Instead of causing an aversion to the images and acts on screen, you wake the next day and head out into your backyard or neighborhood, engrossed in an intense imaginative state, reenacting the best scenes from the film. In your possession is a broken stick that doubles as a sword or rifle and you are clad in a newspaper hat and a cape fashioned from your Mother’s hand knitted afghan.

So, here we go. Settle down into that butt shaped groove you’ve made into the couch, Rochambeau your loved one or best friends for the remote with that killer Paper/Lizard/Spock combo move you’ve developed and let the brain take the night off, you deserve it. Now, I’m sure I will have missed some more of the classics and well established films but this is just a sampling.

Comedy

Dude, where’s My Car?
Half Baked
Stripes
Superbad
Old School
Ghostbusters (Could technically be listed under Sci-Fi)
Weird Science (As could this)
Big Trouble in Little China
Heathers
Shaun of the Dead (It splits the genre with Horror)
Meatballs
Caddyshack

Horror

Christine
Evil Dead I and II (Dead By Dawn is more comedy but let's keep it where it's at)
The Lost Boys
Halloween (1978)
The Thing
The Frighteners
Bubba Ho-Tep
Night of the Living Dead
Cabin Fever
Final Destination
Grindhouse
Poltergeist
Jaws

Adventure

Raiders of the Lost Ark
National Treasure
The Goonies
The Mummy
Jurassic Park
Romancing The Stone
The Three Musketeers (1993)
Ladyhawke

Action/Fighting

Kill Bill
Kung Fu Hustle
Crank
Die Hard
First Blood
Commando
Predator
Point Break
Bad Boys
Hot Fuzz

Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Fellowship of the Ring
Terminator
The Running Man
The Matrix
Escape From New York
Tron
Aliens
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Stargate
Independence Day
Akira
Six String Samurai
The Black Hole
Back to the Future
Underworld

Those of you who can’t turn your mind off for 2 hours.

Donnie Darko
12 Monkeys
Strange Days
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Memento
Paycheck
Pi
North by Northwest
Cube
Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Rom/Com

The Princess Bride
The Wedding Singer
Sleepless in Seattle
Only You
One Fine Day
10 Things I Hate About You
Failure to Launch

Just be sure to wipe the drool from the corners of your mouth when you're done. Have a good weekend and Let's Go Pens!

Hummus Alone

I forget things on a regular basis. Today, I forgot my keys. I walked out of the house at 7:00 this morning, locking the side door to my garage behind me. I reached into my pocket and said, "Shit!" I had a couple of choices, ring the doorbell or call the house phone from my cell, which would wake my sleeping wife and 13 month old daughter incurring their wrath or I could just reach into my wallet and pull the spare key for my car and be on my way. Guess which option I chose? That's right. I may be forgetful, but I'm not stupid. I'm usually pretty good about stuff like that. Every night I have the same ritual. I lay out my clothes for the next day and empty my pockets on the dresser so I can pick them up and put them into my slacks. It just so happens that I didn't have my keys on me, for whatever reason. Yeah, sometime last night, between changing from my work clothes into my regular attire and playing on the floor with my little girl, my keys never made it into my pocket.

The little things tend to get lost in the shuffle. My morning load of things to carry involves my laptop bag, my lunch, and sometimes a coffee mug. At that, I am pretty consistent in remembering to bring all of them. When I start to add items to the mix, like letters to be mailed, books, or other items, I tend to lose the ability to manage everything after item number five. In that case, I'm prone to leaving something behind. However, the more important the item, the more likely it is for me to remember it. Case in point, my daughter.

Recently, at Ben Gurion international airport in Tel Aviv, an Israeli family of seven boarded a plane for Paris with only six family members present. Their four year old daughter was left behind at the airport. Wow, this seems awfully familiar. For the life of me, I can't remember where I've seen it, though. Oddly, enough, both parents managed to plane four of their children and begin takeoff without noticing their fifth child was missing. Man, you know. It's on the tip of my tongue, but I still can't figure out why this seems familiar. The four year old girl was found sobbing and wandering around the airport by a policewoman. After obtaining an identity she attempted to stop the plane which had already left the airport. It wasn't until the plane was in the air that the parents realized their mistake. I got it. It was an episode of Eight is Enough! No, that's not it. The policewoman took the child on the next available flight to Paris and reunited the family. Needless to say, the parents will be questioned when they return. I know. It was the The Brady Bunch Goes Hawaiian episode. Cindy got left behind when Miss Kitty Karry-all got detained for a cavity search.

I already admitted that I'm sometimes forgetful, but how do you miss your kid not getting on the plane? Were they not all sitting together? Had the four old upgraded to first class and they couldn't see her behind that curtain that separates it from coach seating? According to the grandmother who took them to the airport, they are a really organized bunch, so perhaps they relied on each other to be the one watching the odd numbered child. I've done that. My wife and I will go to the store or to a ball game and we'll both think the other has the coupons or tickets. Again, that's something that fits in my pocket. We're talking about a kid that would barely fit in the overhead compartment of the plane. These people managed to remember 18 suitcases and their duty free purchases but forgot one kid. I don't know what the layout of their plane was, but you figure a standard airplane has six seats in a row, three on either side of the aisle. If we guess that one of those kids was old enough to take car of themselves than that would put him in another row, while Mom and Dad sit in seats "B" and "E" with a kid on either side.

Now, I haven't done that much traveling with my daughter and she's only 13 months, so she doesn't get around much without one of us for transport. At four, I'm sure she'll be running and keeping my heart rate up as I try to chase after her. She's already become a little Houdini slipping out of the barricades we set to keep her in the living room. It's not that we just plop her on the floor, put up the obstacle and go about our way. No, if that were the case, we'd sit her in her crib with a toy and accomplish whatever we needed to. No, this is for when we sit in the living room with her. The barricade, which consists of a storage tote spanning the distance between our recliner and her swing, prevents an upright escape, while her older, rear facing car seat wedged under the swing prevents her from going commando and crawling under the swing. Of course, it won't be long before she realizes that there is about an eight to ten inch clearance beneath the recliner where she could easily navigate her way to freedom. Hopefully, by the time she realizes it, she'll be too big to attempt it. In any case, we never let her out of our sight when she could get into mischief. Now, I can count on both hands how many times I've been on my own with her out and about, but I've never once forgot her.

Reports state that the parents' noticed their daughter missing after 40 minutes in the air. I wonder what was the trigger for these folks that they were missing one their kids?

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is captain speaking. We'd like to thank you for flying with us. In a moment the flight attendants will be around with refreshments. Just a quick note, we are offering some snacks, namely Baby Ruth candy bars and Little Debbie snack cakes. Our in flight movie will be La Cité des enfants perdus."

Maybe there was some idle chatter around the cabin.

"Oh, what book are you reading there?"

"Little Girl Lost by Drew Barrymore. How about you?"

"Don't laugh, but it's the first book in the Left Behind series. I'm so behind on reading."

"Wow, I don't think I'd read that on a flight."

And according to the report, when the little girl asked the policewoman for help, she said, "Where are my parents? Where are my brothers?" Now, if you had five kids and were going to "accidentally" lose one of them, would it not be harder to misplace the only girl in the bunch? Wouldn't she at least stand out from the rest? Be assured that after all is said and done, this girl is getting a pony for her next birthday. She just wrote her own ticket for anything.

All kidding aside, I'm actually more in shock that this is the third occurrence in as many weeks at Ben Guiron International Airport. According to the report...

"An 8-year-old boy traveling alone boarded a flight to Brussels instead of Munich, and two weeks before that, a 10-year-old boy was left behind when the rest of his group flew to Copenhagen."

That's not very good odds. I think I'll skip that as a destination. Not that I'd be going through that airport with my family anytime soon, but it seems that there is something stranger than absentminded parents afoot. I think instead of a baggage claim they should have a carousel where all the lost kids slide down a chute and just kind of go around in a circle until their parents pick them up. Better yet, I've come up with an idea for a gadget that would help keep people from forgetting their kids. Last September there was a story about a mother left her two year old daughter in the car after having her scheduled shuffled around. She was supposed to have dropped her off at a babysitter, but instead went to work and forgot the child was sleeping in the backseat. She was an assistant principal, mind you. This is someone who deals with kids all the time. Leaving her child asleep in the backseat was not a reckless act but the act of someone who became forgetful. There is no excuse for what happened but what if she had a device that would have alerted her that she left her child in the car?

The device could be as simple as a key chain dangler which is a receiver and another device which would be the transmitter sending out the signal. The receiver could be fashioned after those personal alarms that people use to alert others when they are being attacked in a darkened parking lot. The transmitter could be built into a a clip that could mount on a shoe or the car seat or anywhere in the car. I'm sure you've seen the battery commercial where the Mother loses her kid at the park and uses a GPS locater to track the kid, who went off to get a balloon, no doubt from a strange sweaty man in a white van. But that is still something you have to activate. If you don't remember that you lost the kid, you won't know to push the button. No, in this instance you don't have to do a thing but remember to look in the backseat. It could even clip together like a car seat strap connecting the transmitter to the receiver when not in use. Granted, that's no guarantee that you will remember to detach the transmitter from the receiver and attach it to your child, but it's one step closer. Now, the Brickhouse Child Locator has a distance alert but it's a bit bulky and not everyone will remember to grab it. As I said before, once I get four or five items in my hands, one tends to be forgotten.

Just think, maybe if I attached the transmitter to myself and attempted to leave the house, my keys would alert me that I've forgotten them before I lock the door and go on my way. Of course with my luck, I'd still make it outside leaving my keys to wake up my family. I'd be in worse shape than the parents of that little girl when I got home.



Author's Note:

For those of you possibly offended by the title, lighten up. Don't be so sensitive. It was a cheap joke, I know. Still, if You Don't Mess With the Zohan, can make $126 million worldwide and not receive Da Vinci Code level criticism, I think I can be forgiven for a little joke like that.

Do Not Call...Waiting Into That Good Night

Do Not Call Waiting into that good night,

Telemarketers should burn on weekend days,

Rage, rage against the phone's blinking light.



Though wise men turn off their ringer and know that it is right,

Because their peace is valuable and want no interruptions they

Do Not Call Waiting into that good night.



Working men, the last hours by, crying "Enough, All Right!"

The answering machine keeps the evil at bay,

Rage, rage against the phone's blinking light.



Tired men who get caught by a survey about their next flight,

And learn, too late, Caller ID would show the way,

Do Not Call Waiting into that good night.



Desperate men, with sleeping babies, who tip toe around at night.

Red eyes blaze at the sight of "Out of Area" on their phone display,

Rage, rage against the phone's blinking light.



You, my phone company, there on lofty height,

Curse you, Private Callers still come through. Bless me, I pray.

Do Not Call Waiting into that good night,

Rage, rage against the phone's blinking light.

Ok, so I just murdered Dylan Thomas' most accessible work. Seriously, though, with the onslaught of political phone calls I've been getting, someone needs to die. I'm not going to go into my own personal views on politics. Save that for the blogs who cater to that kind of thing. This is about the phones and how they ring incessantly when I have just put my daughter down for a nap.

Growing up we didn't have all the luxuries that we have not. I'm not talking about having to walk to school, uphill, both ways, through three feet of snow. I'm talking about call waiting, call forwarding, and additional phone lines in the house. In fact, my parents still do not have call waiting at their house. Until a couple of years ago, they still had the same phone in their kitchen. It was a rotary phone with a 500 ft cord that was only usable short of two feet. It was coiled and knotted up into something that resembled a dreadlock. Let me give you an example of how bad this was. The phone rings and you go to answer it. You go to take a couple of steps from the phone trying to utilize that football field long cord, only to have it bunch up. As you reach for a pen and paper, the phone pulls off the wall and onto the floor. You could spend days trying to untangle that cord. To put it bluntly, Stevie Wonder would have better luck at solving a Rubik's cube.

When we moved into our new house circa 1985, my parents installed an additional phone line for my older brother and sister, who were in late teens. It was a phone line that existed in all the bedrooms but my parents'. That way, they could talk to whomever they wanted and not tie up the regular phone. Being that my father is an insurance agent, he tends to get calls from his clients in the evenings, especially if they've had a car accident or otherwise. Still, they had one phone, another rotary model, and they had to share it. So, it sat outside one of their bedrooms on the floor near the stairway so you could hear it. Then, if you went to bed early, you ended up killing yourself after tripping on the phone cord and falling down the stairs. Still, I told all my friends and a few that weren't that they could call me on my private line. Just as long as it wasn't during dinner and after I was done with my homework. Oh, and not on Monday's at eight, either. I'll be watching MacGyver. I felt so empowered that at the age of 11, I had my own phone line. Although, my name wasn't listed alongside my siblings in the phone book and, if they were home, I couldn't even look at the phone, let alone use it.

The next issue we had was that our phone number, which has been my parents’ phone number for more than 33 years, was so similar to a lot of other phone numbers. We had calls from people looking for AT&T. They had the same prefix and last four digits as us but had the 1-800 in front of their number. We also had people looking for the driver of a local senator. For years, I asked my parents why they never changed their number if it was such a pain in the ass to get a lot of calls from people with the wrong number. Their response was, "Let AT&T change their number. We had ours first." Of course, to this day, you always hear how AT&T continually gets calls looking for my father. "I'm sorry sir. I feel bad that someone hit your car, but we are the phone company."

We also didn't have an answering machine. Let me rephrase that. We didn't have an answering machine that worked properly. The outgoing message sounded like it was recorded with the same equipment that was used during Watergate and the incoming messages were better interpreted by someone at NASA than in my house. When I began my five year mission to graduate from college I got my first taste of voice mail. I spent hours coming up with the perfect messages that would be funny yet entice people to leave me praise in lieu of an actual message. "Hello, we called to let you know you are in delinquent on your student loan. But, you know what? That was such a fantastic greeting that we are going to just rip up your records. Have a nice day." I ended up spending more time recording the messages than I ever did on the phone.

When it came time for me to finally have a phone of my own I was in my mid twenties. My carefree nature began to dwindle and this once social moth soon became a hermit. Don't call me. I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to sit alone in the dark and get old. Why is it that we go from an age of wanting to have access to a private phone line and the recognition of our name in the phone book that would make Navin Johnson say, "Simmer down," to an age where we want our number unlisted and Caller ID and answering machine have replaced the normality of picking up the phone and saying, "Hello" to someone? Is it us or is it THEM. You know who I mean. Those bastards that want to sell you something. Those freaks that want to discuss your long distance or credit card habits. I'm not talking about bill collectors. I mean Telemarketers. While I feel bad for the poor bastard on the other end of the phone line when I go off on them, I am reminded that they chose to work in that field and they chose to call me. Gloves off, game on, it's go time, mofo. "My prediction? Pain."

I love how telemarketers have gone to great lengths to get around Do Not Call regulations. You think if they put that much time and energy into contacting me about my long distance carrier, think about what they could accomplish for worthwhile causes. They could be calling foundations and other trusts getting grants and donations for medical research. When will they learn that no one is going to embrace a telemarketer? If they do, it's probably someone who is lonely and hasn't had a phone call in years. I remember a particular incident where I was trying to call a bowling alley to get information for a group of friends. I misdialed the number and ended up talking to this sweet old lady in a nursing home. It was right around Christmas and I felt sorry for her. She was alone and her family hadn't even come to see her for the holidays. I put aside my hurried nature and spent five minutes letting her talk. She understood that I called the wrong number but was overjoyed that she got to speak to someone after such a long time. At the end of the call, I wished her Happy Holidays and went on my way. I'm sure she's no longer around but for one brief moment, I felt as if the phone was finally used in the manner to which is was meant. Instead of using it to sell something or ask someone if their refrigerator is running, I used it to communicate. I reached out and touched someone and they didn't have to pay $5.95 a minute for it.

It used to be that people looked at phones as an instrument of evil. These electronic gadgets will cause the death of human interaction. Then as we moved into the end of the 20th century, people looked at email as the death of human interaction. Now, instead of speaking to someone, you can send them an instant letter. Cell phones in all their razr sidekick chocolatey goodness has replaced both instruments by allowing us to talk to someone or text them. I mostly use my cell phone for taking pictures. I bet there are people out there that have replaced their talking minutes with text and data minutes. If we continue this trend, in 1000 years or so, we may have lost the ability to speak, altogether. Some scientists theorize that we may evolve into eight toed mammals just like our appendix has become a vestigial structure, not really having a purpose other than to be removed when it gets infected. Since we are so bent on using technology to communicate with each other, the art of writing as well as proper grammar will disappear as we tend to type most communications, disregarding writing standards, to which I am a repeat offender I'm afraid. Who knows? Perhaps aliens will travel to our planet and find fossilized human remains consisting of eight toes, no vocal cords, and enlarged thumb bones. They will ponder why our culture needed big thumbs. They may postulate that maybe it were a civilization of hitchhikers or maybe because of the deep space transmission of television waves we were a cult that worshipped Arthur Fonzerelli, yet lacked the ability to say "Ayyyy!" They won't understand that we lost the need to speak due to our enlarged thumbs perfect for texting. They will find drawings on ruins and strange lettering. They will try to piece together our language from the phrases, "OMG" and "ROTFLMAO."

Of course, this is all speculation and I'm sure nowhere did Nostradamus write, "IMHO teh world will be FUBAR from to BFF n00bs who got pwned in WOW and decided to say WTF, let's flame this POS world." At least he could get through one of his writings without a phone call from someone claiming that he was signed up for their service and they wanted to do a courtesy call to check on them while his nine month old daughter is trying to nap. They didn't disturb his five minutes of peace from chasing her around the living room after the cats' tail and trying to put a piece of lint in her mouth. No. No. He didn't have to collect all the phones and turn down the ringers in hopes that she got a full two hour nap and didn't wake up cranky. I'm just saying. By the way, anybody else getting hang up calls from (484)-548-6400 or (610) 571-2709. These bastards keep calling and there is no one there. They always call during the baby's nap and I want to rage, rage against the phone's blinking light!

Ok, so I just murdered Dylan Thomas' most accessible work. Seriously, though, with the onslaught of political phone calls I've been getting, someone needs to die. I'm not going to go into my own personal views on politics. Save that for the blogs who cater to that kind of thing. This is about the phones and how they ring incessantly when I have just put my daughter down for a nap.

Growing up we didn't have all the luxuries that we have not. I'm not talking about having to walk to school, uphill, both ways, through three feet of snow. I'm talking about call waiting, call forwarding, and additional phone lines in the house. In fact, my parents still do not have call waiting at their house. Until a couple of years ago, they still had the same phone in their kitchen. It was a rotary phone with a 500 ft cord that was only usable short of two feet. It was coiled and knotted up into something that resembled a dreadlock. Let me give you an example of how bad this was. The phone rings and you go to answer it. You go to take a couple of steps from the phone trying to utilize that football field long cord, only to have it bunch up. As you reach for a pen and paper, the phone pulls off the wall and onto the floor. You could spend days trying to untangle that cord. To put it bluntly, Stevie Wonder would have better luck at solving a Rubik's cube.

When we moved into our new house circa 1985, my parents installed an additional phone line for my older brother and sister, who were in late teens. It was a phone line that existed in all the bedrooms but my parents'. That way, they could talk to whomever they wanted and not tie up the regular phone. Being that my father is an insurance agent, he tends to get calls from his clients in the evenings, especially if they've had a car accident or otherwise. Still, they had one phone, another rotary model, and they had to share it. So, it sat outside one of their bedrooms on the floor near the stairway so you could hear it. Then, if you went to bed early, you ended up killing yourself after tripping on the phone cord and falling down the stairs. Still, I told all my friends and a few that weren't that they could call me on my private line. Just as long as it wasn't during dinner and after I was done with my homework. Oh, and not on Monday's at eight, either. I'll be watching MacGyver. I felt so empowered that at the age of 11, I had my own phone line. Although, my name wasn't listed alongside my siblings in the phone book and, if they were home, I couldn't even look at the phone, let alone use it.

The next issue we had was that our phone number, which has been my parents’ phone number for more than 33 years, was so similar to a lot of other phone numbers. We had calls from people looking for AT&T. They had the same prefix and last four digits as us but had the 1-800 in front of their number. We also had people looking for the driver of a local senator. For years, I asked my parents why they never changed their number if it was such a pain in the ass to get a lot of calls from people with the wrong number. Their response was, "Let AT&T change their number. We had ours first." Of course, to this day, you always hear how AT&T continually gets calls looking for my father. "I'm sorry sir. I feel bad that someone hit your car, but we are the phone company."

We also didn't have an answering machine. Let me rephrase that. We didn't have an answering machine that worked properly. The outgoing message sounded like it was recorded with the same equipment that was used during Watergate and the incoming messages were better interpreted by someone at NASA than in my house. When I began my five year mission to graduate from college I got my first taste of voice mail. I spent hours coming up with the perfect messages that would be funny yet entice people to leave me praise in lieu of an actual message. "Hello, we called to let you know you are in delinquent on your student loan. But, you know what? That was such a fantastic greeting that we are going to just rip up your records. Have a nice day." I ended up spending more time recording the messages than I ever did on the phone.

When it came time for me to finally have a phone of my own I was in my mid twenties. My carefree nature began to dwindle and this once social moth soon became a hermit. Don't call me. I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to sit alone in the dark and get old. Why is it that we go from an age of wanting to have access to a private phone line and the recognition of our name in the phone book that would make Navin Johnson say, "Simmer down," to an age where we want our number unlisted and Caller ID and answering machine have replaced the normality of picking up the phone and saying, "Hello" to someone? Is it us or is it THEM. You know who I mean. Those bastards that want to sell you something. Those freaks that want to discuss your long distance or credit card habits. I'm not talking about bill collectors. I mean Telemarketers. While I feel bad for the poor bastard on the other end of the phone line when I go off on them, I am reminded that they chose to work in that field and they chose to call me. Gloves off, game on, it's go time, mofo. "My prediction? Pain."

I love how telemarketers have gone to great lengths to get around Do Not Call regulations. You think if they put that much time and energy into contacting me about my long distance carrier, think about what they could accomplish for worthwhile causes. They could be calling foundations and other trusts getting grants and donations for medical research. When will they learn that no one is going to embrace a telemarketer? If they do, it's probably someone who is lonely and hasn't had a phone call in years. I remember a particular incident where I was trying to call a bowling alley to get information for a group of friends. I misdialed the number and ended up talking to this sweet old lady in a nursing home. It was right around Christmas and I felt sorry for her. She was alone and her family hadn't even come to see her for the holidays. I put aside my hurried nature and spent five minutes letting her talk. She understood that I called the wrong number but was overjoyed that she got to speak to someone after such a long time. At the end of the call, I wished her Happy Holidays and went on my way. I'm sure she's no longer around but for one brief moment, I felt as if the phone was finally used in the manner to which is was meant. Instead of using it to sell something or ask someone if their refrigerator is running, I used it to communicate. I reached out and touched someone and they didn't have to pay $5.95 a minute for it.

It used to be that people looked at phones as an instrument of evil. These electronic gadgets will cause the death of human interaction. Then as we moved into the end of the 20th century, people looked at email as the death of human interaction. Now, instead of speaking to someone, you can send them an instant letter. Cell phones in all their razr sidekick chocolatey goodness has replaced both instruments by allowing us to talk to someone or text them. I mostly use my cell phone for taking pictures. I bet there are people out there that have replaced their talking minutes with text and data minutes. If we continue this trend, in 1000 years or so, we may have lost the ability to speak, altogether. Some scientists theorize that we may evolve into eight toed mammals just like our appendix has become a vestigial structure, not really having a purpose other than to be removed when it gets infected. Since we are so bent on using technology to communicate with each other, the art of writing as well as proper grammar will disappear as we tend to type most communications, disregarding writing standards, to which I am a repeat offender I'm afraid. Who knows? Perhaps aliens will travel to our planet and find fossilized human remains consisting of eight toes, no vocal cords, and enlarged thumb bones. They will ponder why our culture needed big thumbs. They may postulate that maybe it were a civilization of hitchhikers or maybe because of the deep space transmission of television waves we were a cult that worshipped Arthur Fonzerelli, yet lacked the ability to say "Ayyyy!" They won't understand that we lost the need to speak due to our enlarged thumbs perfect for texting. They will find drawings on ruins and strange lettering. They will try to piece together our language from the phrases, "OMG" and "ROTFLMAO."

Of course, this is all speculation and I'm sure nowhere did Nostradamus write, "IMHO teh world will be FUBAR from to BFF n00bs who got pwned in WOW and decided to say WTF, let's flame this POS world." At least he could get through one of his writings without a phone call from someone claiming that he was signed up for their service and they wanted to do a courtesy call to check on them while his nine month old daughter is trying to nap. They didn't disturb his five minutes of peace from chasing her around the living room after the cats' tail and trying to put a piece of lint in her mouth. No. No. He didn't have to collect all the phones and turn down the ringers in hopes that she got a full two hour nap and didn't wake up cranky. I'm just saying. By the way, anybody else getting hang up calls from (484)-548-6400 or (610) 571-2709. These bastards keep calling and there is no one there. They always call during the baby's nap and I want to rage, rage against the phone's blinking light!

I, Robot. You, Lazy

I will now impart unto the three laws of house cleaning, for married men.

1. Never attempt to clean anything inside the house without first instruction and consent from your wife.
2. A man must obey all house cleaning orders given to him by his wife, except where such orders conflict with the first law.
3. When in doubt, ask your wife, do not attempt to improvise.

Anyone who tells you a housewife and mother are not real jobs should be taken out and shot. Taking care of a household and those within it is a thankless and penniless job for which there is no advancement. You don't get a raise. You don't get a promotion. You get more work. There is no retirement until you are admitted into an assisted living facility. It took me 22 years to appreciate all my mother did for me and my family in the way of picking up my dirty dishes and washing my dirty laundry. For this, I accept my penance of helping my wife, whenever I can to "Tidy up the joint." Now, just because house cleaning is a manual chore, doesn't mean you can't have assistance from technology. Growing up, my mother had, and actually still has, this green canister vac which I believe is a Compact. The egg shaped metal monstrosity is older than I am and still works. I remember as kid, dragging that thing out of the closet across the slate floor. You could hear it all through the house. My mom would spend two days cleaning the entire house. Friday she would clean the upstairs and do laundry. Saturdays, she would clean the downstairs. This was her routine and for 23 years our carpets looked like they were brand new. So did the furniture. I have proof in pictures of our living room from both houses that I lived in growing up. The same furniture can be seen in both places spanning 20 years.

Picture of what the Compact looks like.

While that vacuum cleaner that she has is still functional and well cared for, mine are constantly in a state of disarray. I inherited a Dirt Devil upright from a relative about six years ago and it's on its last legs. I constantly have to change the belts or clean out the brushes. I guess having four cats doesn't help anyone keep a sweeper in good condition. I could be wrong and just have about as much luck with sweepers as an eight year old has with goldfishes. Still, the sweeper got good use as my wife and I would clean our house on a weekly basis. We are nowhere the level of cleanliness that my parents' house is but while my mother has that old Compact vacuum, I started to invest in all kind of good toys to help my wife keep a clean home.

After I inherited the dirt devil, my parents bought us a Breeze, which is a canister vac with a big old filter inside. This particular model has since been discontinued and I have to constantly clean the filter off with another sweeper in order to reuse it as I can't find replacements in any store. Dirt Devil's website does have them for $25.00 but that seems excessive. I might have to reconsider since the filter has a huge chunk missing from an incident in which I sucked up something from the hearth of our fireplace that was still burning. I turned around and saw the canister filling up with smoke and quickly took the vac to the garage to put the burning hairy mess. Our new house presented another problem. We had recently moved from a two bedroom townhouse with wall to wall carpet to a three bedroom ranch wall to wall hardwood floors. Animals and hardwood floors are a bad combination as sweepers just push the hair around and you have that feeling of embarrassment when company notices the occasional tumbleweed of cat hair go tumbling by. In order to help my wife, I saw an ad for the Hover Floormate. This little handy dandy vac/floor scrubber will suck up the dirt and then scrub the floors. It's a great help versus those stupid stick mops with the pads on the end. My wife loves the Floormate and while most women would feel slighted being given cleaning supplies for Christmas, it has become a sort of tradition and my wife doesn't mind being given domestic helpers. Along with the Floormate we got a Bissel QuickSteamer for the carpet in our family/game room. My wife is a piano teacher and kids tend to track a lot of dirt into the room.

For every good gift, though, there are the bad. While the Floormate was a great idea, I also bought her a Black and Decker Scumbuster. This rotating piece of crap doesn't have enough power to scrub dishes or walls all that well. I sort of inherited it as it does do a decent job at scrubbing the litter boxes. Another great gift from my Mother was a Scunci steamer. This thing is awesome. It does a fantastic job at cleaning the soot and dirt from the inside of our wood burner as well as steaming away the spilled paint from when we did the nursery. I hate to paint and this thing helps me as I also suck at it. For that great gift there was also another bad one in the new Dirt Devil stick broom vac. This is another chargeable sweeper that doesn't have the power to suck up a hairball, let alone a piece of dry cat food. Probably one of the best gifts I got my wife was our Oreck XL. It runs around the same price as those bagless vacs but it's great for carrying around as it's only eight pounds. It's also ergonomic for my wife's carpal tunnel. The thing actually works, too. The only drawback is that the bags fill rather quickly and lose efficacy as they become full. The last gadget that I bought that I still don't think was worth it was that "Scrubbing Bubbles" shower cleaner. You hit the button and it sprays around the shower four times. I will admit that there is no mold growing in the shower, but there is still soap scum and a film on the walls that has to be cleaned regularly. Chalk that one up in the "draw" column, I guess.

To date there is only one sweeper or gadget that we are somewhat afraid of in our house. It's our newest one. I feel like Michael Keaton's son in Mr. Mom fearing for the safety of my wooby from Jaws, although we've named this one Consuela. The vacuum I'm speaking about is one of those iRobot Roombas. My Mother in Law got one just before Christmas and my wife became immediately jealous. I hopped onto the Internet and found one on the home shopping network site that offered a lot of discounts and free shipping so I figured what the heck.

The robot arrived just after Christmas and since my wife's birthday is in January, it worked out well. The concept of this round robot is to continually go over the same area, executing turns when it runs into objects. Essentially, it works like my billiards' ability. If I hit the cue ball hard enough, it will travel around the table until eventually; a ball will be knocked in the pocket. It also comes with a little post that acts as a virtual wall keeping "Consuela" from crossing the border into another room we don't want her to sweep, yet.

All in all it is a pretty neat contraption and for the most part it does work. Although, it sometimes does not want to hit that one spot that has the most dirt. Also, one night, we returned home from dinner and heard this weird noise. We came upstairs to see the robot zipping around the house on its own keeping the cats hostage on the living room couches. One of them must have bumped it off of its base and it sprang into life.

Now that my wife has all these weapons of mass dusting you would think I would be free to not have to help her. That was my original plan. After all, she hates the way I clean. I don't spray the polish onto the surface; I spray it onto the rag. That's how I was taught. When you spray it on the surface, it tends to get elsewhere and then you are slipping and sliding all over hardwood floors past the fur balls that Consuela missed. Still, as much as I would love to show utter ineptness in cleaning so that I can get out of it, I still de-hair the couches, clean the bathrooms, and the computer. I do appreciate my wife and all she does, just like I finally did with my own Mother in my 20's. If I ever hit that lottery, I'll by my wife the ultimate in cleaning, a maid. That way she and I can both enjoy a clean house and not have the backaches to show for it. I do like the looks of the house when it is spotless and it gives you a sense of pride that you achieved such a feat. Your effort does not go unnoticed. Now, if I could just get Consuela back to her base, we'd be able to enjoy it in peace and quiet.

However, I swear that it and the broom vac are planning our demise. If we leave the Oreck up there, it will be the makings of a revolution. Next thing you know, a monster vacuum will travel back from the future, bent on eliminating John Connor and we'll have the makings for a really bad, but spotless, movie.

"I'll be vac!"