E-Dribble

Martha Walker wasn’t content chopping her mom up with an axe. No, when you’re batshit crazy enough to hack up your ma, you can almost count on more stupendous acts of idiocy.  While in prison for whacking mom, she hired someone to kill her husband for the insurance.

Unfortunately, it looks likes like us guys are going to have to wait for her next attempt on her hubby’s life before we can get in line to be the next lucky Mr. Walker.

When Apple produced a phone that dropped signal when you held it a certain way, I didn’t think much of it.  Aside from shining a light on the flaw of having a small and secretive development cycle, there wasn’t much to give them a hard time about.  Companies fail to find every little thing in early version products all the time.  That’s why there’s subsequent versions.

When Steve Jobs told the world it was a non-issue, not to hold the phone like that, I chuckled a little, but still didn’t make too much of a big deal about it.  It’s Steve Jobs.  I suspect that over the years, his turtlenecks have slowly been restricting the blood flow just enough to cause him to act like the self-appointed God of fashion and function that he is.  It can’t be coherent thought causing it.  Even he’d be embarrassed by the way he acts.

When Apple told the world that the phone never got that many bars anyway, it started getting interesting.

When they told you to buy a $30 rubber band to wrap around the phone to prevent the signal loss, I began laughing outright.

When they held a press conference saying that they weren’t perfect and here’s a free rubber band, I was kind of sad.  It was like watching something that had the potential to be quite fantastic but whose life was cut short by common sense.

I needn’t have worried. It seems Apple has posted a page on their website to demonstrate that all smart phones had this issue.

So what have we learned from this video?  Well, I’ve learned that either all of the other phones in the video have less of a problem than the iPhone in this regard, since none of the phones featured had a ton of people freaking out over dropped calls OR the average iPhone owner is a big fucking whiner that likes to bitch about things that are really of no consequence.

As for Apple, with the release of the video, we no longer have to wonder which group they fall into.

It’s hard for me to find new lows for the social networking site, Twitter.  If you have an account, I don’t need to tell you that 99% of the content is useless shit that does absolutely nothing to inform you or enrich your life.  It’s userbase consists of mostly only two types of users; losers and people trying to monetize on said losers.  It was fun for a while to poke fun at both camps, but as with anything else in life, it eventually grows tired and unamusing (touch my monkey). After all, it’s reached the bottom and can go no further.

Wait a stinking moment.  It seems that pregnant women can purchase a belt to wear that will broadcast a tweet every time their baby kicks.

Don’t get me wrong, these tweets are just as informative and useful as those posted by adult users.  If we were  to have a race between Ashton Kutcher and an unborn fetus to see who could post useful content first, I couldn’t tell you who would win.  It would just be too close to call it.

I often tell myself that I’m being too hard on society, to stop being so damned self-righteous and just shut the fuck up already.  Quit picking out the very worst that’s out there and amplifying it into a bigger issue than it really is.  Then I see something like the kickbee and realize that we as a society are doomed.

Instead of ridiculing it, maybe I should instead take some pointers from them and try to market my own version of this.  The way I see it, the flaw in their design is that they’ve cut out half of the world’s population from their marketing.  What Iwould do is create a belt that anyone can wear, regardless of their race, sex or religious beliefs.  The first two I’d work on the development of would be the Shitbee(tm) and the Belchbee(tm):

Hey, remember when I was making fun of everyone that grabbed the first iPhones 4 only to enjoy signal loss as a reward for holding the phone in a certain fashion?

Well, first Steve Jobs told everyone that the problem didn’t exist and they needed to stop holding the phone like that…… stupid…..

Then, Apple said that holding the phone in a certain manner didn’t cause signal loss.  You never really had that strong of a signal anyway.

Then independent testing found that Apple seems to be run by a bunch of pathological liars that can’t admit that they fucked up.

As a wrap-up, the guy that told us all that it was a non-issue and told us to hold the phone differently said he was sorry, they’re not perfect, all phones have this problem and here’s a free rubber band to wrap around your iPhone4.

Every day, I feel a little worse that I didn’t stand in line for two days to pick up a phone that I paid hundreds of dollars for just so I could be called a moron by the CEO of the company and then given a $30 rubber band free of charge.

Apple.  Think Different.

I’d like to take a meandering walk along various points of idiocy:

Obama and Gaga race to 1 million Facebook followers.

This could be used as a perfect reason why I neither vote nor use Facebook.  I don’t know what amuses me more.  The fact that people think either Obama or Gaga update their own pages or whether anyone at all thinks those numbers represent actual fans.

Hey, speaking of Facebook, If you’re getting divorced, you’d better hope you’re not sharing too much. Who thought that this network that allowed you share every single detail of your life with people you don’t know could have been used against you? Frankly, I’m shocked.

Hey, speaking of divorce, if you’re a woman and you unsuccessfully attempt to murder your husband, not all is lost.  You can then divorce him and get half his shit. I have been well trained since childhood to know that I am supposed to apologize for being both white and male, but this might be going a little far.  Giving half of my stuff to someone after they fail at trying to kill me seems as if I’m awarding a consolation prize for their incompetence.

If I got mad enough to kill her, would they give me the stuff back?

The final numbers are in and it seems that 1.5 million people are now the proud owners of an Apple iPhone4.  In my reader, I had to suffer through two days worth of reports concerning fanbois and tech addicts standing in queues up to 48 hours to pick up their pre-ordered phone.  For my patience, I was rewarded almost immediately upon the phone’s release with reports of bugs and problems, the two most prominent being yellow spots on the screen and the fact that you have to hold the phone a certain way or risk a degradation of cell signal.

Let me be completely honest.  I assumed this was a case of rotten grapes at first, and could picture Apple haters everywhere trying to pick the phone apart.  In the case of the yellow spots, it seems that might be the case, as the spots purportedly disappear as the adhesive between the plates of glass disappear when dry.  The cell signal deal seems to have teeth, however.  Tons of reports have confirmed that if you hold the phone while touching the antenna band on both sides of the face(the most common method of holding any phone), you’ll notice signal deterioration.

So 1.5 million early adopters have been rewarded with a phone that drops calls if they hold it a certain way.  Apple must be scrambling to fix this.  Well maybe, but if they are, nobody has told Steve Jobs.  When asked, he responded via email “Non issue.  Just avoid holding it in that way.“  The article continues to let you know that you can purchase a $30 rubber band to keep from touching the antenna in an effort to restore the functionality of the phone.

The whole thing makes me giggle.  Steve Jobs telling everyone that spent too much money on his phone was just told by him to quit their bitching and hold the phone some other way or buy a $30 rubber band for their new phone.

Which makes him the genius he is.  If anyone would pay $30 for a band of rubber, it’s someone that would stand in line for up to 48 hours for the iPhone.

What to do with that picture you took of your infant sucking on your bong?  Why, post it on Facebook, of course!

Now, if you’re the type of parent that would take a picture of your little one playing with your bong, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d overlook the potential ramifications of posting the image on an international sharing site.

Let’s place the blame squarely upon the shoulders of those responsible:  Facebook’s confusing privacy settings.  Says the mom-of-the-year:

“And I took a pic to show one fucking person and it was a mistake. I would never, ever let him get high.”

Of course not.  What kind of mom would that make her?

I got a 419 scam in the form of an IRS refund notice, which is pretty ingenious.  Providing you don’t screw it up by forming the letter in the “illiterate and foreign 5 year old” format that is very popular with today’s scammers, it’s one of the more believable scams I’ve seen.  So why am I making fun of them?  Well, let’s just say they’re not aiming high enough.

From: Internal Revenue Service(IRS)
Subj: IRS Notification – Tax refund

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity
we have determined that you are eligible to receive
a tax refund under section 501(c) (3) of the
Internal Revenue Code. Tax refund value is $189.60.
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days
in order to IWP the data received.
If u don’t receive your refund within 9 business
days from the original IRS mailing date shown,
you can start a refund trace online.

If you distribute funds to other organization, your records must show wether
they are exempt under section 497 (c) (15). In cases where the recipient org.
is not exempt under section 497 (c) (15), you must have evidence the funds will
be used for section 497 (c) (15) purposes.

If you distribute fund to individuals, you should keep case histories showing
the recipient’s name and address; the purpose of the award; the maner of
section; and the realtionship of the recipient to any of your officers, directors,
trustees, members, or major contributors.
To access the form for your tax refund, please click here

This notification has been sent by the Internal Revenue Service,
a bureau of the Department of the Treasury.

Sincerely Yours,
John Stewart
Director, Exempt. Organization
Rulings and Agreements Letter
Internal Revenue Service

$189.60? Really? I’m going to risk all of my personal data for less than two hundred dollars?  Let me tell you something, Mr. IRS scammer.  I don’t get out of bed for anything under 500.  Shoot me another email when your fictitious refund represents something worth having.

This is exactly why I stick with deposed royalty.

I was browsing through my Akismet spam for something interesting(which very rarely happens) and actually found something that made me smile.  It was spam from a search engine optimization (SEO) company.

Here’s the spam, complete with links(don’t say I never did anything for you, Flux!)

(continue reading…)

Reader’s Digest is trying to promote their new online edition by giving away a new Apple iPad to the viewers.  One thing that I noticed as soon as I hit the page is that Flash 10 is required to view the page. As everyone(but the promotion crew) knows, the iPad is unable to view Flash content.  I couldn’t help but chuckle.  To promote their online edition, they’re giving away a reader that can’t view their online edition.

That’s some fine promoting there, Lou.