Dashing through the snow,
On a pair of broken skis,
Over the hills we go,
Crashing into trees!
The snow is turning red,
I think I’m almost dead,
I crash into a telephone pole
And landed on my head!!
Dashing through the snow,
On a pair of broken skis,
Over the hills we go,
Crashing into trees!
The snow is turning red,
I think I’m almost dead,
I crash into a telephone pole
And landed on my head!!
At work, I was getting a call from Crios. I was letting the phone ring a little bit longer than usual because I as typing something. Right before the last ring I picked it up.
–
Crios (screaming): PICK UP THE PHONE, YOU MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!
davepoobond: Hi… how’s it going?
Crios: OH. Sorry. I wasn’t directing that at you, it was just a little road rage.
davepoobond: Oh, okay…
–
And then I helped him out with his issue.
Q: What was a more important invention than the first telephone?
A: The second one.
“I think telephones are scary. You never know who’s on the other end of the line. So I decided to write about scary phone calls. If you like this book — please don’t call me!”
– RL Stine
June 1, 1999
Today I went to Office Depot and bought a notebook. It was a pretty good price, if I do say so myself. A colleague of mine had suggested I get a college-ruled notebook this time, as the wide-ruled paper I had been getting over the years did not allow for sufficient explanation of scientific principles, and often I would take fifteen notebooks explaining one concept and I would get confused in the order or lose whole notebooks at any given time. Somehow I don’t think the college-ruled notebook will help me act smarter but given that Dr. Sandra DeBaer also had suggested the good idea of using paper towels instead of my hand to clean things in my house, maybe this will work better too.
June 18, 1999
My research team, Braduly Research Team, has set up a lab and funding for our next experiment. We have located ourselves to the outskirts of a marina in Long Beach, CA to prepare for excursions out into the ocean. I have selected a team of brave volunteers to deep sea dive into the treacherous depths of Long Beach to accomplish our research goal.
June 19, 1999
Today I brought in three starfish to experiment on. Part of the lofty goal we have chosen to explore will require us to test the electrical resistance of starfish and other sea-life we might encounter during our deep sea dive. Documenting our tests before the first dive will prove to be useful as we will make sure to not be surprised about exploding sea animals.
June 24, 1999
It has been five days since we barbecued starfish. We decided to eat the starfish but they didn’t sit very well with our stomachs and we have been feeling sick for the past five days. We should have just stuck with the Brazilian restaurant down the street. They might take forever to make their food but at least we won’t feel like more starfish are growing in our stomach.
June 30, 1999
The second stage of our pre-dive experiments has been successful. We have acquired thermal shielding for our deep sea scuba gear and are retrofitting our underwater vehicles. We must now plan for the contingency of releasing something we may not want to release. We will be experimenting with the torpedo systems in case any unforeseen terrors arise from beneath the Earth’s crust.
July 4, 1999
Today is July 4th, Independence Day. The beach has been overrun by patriots and their silly showings of nationalism. Nationalism is bad for countries; don’t they know what they are doing to their own country? We are all at base right now waiting for the escapades to end. We watch the silly explosions of chemicals on television, adding to the already existing pollution in our air. They celebrate the birth of a nation by killing the world it is on! It is quite hilarious, really.
July 5, 1999
We have spent the better part of the day re-establishing our communications array that was knocked askew by a rogue firework. I had to call AT&T to come out and look at it, and they said next time they come out they would have to charge us forty dollars because we have equipment attached to our communications systems that we didn’t purchased from them. How does that even make sense? Do they expect us to not use the communications systems that we pay for because we are using computers that aren’t made by them for a problem that isn’t even something that I had control over? Who do they think they are? Our dial-up modems download at five kilobytes a second — it might be fast but we can’t afford to waste any more time than is necessary.
I’ve been a paying customer for 3 years and pay 150 dollars for our phone lines each month. The funding for this experiment will run dry if there are too many more delays.
July 23, 1999
I have just got back from our funding meeting with Hersher & Globula, a multinational candy-making company. Those goobers think they can just cut off my funding with no explanation when I ask for more operatives to take over the marina. Well I got news for them! I am so close to the discovery of what lies beneath the Long Beach Seaquarium, that I will find volunteers to help me – FOR FREE.
July 26, 1999
I’ve posted bulletins up on telephone polls for operatives to help me discover what lies beneath the crust of the Earth. The response has been surprisingly overwhelming and I now have over three hundred volunteers equipped with their own gear and weaponry to put my experiment into motion. The Landrill has completed its final tests and is now ready to begin digging in the whale tank of the Long Beach Seaquarium.
August 12, 1999
It is the first day we have full control of the Long Beach Seaquarium. After we threw out all the marina employees and released the animals into the ocean, we activated the Landrill to begin its long trek into the crust. The 345 security operatives have full control of the marina at this very moment and we are keeping the administration of the marina locked in their offices. They are allowed to resume their daily duties, as we require food to be imported. We may get sick of eating fish that was meant for dolphins and whales, but I do not plan on waiting long for our goal to be accomplished.
August 14, 1999
There have been three incursions to our sanctity by the local law enforcement. Two by land, one by sea. All I will say is that it was a good thing we brought torpedoes. Due to our preparation and strategic location, we have very limited casualties and work on the Landrill goes swimmingly (pun intended).
August 17, 1999
The police chief has agreed to send us daily regiments of pizza to feed my army in exchange for one prisoner. I believe this is a fair trade off, considering this one prisoner is so ridiculously illogical and talks about how she believes in God. Honestly, how can you be a scientist and still believe in that good-for-nothing loser? He is a rapist and a terrorist, and he’s probably guilty of murder.
August 20, 1999
Our quest to find what lies beneath the Earth’s crust is nearly through! We have finally almost hit the edge of the crust with the Landrill. We must be careful now, as the chocolate that lies beneath the Earth’s crust must be cultivated and sold to candy makers at high prices! This will be the biggest discovery mankind has known since I proved that clouds are made of cotton candy!
August 22, 1999
As I write this, I felt it was important to note what evil I have unleashed upon this Earth. There are DEMON CHOCOLATE BUNNIES UNDERNEATH THE MARINA! They have dismembered fifteen of my operatives and our bullets and electricity guns do not harm them. They slowly advance out of the hole created by the Landrill. We are in a pincer attack situation, with Demon Chocolate Bunnies coming from within our position and police advancing from the outside. This situation is hopeless, but when the police discover what is happening, I will be who has the last laugh.
AHAHAHAHhhhAHAHHA
AHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAH
AHAHAHHAHAHA
AHAHAHAHAHAAh
One day there was a polar bear. He had issues. He had a sister who always overreacted about everything ever that ever happened. His mom wasn’t that much better. Unfortunately for this polar bear, he became nicknamed the Bipolar Bear due to his inherent illnesses contracted by the social oppression created by his familial situation.
When the Bipolar Bear was old enough to move out of his house, he moved to sunny California. He had to get a roommate because he didn’t have enough money for his own room, so he had to post a lot of advertisements on telephone poles and traffic signs. A couple of his signs actually caused some accidents because they flew away after the tape had eroded and flew into the open-windowed cars, causing paper cuts of a severe nature that killed almost instantly. It was a windy day.
It was the worst of times. It was the best of times. The Water Skiing Buffalo was doing so many chicks he couldn’t count them. He was soooo cool. That was until the economy fell and he couldn’t pay for his buffahoes anymore. His full-time job of being the only water skiing buffalo, hence his name, became commoditized with a sudden influx of foreign sea gulls learning how to drive boats, allowing for multitudes of different animals who have no business being on the water, on the water, resulting in a rapid loss of money. Broken, shamed, and nowhere else to go, the Water Skiing Buffalo headed to California because that’s where everyone goes when they want to feel like they’re better than they are. He thought if he could get on a couple of movie sets and show them what he’s got, they’d hire him to do some water skiing in front of a camera, since he was pretty good looking.
Anyway, to make a long, boring interlude short, the Water Skiing Buffalo and the Bipolar Bear somehow ended up living together. They became sorta good friends, but they don’t really hang out a lot. Only like three days out of the week do they even see each other, and they live together! That’s crazy! Right?!?! I don’t even KNOW what they’re doing!
So, one day, as the Water Skiing Buffalo and the Bipolar Bear hiked down Sunset Avenue, they met a lady with a booming voice who was talking about a lot of religious malarkey. She was shouting about how she repented and used to be a sinner and used to be the enemy of God. How this witch of a lady could go around and just yell random nonsense without anyone telling her to shut up because of her uncanny ability to make her voice travel through the dimensions of space, time, and jelly, was beyond them.
The Enemy of God, who really was a witch, had a sick obsession with jelly, and to a higher exponential form, preserves. She saw the water buffalo and the polar bear and conceived a diabolical plot to acquire all of their jelly! The two roommates just moved in like three months ago and they don’t usually eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so they had like two jars of unopened jelly just waiting to have the life sucked out of them by The Enemy of God.
The Enemy of God called her rich friend President Hagen. He was in charge of a local college and was going to be ousted soon due to an impeachment process. He was being impeached because he ordered 600 computers and drove them to Alaska. He wasn’t even USING them for the school! He was going to build a large server house and sell Canadian money to Americans over the Internet, and make a 50% profit. Depending on when you read this story, it might make sense or it might not make sense. This story was written future-proof, just in case American money becomes more expensive than Canadian money again.
President Hagen picked up the phone and he was in the Jacuzzi. He was throwing darts at the staff members who reported him to his bosses. He kept like a bushel of these pictures in random places so that he can always do something lewd toward them, like wipe his arm pit sweat, waft his fart, or blow his burp at them. Once he bought a Thank You card, and wrote a derogatory word that did not actually describe said person after “Thank You” inside the card. Needless to say, he did not put a return address on there. This man was as rude as they came. How he greased the palms of everyone during his road to the presidency is an undocumented and probably illegal ordeal, on account of him being a grade A number 1 doodoo rag.
President Hagen, holed up in his Alaskan server complex had his 600 Computers working in tandem to serve his needs and his online business. He had one computer just to control his Jacuzzi, that’s how many computers he had. He got a call over the popular internet voice calling program TalkToMyFaceCauseTheHandsAin’tTypin or THAT for short from his friend, The Enemy of God. The Enemy of God yelled through her phone and conveyed to President Hagen her plans. Not that it mattered too much since he wasn’t even listening and was playing minesweeper on his computer.
After he hung up with The Enemy of God, President Hagen got out of the Jacuzzi and put a towel on. He walked into his quarter million dollar bathroom with heated AND cooling toilet seats (also managed by a computer) and began typing on a pull out computer while he was doing his doo-dy on the toilet. His secondary server complex located in Nevada, the aptly named Hagen Dessert Server Complex (the Alaskan one was named the Hagen Iced Latte Server Complex) was running a little hot, and he adjusted the air conditioner.
“No melting ice cream, today, Nevada…” The President said in between farts.
The President finished up, and wiped his ass with a picture of Juniper Rodriguez, a senior staff member at Hoodywoody College.
“You like the taste of that, Juniper?”
The President got up and put his towel back on. He then grabbed a picture of Daniel Torres, another senior staff member, lit it on fire and dropped it in the toilet.
“BURN, DANIEL, BURN!!”
An hour or two later, President Hagen was passed out on his couch and snoring very loudly. Oliver 6800, the boy robot slave President Hagen constructed from the innards of five computers, trembled in front of his master, as he wanted to ask him for more hard drive space.
“Please, sir, may I have some more?” Oliver 6800 chirped.
President Hagen awoke and yelled, “MOOOOOORREEEEEEEEE??????”
President Hagen then beat Oliver 6800… at Hearts.
The next day…
“Have you seen my mommy??” Oliver 6800 asked President Hagen.
“Mommy????????????????????????” President Hagen threw his hands into the air.
President Hagen then beat Oliver 6800… at Monopoly. It was a five hour ordeal and pretty gruesome.
Then child services came and acquired Oliver 6800 from President Hagen because he was abusing his robotic child.
Back to the Enemy of God, she was arrested later that evening for knowingly aiding a child abuser, even though the child abuser himself would not be charged and would be allowed to continue in his weird abuse of technology for some time to come. She was also arrested for stealing a pallet of jelly from a grocery store that kept tens of thousands of dollars of jelly in their store room.
As for the oddly paired Bipolar Bear and Water Skiing Buffalo, they lived together for 7 years, decided it was in their best interests to apply for Common Law Marriage for the tax breaks and then cheated the system out of food stamps for years to come. Those stamps sure did taste good, the glue was flavored!
Moral: Don’t take more than you need.
I have a posting on Craigslist to offer my services as a voice actor. I don’t get many responses to it, obviously, but I did get one, as follows.
–
from: | Stro | ||
date: | Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 9:19 AM | ||
subject: | Need a voice actor |
Hi, I’m actually looking for a phone actor, for 10-15 mins. Is this something you can do?
–
from: | davepoobond | ||
to: | Stro | ||
date: | Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 12:23 PM | ||
subject: | Re: Need a voice actor |
Yes, I think I can help you out with it.
What is the project? If it is a video, what genre is it?
–
from: | Stro | ||
date: | Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 6:41 PM | ||
subject: | Re: Need a voice actor |
It’s not a video, sounds really silly but I need someone to pretend to be my dad over the phone. My dad won’t talk to a friend of mine and I really need him to, it’s a complicated situation. I just need someone to talk to my friend for a few minutes. I’ll obviously pay whatever you charge for your service.
–
from: | davepoobond | ||
date: | Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 6:54 PM | ||
subject: | Re: Need a voice actor |
Well, it is an odd proposition. I’ll have to know more specifics before I can tell you I’d do it or not.
Q: Why was Helen Keller’s ear red?
A: She tried to answer the iron!
booty call – n. a late-night or last minute phone call with the intention of attaining sex
One thing that has always bugged me, and I’m sure it does most of you, is to sit down at the dinner table only to be interrupted by a phone call from a telemarketer. I decided, on one such occasion, to try to be as irritating as they were to me. The call was from AT&T and it went something like this:
–
Me: Hello
AT&T: Hello, this is AT&T…
Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T…
Me: This is AT&T?
AT&T: Yes This is AT&T…
Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: YES! This is AT&T, may I speak to Mr. Byron please?
Me: May I ask who is calling?
AT&T: This is AT&T.
Me: OK, hold on.
At this point I put the phone down for a solid 5 minutes thinking that, surely, this person would have hung up the phone. Much to my surprise, when I picked up the receiver, they were still waiting.
Me: Hello?
AT&T: Is this Mr. Byron?
Me: May I ask who is calling please?
AT&T: Yes this is AT&T…
Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes this is AT&T…
Me: This is AT&T?
AT&T: Yes, is this Mr. Byron?
Me: Yes, is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes sir.
Me: The phone company?
AT&T: Yes sir.
Me: I thought you said this was AT&T.
AT&T: Yes sir, we are a phone company.
Me: I already have a phone.
AT&T: We aren’t selling phones today Mr. Byron.
Me: Well whatever it is, I’m really not interested but thanks for calling.
When you are not interested in something, I don’t think you can express yourself any plainer than by saying I’m really not interested, but this lady was persistent.
AT&T: Mr. Byron we would like to offer you 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Now, I am sure she meant she was offering a rate of 10 cents a minute but she at no time used the word rate. I could clearly see that it was time to whip out the trusty old calculator and do a little ciphering.
Me: Now, that’s 10 cents a minute 24 hours a day?
AT&T: (getting a little excited at this point by my interest) Yes sir that’s right! 24 hours a day!
Me: 7 days a week?
AT&T: That’s right.
Me: 365 days a year?
AT&T: Yes sir.
Me: I am definitely interested in that! Wow!!! That’s amazing!
AT&T: We think so!
Me: That’s quite a sum of money!
AT&T: Yes sir, it’s amazing how it adds up.
Me: OK, so will you send me checks weekly, monthly or just one big one at the end of the year for the full $52,560, and if you send an annual check, can I get a cash advance?
AT&T: Excuse me?
Me: You know, the 10 cents a minute.
AT&T: What are you talking about?
Me: You said you’d give me 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That comes to $144 per day, $1008 per week and $52,560 per year. I’m just interested in knowing how you will be making payment.
AT&T: Oh no sir I didn’t mean we’d be paying you. You pay us 10 cents a minute. Me: Wait a minute here!!! Didn’t you say you’d give me 10 cents a minute? Are you sure this is AT&T?
AT&T: Well, yes this is AT&T sir but……
Me: But nothing, how do you figure that by saying that you’ll give me 10 cents a minute that I’ll give you 10 cents a minute? Is this some kind of subliminal telemarketing scheme? I’ve read about things like this in the Enquirer you know. Don’t use your alien brainwashing techniques on me!
AT&T: No sir we are offering 10 cents a minute for…..
Me: THERE YOU GO AGAIN! Can I speak to a supervisor please!
AT&T: Sir I don’t think that is necessary.
Me: Sure! You say that now! What happens later?
AT&T: What?
Me: I insist on speaking to a supervisor!
AT&T: Yes Mr. Byron. Please hold on.
So now AT&T has me on hold and my supper is getting cold. I begin to eat while I’m waiting for a supervisor. After a wait of a few minutes and while I have a mouth full of food:
Supervisor: Mr. Byron?
Me: Yeth?
Supervisor: I understand you are not quite understanding our 10 cents a minute program.
Me: Id thish Ath Teeth & Teeth?
Supervisor: Yes sir, it sure is.
I had to swallow before I choked on my food. It was all I could do to suppress my laughter and I had to be careful not to produce a snort.
Me: No, actually I was just waiting for someone to get back to me so that I could sign up for the plan.
Supervisor: OK, no problem, I’ll transfer you back to the person who was helping you.
Me: Thank you.
I was on hold once again and was getting really hungry. I needed to end this conversation. Suddenly, there was an aggravated but polite voice at the other end of the phone.
AT&T: Hello Mr. Byron, I understand that you are interested in signing up for our plan?
Me: Do you have that friends and family thing because you can never have enough friends and I’m an only child and I’d really like to have a little brother…
AT&T: (click)
“P.S. If you prefer, you can also call the special toll-free number set up just for you: 1-888-FREESHIT!”
– from a spam e-mail
Note: Don’t try calling this number unless you are at a pay phone.
“I hope they have 4G coverage in heaven. Otherwise, they’re being ripped off for service.”
– davepoobond
I used to work in technical support for a 24/7 call center. One day I got a call from an Individual who asked what hours the call center was open.
I told him, “The number you dialed is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”.
He responded, “Is that Eastern or Pacific time?”
Wanting to end the call quickly, I said, “Uh… Pacific.”
No doubt about it, the new temp didn’t have a clue about computers. Since part of her job was directing calls to our technical support department, I gave her simple instructions: “When people call with computer problems, always ask which operating system they’re using — Windows, Macintosh or UNIX.”
Later, she handed a technician this phone message…”Call immediately. Customer has problem with eunuchs.”
My mother was away all weekend at a business conference. During a break, she decided to call home collect.
My six-year-old brother picked up the phone and heard a stranger’s voice say, “We have a Marcia on the line. Will you accept the charges?”
Frantic, he dropped the receiver and came charging outside screaming, “Dad! They’ve got Mom! And they want money!”