Dear Electronics World: Your Cellphone Names Are Stupid.

Ok, enough already. Seriously. This fucking trading-card culture of douchey-named cell phones has got to stop. We’ve got the RAZR, the enV, the Dash, Exclaim, Gloss and even Mantra. There’s the Cookie, the Shine, the Invision and even the Prada. Karma, Cocktail, Tundra…oh my!

There once was a time when what a device actually did for us was the most important aspect. This utilitarian, purpose-driven value system has been dwindling recently, if not completely lost by now. Granted, functionality has increased too, but why then with that have we fallen into product naming entropy?

Motorola DynaTAC 8000X

The first FCC-approved cellular device was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. It sounded futuristic and heavy, and it was both. This brick did what it was designed to do, and though it paved the way for today’s wireless revolution, if it were a grandfather he would undoubtedly say, “You all and your fancy little phones nowadays, playing all your crazy rap music through your Blast…makes me sick. I can’t even keep track of you anymore with all your stupid nicknames.”

You see, men like numbers, and if you’ve ever heard yourself say, “I totally gotta get me one of them new Motorola Rivals,” you should immediately call your urologist and schedule your vasectomy. In fact, with a 2-year contract on the new Samsung Memoir you get a coupon for $150 off the procedure*.

Some companies, like Siemens, have stayed strong to the more numeral-heavy nomenclature of the past, giving us such thrilling portable devices as the CF110, the SL65 and the AL21. Now, they don’t escape completely uncharged, but the very aptly named PenPhone is hardly an inspired attempt at emotive marketing.

LG Bananaphone

I will admit that certain names do exude a strong, manly flavor, namely the T-Mobile 3G Android (sans the “myTouch”) and the Nokia Supernova (debatable), but even those do little to entice my purchase based on the chosen moniker alone.

You can name my phone the Samsung G6805 for all I care, so long as the impossible-to-avoid camera takes crisp pictures of the ta-tas on display at the bar, and that I can easily call (texting is gay, remember?) my friends to tell them about my shenanigans.

So I say we get back to that, and perhaps even create a council here at TCM to approve the names of all new cellular devices. R2D2 would like it that way. Or should I refer to him as he would be today, the Squirt Cool?

*At participating female physician’s offices only.

The Biggest Assholes in Cincinnati (This Week)

Wow.  The headline pretty much says it all:

Two arrested in ‘special-needs’ scam

The story, if you don’t feel like clickin’, goes as such: two parents (mothers from two different families, btw) have their non-descriptly “special-needs” children go door to door asking for money.  The guise: they’re collecting in order to go to a summer camp for retarded children.  (An aside: can we please come up with words other than “special-needs” that are politically correct?  You newspapers are killing me with the word repetition here.)  The reality: the money the kids collect is not for campin’, but rather for bill payin’.

Whoopsie.

It’s a bummer, but stuff like this happens seemingly all the time.  Yet somehow, every single time I see something along these lines, I can’t help but think that parents who put their kids in situations like this just need a good, solid ass-kicking and a yelling-at.  Maybe some prison time on top of it, but wouldn’t the ass-kicking just be so satisfying in this case?  Perhaps we can get Cyborg Santos to do it?

In Which Craig Stuffs a Bottle Down His Throat

Okay, so it’s not entirely out of the question for sexually-oriented stuff to show up at Craigslist–hell, that’s like 50 percent of the reason anyone goes there in the first place, right?  But this one?  This is just plain magic.  Showed up in the “Lessons & Tutoring Section,” next to guitar lessons and GMAT/GRE study help.  Pleasant.

ANGEL, from Angel Erotic Solutions will be here from Chicago Il, to teach her fellatio class. SHE IS EXCELLENT AT WHAT SHE DOES, A group of us girls took a road trip to Chicago last year to join one of her classes. WE WERE AMAZED. So we decided to bring her here to Fairfield so that everyone can share in this wonderful experience.

YOU CANNOT PAY ON THE DATE OF CLASS. YOU MUST EMAIL ME RIGHT AWAY TO BUY A TICKET TO GET A SEAT. EMAIL RIGHT AWAY CAUSE SPACE IS LIMITED.

You are a carnival barker, with your sense of urgency and your apparent awareness of the existence of the CAPS LOCK key.

The place is 2400 Albemarle Drive, Fairfield, Ohio
The date is July 11th, 2009
The time is 8:00 pm until
The price is 65.00 which includes everything, drinks, food, props, etc.
Bring extra money for our surprise raffle, and Angel has dvds and other things to sell if you wish.

Yes, have some. (click photo for credit)

Two things here: first, thanks for the address–be sure to have the show in a room with windows. I’ll stand outside and watch just like I used to do when bands played at Sudsy’s and I was too young to get in.

Second: OF COURSE there’ll be DVDs for sale, because this is probably just one of those lady vibrator sales parties. You know the ones, where your girl comes back with all kinds of edible lotions and stuff, and she never delivers the super-pervy stuff you wish she’d bring home, but you’re too afraid to mention? Oh, wait. Never mind.

COME ON ALL GIRLS AND YOUR GIRLFRIENDS, JOIN US IN THIS ONE DAY EVENT. EMAIL ME WITH ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE AND I WILL CALL YOU BACK IF YOU LEAVE YOUR NUMBER. JOIN US FOR LAUGHTER, FUN, EDUCATION, AND A PLAIN OL’ GOOD TIME. NO REFUNDS

Yeah, that “No refunds” thing kinda takes away from your closer there, sweetheart.

It’s Goldilocks With a Dong, and No Bears.

Star of WCPO's new original show, New Goldilocks.

It’s a couple days old now, but this story struck me.  It’s the kind of crime story that shows up in any given area once every few years or so, but man, I’ve gotta say, they’re wonderful and never fail to entertain.

In case you didn’t feel like clicking through, a quick summary: 19-year-old guy breaks into a family’s house while they’re away on vacation.  He gets arrested.  The thing that our favorite large news publication fails to report?  Nick Truesdell was a UC football player who got kicked off the team for being an asshole.  This fact does nothing but make the story more interesting.  Why not include it?

More from the story:

He also took the family’s 2007 Nissan Altima from the garage and drove it around for more than 48 hours, slept in the master bedroom, watched television and used the computer at the house, according to the affidavit filed in municipal court.

It’s not made clear how he was caught, and this particular happening probably isn’t important enough to warrant any kind of followup story clarifying this.  Rats. I’m sincerely hoping that he was caught by the family, sleeping in their bed, with three bowls of half-eaten oatmeal on the table.

Comic: If Vengeance Be My Destiny 6

If Vengeance Be My Destiny is TCM’s Sunday Comic. This is installment #6.

…And Here’s Your Third (Billy Mays is Off To Sell Cleaning Supplies to St. Peter)

I’m not one to normally refer to Fox News, but they’re reporting that Billy Mays, the Oxy Clean (that’s right, isn’t it?) pitchman and co-star of the appropriately-titled Discovery Channel show Pitchmen, is dead.  Nothing really super-detailed at this point, other than that he was discovered to be non-responsive at his house in Tampa, FL this morning.

You ask why this might be important to TCM?  He had a fucking amazingly well-kept beard (see fig. 1), and he could probably kick your fucking ass.  Billy was 50, and his family’s in our thoughts, or whatever you’re supposed to say.

So, that makes three, right?  McMahon, Jackson Fawcett, and Mays.  We might have to start a death pool or something like that around here.  You know, for fun.

I’ll add more to this space as pertinent information, if any, becomes available.

UPDATE: The LA Times currently has the Worst/Best possible headline for the Billy Mays death: “But WAIT!!There’s (no) more! Billy Mays passes.“