Miss Anita Manbadly

188 posts
Smizing since 1999.

News Time for the T With Kay Martina and Friends

Gurrls, Kay Martina here to lay it out for you with value and style. My sisters and I are ready to pour the “T” for you. Let’s start with Miss Marsha Dimes.

Marsha Dimes here, sweetie, to tell you all about the big mess in the skies. Did you think about flying on a plane any time soon? Well, be sure to send a coffee up to the air traffic controller’s office before you board the plane, miss girl, because they are gonna need it. The FAA’s decision a while ago to cut staff has laid some eggs which hatched in the form of air traffic controllers sleeping on the job. Girl, I know how it is. There I was, working my corner for my usual afternoon shift and then along comes Big Daddy to tell me I need to work the Republican Party headquarters on the overnight shift. Shoot. A girl needs her beauty sleeps before she’s going to party with those freaks. But no, Big Daddy says they want a ladyboy and pronto, so off I go to the hotel, and there they are, slavering away like they do. Oh lord, they move so slow! By the time any of them were ready to do anything, I had fallen asleep in the corner. Just like those air traffic controllers! And don’t you know not one of those selfish Republican bastards would share a bump of coke with me? Hmph. Serves ’em right they had to pleasure themselves on my while I napped. Well, enough about me, I’m gonna throw it to Miss Selma Babiesforcrack.

Selma in the house! I heard over in the UK that more than 80,000 people are on the dole (that’s what they call the unemplerments over there) and the reasons they give for not being able to work are hitting the bottle too hard, being addicted to drugs, or being overweight. Hey now, Amy Winehouse has the first two and she’s got a job, mmmkay? She needs to go on the TV and tell these lazy mofo’s it is time to get off the couch and into the streets. About being overweight, honey, you know there’s always phone sex work. Lots of lonely menz need a friendly voice to talk to and you don’t even have to leave your house. You don’t even have to be able to read for that job, just gots to have a filthy mouth. Stay away from the Orbit gum and you’ll do fine. Now here comes Natalie Attired, and she knows a little something about an oral oopsie.

Yes! Miss Natalie is ready to tell you about Maria Topp, who visited her boyfriend at his house and tried to bite off his balls, honey. Lorena Bobbitt called and said hey, I already worked this corner, miss thing. I’m not sure if this is a statement, her trying to tell him he’s got no balls, but maybe that’s where she was trying to go with this. Then again, it’s hard to tell someone they’ve got not balls when your mouth is full of their balls, so maybe her plan needed a lil more thought before she just went for it.

Miss Frieda Fondle with some loser news for you people — failed actor and right wing nut job Dwight Schultz, former host of a podcast called “Howling Mad Radio,” reports that our President is going to force him to change his gender. Hmm. Let’s see. This child had a very minor part on Star Trek: The Next Generation in the 90’s. And after that? Um, he’s off the radar. So then he does his podcast and lord knows what that is but it sounds like something that Big Daddy charges a lot of money for. So mister freaky deaky says this: “Sometimes when I listen to this administration and I look carefully at the people who have been appointed, I don’t wonder whether or not someday they’re going to be knocking on the door saying, ‘You know, it’s time for your sex change. You got it. It’s in your health care bill. It’s going to make things a lot easier. I promise.’” I don’t know why he thinks that the health care reform bill, which the Republicans totally stripped down and made useless, is going to pay for anything. For reals, okayy? Shoot. You know I can’t get assistance for a pair of heels or a wig hat, I don’t see how this no-talent whiny chile thinks he’s going to get anything out of the feds.

Last up is Miss Sheesa Beehatch, talking about The Donald and his roadkill toupee. Lord, what’s under his wighat? He thinks he can make a run for President as a Republican. A few short years ago, he was all about paying off the deficit, raising taxes, taking care of people. Now, he’s a teabagger, a birther, and he says no more government hand outs, and seriously, no raising taxes on people who have money, mmmkay? I, Sheesa Beehatch, am here to call shenanigans on this. The Donald is just drumming up ratings for his loony fake celebrity show on TV. Carpetbagger. Shooz. He’s a Johnny-Come-Lately, and by that I mean I doubt he has come lately because look at him!

Okay, that’s all the “T” we’ve got for you today. Be sure to pay attention next time when we talk about crazy drunk Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his shexsay dance moves. Oh shoot, hon, here they are right now.

Sources: BBC News, Yahoo News, OnTop Magazine

Escaping the Bounds of “Regular” Employment in IT

Let me tell you a tale of a former IT worker. He started out as a Novell server administrator, then moved on to Windows NT, then moved on to Solaris, and AIX, and Linux, and Mainframe, and middleware, and webmaster, and finally became a first line manager while also doing technical work.

What started out as a fun 9 to 5 job soon became 8 to 5 and then 8 to 6 and then 7 to 6 and then hey I’m bored on a sunny Saturday summer afternoon, let me blow into the office and get some stuff done while no one is using the system.

And then there were Easter weekends spent relocating server farms from one building to another, and Fourth of Julys spent on conference calls with the customer, and New Years Eves spent on conference bridges with dozens of people making sure everything ran as the clock ticked over.

And then there were plans with friends canceled at the last minute, and parties he never got to go to, and lunches not taken, and vacations that were basically a Blackberry and a laptop taken to another state where he worked four hours a day instead of ten or twelve. Some vacation.

None of this extra time worked was ever compensated. He never got comp time or overtime pay. It was just expected that he would put in the hours because it was a part of the job.

And then, when he thought things were really moving along, after about 15 years of constant advancement, his employer pulled the rug out from under him and laid him off. In the middle of the worst recession, ever.

What to do, what to do? He picked himself up, inventoried his skills, and talked to some guys who used to work for him when he was a first line manager. These guys were contractors, and they had the life. They did not work overtime, because they were paid for overtime. They did not worry about making sure that silly, pointless annual reviews were completed. They did not worry about process and procedure. They came in, did what they were hired to do, and they went home. The end.

So he learned the ins and outs of being an IT contractor from people who had been in the business for a good number of years… and now he passes their advice on to you.

First and foremost: Are you a corp-to-corp contractor, or are you a W2 contractor? This is a critical decision. If you are a W2 contractor, you are an employee of a recruiting or consulting firm. You will have taxes taken out of your pay, you will probably have access to health insurance and a 401(k). You will not earn paid time off for sickness or vacation.

If you are a corp-to-corp contractor, you are responsible for errors and omissions insurance, you have to pay all the taxes that a W2 employer would pay, you do not have access to any group health insurance or retirement plans and yes, you also do not earn paid time off, because you are treated as a corporate entity, not an employee. So why would a contractor choose to be a corp-to-corp contractor? Money. Plain and simple. A recruiting company looking for a contract employee will usually offer two rates: a W2 rate and a corp-to-corp rate. A junior system administrator role, for example, would probably pay $42 an hour at a W2 rate and $55 an hour at a corp-to-corp rate.

If you think you want to hang with the big dogs and be a corp-to-corp contractor, consider that the following is a list of a few of the many items you will be responsible for: computer hardware and software; office equipment and furniture; business stationery and marketing materials; web site hosting and design; costs of incorporation; marketing and advertising; car and other business travel; business entertainment; telecommunications services; accounting, legal and other professional services; and ongoing training, professional books, subscriptions, and memberships.

Scary, huh? There are people with an eye for business who can keep track of all these things and still knock out great technical work, day in and day out. If that’s not you, look for a W2 consulting gig.

You’ve decided what type of contractor you will be and have taken the appropriate steps. Now: what skills do you have to offer? Take a look at your last few positions, or your duties over the last few years if you only had one employer. What could you call yourself a “subject matter expert” in, what topics did people come to you first for answers when they had a thorny problem? Do you have any certifications or special training? Things like these will dictate how you market yourself.

If you specialize in one thing (database administration, web design, security, etc) then it gets even easier to find the right job. Employers looking for hired guns like specialists, because they (think they) know what they are getting.

If you are a generalist, you’ve got a bit of an uphill climb. Do you work on multiple platforms? Can you handle database administration and web design and system administration and network design and implementation? Look for contract gigs in all of those areas, and tailor your resume for each gig you apply for. Yes, it’s more work, but them’s the breaks. You’ve got lots of skills, and the employer who picks you will be grateful for them.

Once you have landed your first consulting job, there’s things you have to do outside of work hours. First, you have to keep prospecting for new business. Keep reaching out to contract firms, recruiting firms, former co-workers. Anyone who could possibly get you a job. Second, you have to have some sort of filing system. Get a filing cabinet and start organizing receipts, contracts, work orders, legal papers, anything related to your consulting gigs. Setup regular backups for your computers and follow the backup schedule with the fervor of a true believer. Oh, and be sure to occasionally do restores, too, so you can be sure that your backups are actually backing things up.

Time management — it’s critical! You’re billing by the hour, and more likely than not, you’re working from home or at a remote location. You must develop the discipline to work during the hours you’re billing, and not “clock out” to go shopping, corral the kids, watch a movie, etc. Work hours are sacred, and not to be interrupted, because as a contractor you have lost the ability to tell your employer “my dog ate it” or “I got backed up by other stuff and I’ll have that done next Tuesday.” That ain’t gonna fly any more. You have to be better, faster and smarter than the “regular” employees.

Just so you know, sound time management will pay you back handsomely, because while you’re working like a demon during work hours, you’re also not working during non-work hours. If you are not on the clock, you are free as a bird. This is the wonderful part of the consulting gig. At the appointed hour, turn off that laptop and run for the hills! Enjoy your ability to completely divorce yourself from your job while the “regular employees” you work with suffer working unpaid overtime until they drop. Just don’t rub their noses in it, mmmkay?

Next up — mind your technology. Are you still using Windows 95? Of course you aren’t. Make a plan to keep your technology and your skills current. You can take a tax deduction (check with your accountant on the rules around this — you DO have an accountant, right?) for training and other job related expenses. Schedule time every month to visit vendor websites, in-person demonstrations, and networking groups. Budget hardware and software upgrades, and participate in beta test programs so you can see what’s coming before the general public, and your client base. Buy technical books and read them. If that’s not for you, look for classes in your field at your local community college.

Once you’ve established yourself as an IT consultant, you are free to pick and choose your assignments, concentrating on areas you find interesting and challenging. While you’re chewing on that, consider these questions to determine whether this is something you want to do.

  • Do You Thrive in a Constantly Changing Work Environment? Consultants are on the move, from client to client, working in a variety of organizations. To succeed, you must be able to quickly adapt to your changing environment and get up to speed.
  • Can You Handle the Pressure of Constant Deadlines and Commitments? More often than not, consultants work on time-sensitive projects and are constantly pressured to deliver, deliver, deliver. Can you handle the stress?
  • Do You Have Strong Team-Building and Leadership Skills? Teaming is the preferred method of operation in most companies today. Virtually no one works independently. Rather, you are engaged as a consultant to either participate on a team or lead it. Do you have the required management, leadership and communication skills to work with a team?
  • Are You a Talented, Confident, Articulate and Self-Motivated Marketer? Most consultants, other than those employed with the largest consulting firms, must sell their consulting services to build new client relationships. Regardless of your specialization, you must be an astute marketer who can quickly communicate your knowledge, expertise and value to prospective clients.

So there you have it. You can go the W2 consulting route, and have a company pimp you out, or if you are the Gordon Gecko type, you can captain your own ship through the choppy waters of business.

Or, you can remain an employee, put in extra uncompensated time, and be under-appreciated.

The choice is yours.

Why I Oughta — Latest Update On Three Stooges Movie

Ah, the Three Stooges. Countless hours of my formative years were spent watching their short films, usually on high-numbered UHF stations that mostly aired re-runs of “Get Smart,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Petticoat Junction,” “That Girl,” “Green Acres” and “The Flying Nun.”

Did you know that a “Three Stooges” movie has been in pre-production since 1998? This is something I learned today, courtesy of Deadline.com. The film, which is scheduled to begin production this month, has announced that Sean Hayes is signed to play the role of Larry Fine, and Will Sasso will lend his complex multi-talents to the role of Curly.

The question remains — who will give life to the surly, menacing mug of Moe Howard? Rumors have been swirling around this project for longer than the entire span of Miley Cyrus’s career. Will it be noted Stooges fanatic Mel Gibson? Not a bad choice and someone we wouldn’t mind seeing on the receiving end of some physical abuse. Not a bad choice at all.

Will the next “face of Moe” be Sean Penn? He was originally slated to play Larry Fine, which does not make sense, because he’s got a mug that only a mother could love, and a bowl cut wig would go a long way towards making us believe that Moe had come back to life.

Interesting to note is that many actors have been attached to this project over the last decade — Benicio del Toro, Jim Carrey, Johnny Knoxville, Andy Samberg, an Australian actor called Shane Jacobson. Johnny Depp and Paul Giamatti have been attached to this movie as well, but later dropped out of the project.

Mel Brooks attempted to write and produce a Three Stooges movie in the 70’s, but said his effort fell short because there was no way he could sustain the action for 90 minutes. The film would have starred Mel Brooks as Moe, Dom DeLuise as Curly, and Marty Feldman as Larry. When the writing just wasn’t working, Mel turned the project turned into the unique “Silent Movie.”

Apparently the Farrelly brothers have solved Mel’s conundrum — they decided to divide the movie into three 27-minute segments which complete one story arc. This should give the audience a breather in between all the action, so when Mel Gibson gets crowned (please, please, let him get crowned) for the umpteenth time, we’re still cheering for more.

Also of note — this is not a biography of our beloved Stooges. This is a newly written story of the Stooges’ antics. Should be interesting to see if it is set in modern times or in the 1920’s or 1930’s.

Sources:

By Naming a Thing, You Define That Thing

There’s been some discussion on the open threads of the site where we all met and fell in love, currently known as The Place That Shall Not Be Named (TPTSNBN).

(TPTSNBN) really isn’t a sexy acronym, is it? It needs some Don Draper spin, something easy to type, easy to remember, and of course it must reflect seventh-level black belt snarkitude, for which this site’s commenters are renowned far and wide.

Now that the gauntlet has been thrown down, let’s get to the serious business of renaming the old place. Some ideas to get us started:

  • Uncle Nick’s Trailer Park (UNTP)
  • Tea Bagger Trash Talk World (TBTTW)
  • Can’t Read For Comprehension (CRFC)
  • Not Up On World Affairs (NUOWA)
  • Content-Free Zone (CFZ)
  • Denton (see this video for the reference)

And my current favorite:

  • Peasantville (now with less Reese Witherspoon)

Now that the ball is rolling, let’s see what other names we can come up with.

Career Center: Handbook for the Recently Jobless

If you are like me, you spent some time in your twenties jumping from job to job, and then found “the job” where you decided to settle in and hang out for a while. If you have been at your current job for more than five years, this article is for you.

While this article can apply to any line of work, my experience is in IT, so that’s my focus. What I have learned is, there’s no “career counselor in the sky” who is going to help you get the skills you need to stay employed. You can’t count on your employer to pay for classes, and you can’t count on anyone to let you know what’s going to be the industry standard in the next five to ten years.

What does this mean? This means you have to actively manage your career and your skills. Aw, man! I know. It’s a pain. But if you are considering taking a break from actively managing your IT career, just remember one word: COBOL.

While this ’50s-era programming language is still used today, it symbolizes the way a seemingly omnipresent technology can be in demand one moment and out of fashion the next.

What happened to me? I worked at one company for fifteen years, and had many different roles — system administrator, webmaster, network manager, team lead. In the end, I was laid off and left with skills that were not too attractive to employers as they once were.

What should I have done? A few things. First, I should have kept track of what skills employers are looking for, and getting trained in those skills on my own time and my own dime. I thought that because I was really good at what I did, that was enough. Wrong-O. After getting over the shock of being laid off, I took out my annual reviews where I listed all the things I had done each year, and then compared that to what I saw in listings on Dice.com and Monster.com What a wake-up-call.

Next, I should have been maintaining a network of contacts outside of my employer. I did a half-hearted job of this and did not have a strong network of people who could help me find my next job when I needed it. I ended up working with recruiters and while that worked for me, it took me much longer to find the right recruiter than it would have if I had had someone to refer me to them.

Last, I should have been looking outside my company for my next job long before I started my job search. I knew things were winding down, but I still waited to try to find a job until a point about a year before I was laid off.  It just so happened that the very time I started looking for jobs was the beginning of the massive waves of layoffs during the recession, so score one for my impeccable timing.

Here are some things I am doing today.

  • Schedule time to keep up with industry trends

If you want to avoid being overrun by shifting technologies, you need to keep up with news. Spend some time reading about trends in your line of business, and about trends in your line of work. I subscribe to newsletters from Microsoft (since I do a lot of work on Windows) as well as Sun, EC Council, eWeek and c|net. Keeping in touch with trends in your line of business helps you know what’s coming.  Compare what you read in the press with what skills are listed in current job openings.

  • Lateral moves are not bad moves

If you want to stay at your current employer and there’s a way to move to another department or division, that’s a great way to get some on the job training. I used this strategy several times in my career to get out of a position that was not challenging, while getting experience that would be valuable later on. These days, I am still doing technical work, but I’m also doing project manager and team lead work.

  • Bite the bullet and pay for your own training.

Unless you’re looking to move into an entirely different career (and start over from zero), avoid training yourself in something entirely new. It’s more efficient to build on what you already know — for example, if you are a data base analyst, learning java or c++ so you can code stored procedures is a great way to extend your skills. Again, look at Dice and Monster and see what skills are listed in current job openings. That’s your clue when thinking about what training to sign up for. I like to keep an eye on the offerings at the local community college — the price is right and the time investment is small. I was lucky to take a c++ class taught by one of the people who wrote the language, and now is teaching the language in her retirement.

  • Spin interviews the right way.

I emphasized my participation in beta programs (Windows 7, anyone?) and the breadth of my knowledge. When someone asked me why I stayed at my last job for such a long time, I told them that the work was challenging, and because technology kept changing, it was like having a new job every year, without having to start over at a new company. I told them how I made a difference for my former employer, by saving money, eliminating outages, etc.

  • Your resume is not cast in stone.

Instead of a chronological resume, try writing an experience resume. This type of resume documents the value you brought to former employers — projects completed, deadlines met, budgets managed, costs saved — rather than the particular skills you used to accomplish those goals. You can include your skills, of course; they’re part of your history in the industry. But don’t present them in such a way as to indicate they’re the reason you should be hired.

Dating horror stories

87 comments

I never posted my horror story in the dating threads on Gawker because it was too long.  Even though the date happened in the 80’s, the horror is still fresh today.

Gather round, kids, and let me tell you about the worst date in the history of the world.  Grab a drink and maybe a snack.  Maybe a pillow for biting if you’re reading this late at night and don’t want to wake up the people you live with.

The year is 1988.  It’s my favorite time of year, early November.  I had moved into boystown in Chicago early that year, in hopes of finding friends, a man, and a new life.  In fact, I was really following my suburban friends into the city.  They all had groovy studio or one bedroom apartments and I wanted me one of them too.  They didn’t live with their parents any more and they were independent.  I wanted this for myself as well.  I am 22 and about as savvy as Sarah Palin.

Since it’s 1988, the Chicago gay bars have finally broken free of mafia ownership, but have not improved their decor or sanitation.  Being used to frou-frou suburban establishments, I am less than impressed by walls, ceiling, floor painted matte black with a 19-inch magnavox in one corner showing some porn loop or maybe a paula abdul video.  I don’t feel comfortable in the bars like I did when I was a teenager, maybe because I am a little older and now have zero self-confidence.

So, week after week of not fitting in at any of the bars in the neighborhood wears down.  I’m not meeting anyone at the grocery store, the flower shop, friends’ parties, the post office, the coffee shop, the book stores, the bicycle stores, the video rental place, the various local restaurants I visit.  Just… no luck.  Nothing.

So, I look in The Reader at the personals ads.  Most of them are very specific as to what’s desired and what’s expected and I am either not interested or frightened, depending on the ad.

Then I find an ad from a “normal Joe, except my name is Larry”.  The guy sounds normal and not psychotic.  Sweet, even.  This is before the Internets were invented so I write him a letter and he writes me back.  I send a picture and he sends a picture.  His letter with his picture is very enthusiastic.  His picture shows someone who’s not ugly but definitely not a “looker”.  He’s kinda short, but I like short guys.  Why isn’t Larry the man I saw on Broadway a week before wearing the gray cotton lycra tights that showed his beautiful muscular legs and ass?  Ah well, we go with what’s in front of us.

In our next round of letters, Larry and I exchange phone numbers.  We talk a few times, and we each decide that the other is not a lunatic.  We learn that we work not far from each other downtown, so we plan an after work cocktail.  All very safe and sensible for this early AIDS era get-together.  He looks just like his picture, which is not bad but he’s not winning Miss Junior Come And Get It Boys, that’s for sure.  We decide to ride the bus home together and Larry is very flirtatious.  Very.  Like scaring the straight people very.  I ask him to tone it down because hello you don’t know me like that and so he does.  Satisfied he’s not like some of the crazies I’ve met in the past few years, I decide we can see each other again.

In the next week, Larry sends me letters.  Every day.  With pictures.  Explicit pictures of Larry.  Again, not bad, but it seems a little … like we’re rushing things here.  We do live on opposite sides of the same neighborhood, for gossakes, already.

We talk on the phone and decide to do dinner and dancing.  I will come to his place to pick him up and meet his room mates, and then we will go over to my dyke friend’s place and the three of us will hit the town.

I arrive at his building and go up to his apartment.  Cue the ominous music.  He lets me in his apartment and his two male room mates are entangled on the couch, not completely undressed but mostly undressed, and obviously in the way of getting busy.  Look away, Dixieland.  They ask if I want to join them.  I declare, then I decline.  Seems rude to do this in front of Larry, no?  They are muy bonito, but no, I’m a good boy, so let’s bundle Larry up and get moving.  While he’s getting ready, the boys on the couch ask me when Larry is moving in with me.  Turn up the ominous music a few notches, will you?

Walking over to my friend’s building, Larry tells me he has a surprise for me.  I tell him I’ve already had my surprise quota for the night, thanks.  He laughs and says, “you’ll see…”  Note that this is pre-“Silence of the Lambs” so I did not think he was thinking about making a skin suit or anything.

We get to my friend’s place, and go upstairs for a drink and to give her the required eight million hours that lipstick lesbians require to prepare when leaving their apartments.  She immediately does not like Larry.  This is not a good sign.  Ominous music gets louder.

We go to dinner at a Chinese place I’ve never tried because it’s outside the neighborhood.  The food is good and Chinesey.  Ominous music gets quieter here, what with the pre-dinner drink and food calming jittery nerves.

After dinner, we head over to a for gosh sakes real live discotheque.  You know, the kind where you have to pay at the door and then go up about 40 stairs and then there’s a coat check and then you’re allowed entry into the actual space?  Yeah, that kind.

Oh my.  Disco balls and a huge dance floor and varilights or whatever they had back then and smoke and So. Many. People.  We get drinks at the bar and survey the room.  We can’t talk because the music is being propulsed out of speakers the size of my 1976 Chevy Vega.  So far the songs are early 80’s dance music fare, a little New Order, a little Jody Watley, that new Rick Astley song, and some unknowable Madonna twelve-inch remix that no one could move to.  Oh, I hate it when DJ’s get all esoteric with their songs.

And then —

PUMP UP THE VOLUME, PUMP UP THE VOLUME, PUMP UP THE VOLUME, DANCE DANCE hits us as if a wall of well-cemented bricks moved sideways across the floor.  Larry seems super-excited to hear this song.  I was not a fan.  At all.  Something about this song just didn’t sound right, and I never got into it.  But mister Larry, oh my, this was his raison de etre, yes indeedy.  He flung his drink on the bar and ran to the dancefloor.  My lesbian ladyfriend and I exchanged glances.

Larry began doing a jig on the floor.  An Irish jig.  On the dance floor.  My heart bottomed out like a 73 Impala going over a speedbump.  He had a huge grin on his elfin face as he segued into some sort of hoedown jiggery pokery knee-slapping hee-haw chassée which caused the dance floor to become ghost town.  No one wanted to be on the dance floor at the same time as this spectacle of Elaine Marie Benes dance supremacy.

By now we’re at the point where PUT THE NEEDLE ON THE RECORD AND THE DRUM BEAT GOES LIKE THIS hits us and some random singer’s glossolalia wails out of the compact car speakers and attempts to shatter the barware.

Larry is now combining the jig and the hee-haw square dance moves with absolutely no regard to the rhythm of the song.  I begin to suspect he is experiencing an epileptic seizure and wonder if everyone saw me walk in the door with him.  They did.  They’re looking and pointing at him and then they’re looking at me and my sapphic ladyfriend.  I realize the jig is up (literally) when the song ends.  I go on the dance floor, collect him, and we leave.  Much to his bemusement.

My tribadic friend ditches us at the door and goes to her gurls-only bar.  I walk Larry home.  Ominous music is deafening at this point.

On the way home — on a busy main thoroughfare full of cars and people — at 11 pm on a Saturday in Boystown — Larry drops to one knee and opens a small red velvet box.  Inside I see two gold stud earrings.  Managing to contain my horror, I tell him I cannot accept his gift, because I don’t wear gold (true).  He says he wants me to keep the earrings anyway.  I tell him I cannot.  He wants me to come back to his place for nookie.  I tell him I cannot.  He offers his room mates to me (“ooh they really thought you were hot”) and he will watch from the sidelines.

I have finally had enough.  Using all the powers of invective at my disposal, and trust me they are many and legion, I tell Larry in no uncertain terms that his performance this evening, and the performance of his room mates, has convinced me that I would like to never see him again ever, and that would be too soon.

Larry doesn’t believe me.  He thinks I am playing hard to get.  I inform him that it’s not hard to get, it’s impossible to get, so forget we ever met and just move along.

Before this becomes street theater (more than it already has) I bid him good night and walk quickly away.  Larry is left on his knees, crying.  End scene.

Phone envy

59 comments

I am so behind the phone times, it’s not even funny.  OK, laugh at my Motorola RAZR if you will.  I don’t mind.  It’s been a great phone for lo these many years, but it’s starting to tell me that quitting time approaches.  Fritzy screen, no battery life, dropped calls (relating to the fritzy screen, I’m sure).

All the cool kids seem to have these smartphones where they can play games and watch movies and start their cars.  That sounds like fun, doesn’t it?  My RAZR can make calls and send texts.  Not a real multi-tasker.

My carrier is Verizon, which informs my choice of phones.  Now, before you say some other carrier is better / cheaper / faster / a “sure thing” on the first date, let me tell you that I’ve tried a few different carriers and for me, Verizon is the winner.  Your mileage may vary.  Please consult your physician.

The contenders for the New Miss Manbadly Phone 2011 Award are:

Motorola Droid X

This one is a festive little performer, isn’t it?  HDMI output, records 720p video, 4.3″ display, bluetooth and wi-fi.

Ignore the product website, coded by Satan in Flash with some of the most annoying visual and audio effects available.  At least one can turn the audio off on that website.  Too bad the vertigo-inducing spinning phone effects can’t be quelled, too.

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HTC Droid Incredible

Same Satanic product website as the Droid X, so I guess that evens the playing field.

Also has bluetooth and wi-fi, with the added bonus of bluetooth stereo connections.  That’s fun.

Also acts as a speakerphone, which is a must as far as I’m concerned.  As far as I can tell that feature is missing on the Droid X.  Has a camera but no HDMI output.

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Apple iPhone

Ha ha, just kidding.  I wouldn’t buy an iPhone.  I own an 5th gen iPod shuffle and that’s enough Apple for me, thanks.

So, kids, I open it up to you.  Recommendations?  Thoughts?  I’m more concerned with features and reliability than cost at this point, so if you’ve got stories, share ’em!