January « 2006 « My Substitute Reality

Sunday January 29, 2006

New phone

Filed under: Geek,Life — don @ 9:08 am

Betty and I had been using Samsung X427 phones for about the last 2 years. They were ok, nothing fancy. Small flip phones that had a pretty color screen but if you wanted more than the 5 pictures that came with them you had to pay to download new ones. They had the same deal with ringtones. New ones had to come from Cingular. They weren’t expensive but I hate paying even $.99 for a short tune.

Last week we got new Samsung D357 phones. Talk about features! They have the new Push-To-Talk feature that Cingular hopes will steal people away from Nextel. PTT is basically nationwide walkie-talkie. I’m not sure how much we’ll use it but you don’t get the great deal on the phone if you don’t get PTT.

They are also Bluetooth equipped. That means they can interface with any other Bluetooth device like a wireless headset, PDA, Camera, or PC. I got a USB Bluetooth adapter for my computer and learned some cool things I can do with the phones.

I can take any picture and turn it into wallpaper. I can take any song and turn it into a ringtone. When I say any I mean any that are capable of being digitized. Of course you can digitize any picture using a scanner and you can digitize any song using mp3 software so I guess that means “any”.

Another cool feature is you can assign a picture and ringtone to someone in your address book as a caller id. Now when Betty calls me it pops up her picture and plays “Barbie Girl” by Aqua(her idea). When I call her my picture pops up and it plays “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen(again, her idea).

The phone doesn’t have a camera but I don’t mind because Boeing doesn’t allow camera phones anyways. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of employees using them but I don’t see any reason to break the rules. If I want to take a picture I’ll use my camera.

So that’s the latest excitement in our lives.

Comments (6)

Wednesday January 18, 2006

A short History of Mankind

Filed under: Life — don @ 10:00 am

Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer & would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in winter.

The 2 most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer.

These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into 2 distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early human ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as “the Conservative movement.”

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as ‘girliemen.’

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided. Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting revolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn’t “fair” to make the pitcher also bat.Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, Marines, athletes and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work
for a living. Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to “govern” the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tame and created a business of trying to get MORE for nothing.

Here ends today’s lesson in world history:

It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to respond to the above before simply laughing and forwarding it. A Conservative will be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately.

Editor’s note: I got this in an email. I can’t take credit for it.

Comments (3)

Saturday January 7, 2006

Did he or didn’t he?

Filed under: Nothing — don @ 7:12 pm

I’ve been hearing this quote on conservative talk shows for a while and I’ve always liked it.

“If you’re 25 and not a Liberal then you haven’t got a heart, and if you’re 35 and not a Conservative then you haven’t got a brain.”

This has been attributed to Winston Churchill but it’s not clear if he said it. The Churchill Centre says no but many other sources say yes. Maybe we will never know.

Comments (4)

Wednesday January 4, 2006

Mine tragedy

Filed under: Politics — don @ 5:33 pm

I blame Bush! Where was the National Guard? Why didn’t they show up immediately? I think it’s pretty clear this could have been prevented if Bush had been doing a better job. This just shows that Bush doesn’t care about white people. In fact I’m pretty sure the explosion was set by the same people that blew up the levee in New Orleans. It’s a plot by the Bush administration.

Comments (2)

Monday January 2, 2006

Not the best New Year but..

Filed under: Life — don @ 9:41 pm

New Years eve day Betty woke up early with some chest pain. She decided she should go to the Emergency room so I took her to Northridge Hospital. They put her on an EKG and said her heart wasn’t beating quite right so they called her cardiologist. He wanted to keep her for observation so she spent New Years Eve in the hospital and I spent it home alone.

Ann doesn’t like when her mom is sick and felt she should have some company so she stayed the night. I guess they rang in the new year watching Dick Clark.

She stayed one more night then this morning they gave her a stress test. Her heart was working fine during the test so this afternoon I brought her home.

Tonight she says she feels good so let’s hope she stays that way.