American Cellphones Suck, Give Me Something Cheaper, Better, NOW!

Herein Mr. Rantypants goes bazerk! Consider this your only warning.

***

The cellphone market is still absolutely worthless, useless, and every one of you suckers paying for your damn phone over again every month are convincing me the pod people have gotten everybody but me and a few other sturdy souls.

I must admit I’d like an android phone. Now that the apple sheep have worn the very idea of the cellphone into something resembling truly useful and not just a vain and overpriced, underpowered paperweight.

The concept of being able to view maps, inquire about points of interest or necessity while on the move, on the fly, in the car, or walking around a city, this appeals to me very much.

Paying a premium price for the chance to use it everyday when I might actually use it twice a week or less, strikes me as something so stupid I can't even compare those who do it to sheep. Because sheep can be cute.

Not zombies either, because zombies can kick ass. The kind of person who'd pay for the chance to do something he knows he won't is the logistic equivalent of a bucket of boiled assholes.

Tweeting, facebooking, goddamn Nascar and couchpotatovision on my phone? Tigger, please! Shoveling more mass-produced milquetoast muck into your trough for the sheep interests me NONE. Those are doors I’d choose to open very carefully at a distant future date on your device if I choose to make it mine. Pay extra? Nev-ar!

I will not pay more for any feature for one single day before I choose to be ready. Get over yourselves, it’s NEVER been worth $89.99-$149.99 every month for a godphone that won’t work everywhere because America’s cellular (if not our internet) infrastructure is an International Joke.

Someday all these zombie-sheep will wake up and cast your dimwitted capitalistic hubris into the lake, tied to a large stone! And I will still be laughing.

The device should damn well be able to PLAY anything I choose to load or throw at it, nimble as VLC and ready to stop on a dime and let me scratch video back and forth if I choose to. This isn’t rocket surgery.

Phone as camera? Normally I could care less if it takes pictures or video, sure that’s nice and all but I will never pay extra for it.

If it’s there at all it had better be 3mp and capable of video no less than NTSC 640x480 29.97 fps or just don’t bother. Decent zoom is mandatory during video as well as stills, and not locked but zooms in/out DURING recording, and the jitter control better be above-average to amazing, or don’t even bother.

The display had best be large, if not the entire face of the device. No flip phones, no double-wide suppositories. Touchscreen or easy FULL size dialpad and full qwerty, with no slider or crackberry form factor, either. Thin and narrow enough to be pocket sized is absolute, anything bigger invites being smashed by a hammer.

Just like any monthly cost above $29.99 for full internet, unlimited text and free to your mate’s handset regardless of carrier - anyone denying you these basic necessities deserves being hit with a hammer, too!

So just in review, starting from a product called the Samsung Replenish and extrapolating the desired experience, let us state that the product may require a 2-year contract. This is a new concession I have made, it has been a long time coming, and it is marginally acceptable if the rest of my terms are met without complaint.

The monthly rate locked in for the life of the contract, with no overage fees EVER agreed to never ever ever, maxes out at $29.99 for a period of 24 months.

With this fee there is free long distance after 8pm;
unlimited internet use;
unlimited text messages;
optional add-on for video or image messaging
beginning at $2.99 per month for 250 messages;
GPS capabilities at extremely reasonable rates;
option to lock out Nascar and television completely
without express, specific consent;

and an optional $3.99 monthly equipment protection plan that replaces the phone via USPS with tracking/delivery confirmation for your replacement within 48 hours.

Let’s see it, America, right now. Give me what I want, baby! Meet my demands, show me you still know how to do anything better than everybody else does.

I’ll be right here, waiting...and not accepting any less than I know you can provide.

a shadowy tea time of grumbles and epithets

So in November I "wrote" a "novel" and in December I conquered some Mario titles I hadn't yet seen through. January brought the scanning project back, and I drifted toward writing and tabled the scanning, with a touch of seasonal flu or cold, in Feb thusfar.

There aren't any words to do justice to the creakings and groanings of the mind. As we get older, the body begins to throw up signs of the impending end. I'm fairly sure nobody ever warned me that my body would develop a claritin dependency before 40.

A miasma of radio waves, high fructose corn syrup, industrial waste added to the drinking water, and laws against anything interesting - fiercely protecting the stupid, ignorant, helpless, all encouraging the laziest lowest denominator to get more inert.

I've noticed the gradual slide into insignifigance I'm making. I just don't know if I care anymore. Plastic teenage tragedies pumped onto the culture by republitard networks gushing bad production values and overspending on underwhelming talent...

I think I'm just fine turning into grumpy old bastard and constantly whittling down the amount of attention I waste on the newest latest greatest bullshit some asshole is selling today.

I usually wait till full seasons of my chosen few shows are available and then barrel through them in short order, miniseries style bursts.

I was raised by women who couldn't be satisfied with mere television, but had to supplement their boredom with reading a novel still facing the screen, or working word search and crossword puzzles at the same time.

I still recall Grandma's daytime schedule revolving around what she was gonna watch while she did it. Morning news talk and variety shows gave way to game shows, which turned to soaps and stories over the 10-noon block. More game shows in the afternoon before they ceased the tyranny and let me watch cartoons.

I can't get my head around the popularity of massive games like World of Warcraft or similar things. I may spend three minutes clicking buttons in mafiaspace every other day or so, but I can't understand RPG players. Reality moves at a slow enough clip as it is, why bother superimposing another layer over it that moves at its own arcane pace?

RTS games appeal a little. The starcraft variant of warcraft back inna day was somewhat amusing. I just can't get my head around a lot of the newest shit. I haven't even been interested. Sports games are for idiots, just like most sports.

I like actual futbol, rugby, MMA fights, and real sports with real stakes performed by real actual people. Fuck nascar, fuck the NFL, and fuck all million-earning assholes who play any "sport" known to man. Money ain't shit.

Parkour and skateboarding are honest sports compared to fucking golf and driving in a circle. Rally racing is a sport compared to drag racing - which is driving in a straight fucking line...probably the only thing stupider than nascar this side of a tractor pull.

I like demolition derbies tho. So I'm not dogging on all redneck American pasttimes. I have a low tolerance for dumb whatever the color or flavor, but I'm not prejudiced. I don't care what color you are or where you come from. If you're trying not to be stupid, you're okay by me.

I was struck stupid the other day out dining in an establishment with too many big flat screen teevees. Literally like one per booth. And they hand out the remotes to the customers, so this guy further from the screen than we were seated, cranked the volume up to 11 for nascar.

So all throughout my midafternoon breakfast I was subjected to the sounds of zooming rednecks in stupid formation trying to out-circle each other. Narrated by jimbob the toothless wonder and jethro the slack-jawed announcer in perpetual yawling drawl. Talking about how heroic and dedicated these fucks were for driving in circles.

This is not what we evolved for. Wasting fuel, practicing a futile and obviously mundane effort, labelled up like the corporate whores you are. Surrounded by masses gathered in big salivating mobs who swill beer and hope for a firey crash. All the while breathing high-performance fuel exhaust and rubber dust?

Does any other nation have this kind of rampant stupidity as a celebrated pastime?

(Press three to jab the author in his fleshy pink belly with a broken beer bottle,
press four to tell him he listens to too much george carlin and patton oswalt and needs to getta life. Press six to send him a nascar beer cozy.)