Category: Social Media

Phone Apps We Actually Need


telephoneApple Unveils 4-inch Phone

Sweet Jesus!  If you have any mercy in your soul, please save us from yet another piece of useless electronic crap.  How many different phones do we need?  Enough is enough already!  Look, it doesn’t matter whether the iPhone SuperGalaxy S9 is two millimetres shorter than the SuperGalaxy S iPhone 17 or not.  It’s the same damn phone!  It runs the same Apps, streams the same brain-chewing videos and posts the same stupid bathroom mirror selfie to Instagram.  Newsflash!  Size doesn’t matter: it’s the same technology!  It’s time the scientific community pulled their thumbs out of their collective orifices and developed some Phone Apps that we, the people, actually need.

For example:

We need a Phone App that automatically calculates the calories in the Double Mountain Chocolate Mocha-Mocha Cake-a-Thon we just ordered for lunch.  It needs to sound an alarm, flash, buzz and in the voice of our hottest ex-girlfriend shout, “Put the fork down, you fat bastard!  No wonder I left you!” over and over again — until we leave the restaurant.

Or an App that remembers how many drinks we’ve had and, somewhere in the middle of four, automatically telephones our mother, our sister, both our grandmothers, our boss, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Alcoholics Anonymous — not necessarily in that order.

Or perhaps an App that measures the ass groove we’re binge-watching into the sofa and automatically shuts down Netflix until either the groove or our asses lose a couple of centimetres.

Or maybe an App that can analyze the guest lists of dinner and cocktail parties, calculate the exact moment we’re going to be bored out of our minds, and automatically phone the police to report a kidnapping.

And finally, the very best for last:

What about a Fitbit bracelet that not only programs our daily “Fitness Goals” but monitors our progress and, when we don’t achieve them, activates a Taser that zaps the shit out of us until we do?

These are things the world needs — not more pixels on itty bitty screens.

The Rich Are Different

wedding-cakeCall me a hopeless romantic, but there’s something seriously icky about Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall getting married last week.  I’m not one to deny anybody happiness, and if it makes you happy to throw a big party and invite Bob Geldof — knock yourself out.  (Murdoch? Geldof? There’s some irony there!)  My problem is they called it a wedding.  WTF?

People get married for all kinds of reasons, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out even one for these two.  Murdoch is the king of the sleazier suburbs of the media world, and Hall was an A-list celeb whose best-before-date expired when Mick tossed her ass.  Murdoch recently weaselled his way out of jail time (it helps to have a roomful of lawyers and 12 billion dollars) and Hall appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, the supermodel equivalent of doing Depends™ commercials.  What could these two possibly have in common?  Well, I guess that depends.

Geriatric sex aside (which is so kinky even I don’t want to contemplate it) both of these folks have enough money to find far more supple bed partners — and in the past, they haven’t exactly been shy about doing just that.  Besides, Murdoch is rich enough to buy Viagra™ — all of it, including the patent — and rebrand it Halls Sugar-Free Warm-ups™ if he so desires.  So it ain’t lust, folks.

Nor is it money.  Rupert might be rich, but Jerry’s no slouch herself. When you’re worth north of 15 million, it’s not like you’re looking around for lunch money.  Besides, I would think Rupert and his kids had a couple of pre-nups up their sleeve before anybody walked down the aisle — and if they didn’t, that roomful of lawyers I mentioned earlier probably did.  So, the most recent Mrs Murdoch might be a gold-digger, but she’s not using a very big shovel.

Personally, I think Rupert and Jerry just wanted to throw an in-your-face party to show the world exactly how don’t-give-a-shit rich they are.  However, in our Post-Kardashian universe, one more glitzy party isn’t really news now, is it?  So, Rupert, (remember, this guy owned News Of The World) found a headline to hang it on: “I Thee Wed.”  Honestly, if they really are in love and want to live happily ever after, why don’t they just buy Wales and go live there?

Emotional About Facebook

facebook11Sell my clothes; I’ve gone to Heaven!  Last week, the boys (and girls, too, I assume) down at Facebook thought we were finally mature enough to handle it and gave us emotions.  Wow!  For years, we’ve been hanging with our Cyber-friends, incapable of doing anything more than “Liking” and “Sharing” — kinda like first-term Kindergarten kids learning how to play nice with the other children.  Now, we can like, love, laugh and be happy — all at the click of a mouse — plus we can be sad and even hate.  Yeah, hate: the #1 bad boy for all millennials.  Cool, huh!

Here’s the deal.

1 — The new emotions were test-driven in Spain.  Curious choice?  Why not Holland?  Or India?  Or Canada?  Quite frankly, I’d pay money to find out who in the vast Zuckerburg Empire decided the Spanish were the emotional weathervane for the rest of us.

2 — We got one more emotion than Riley Andersen, the 11-year-old from the Disney movie Inside Out.  (She got 5; we get 6.)  Take that, you little cartoon rodent!  Goes to show ya the boys and girls at Facebook are willing to play hardball with the corporate big kids from The Magic Kingdom.  It’s kind of a subtle “our marketing department can beat up your marketing department.”  Personally, I can’t address this situation since I’m boycotting Disney right now because they refused to include Nala, from The Lion King, in their pantheon of Disney princesses.  Simba was raised by a same-sex couple, Timon and Pumbaa, and nobody bats an eye, but call somebody with a tail a princess and everybody’s all up in your face.  Damn species-ists!  But I digress.

3 — We still don’t get a “Dislike” icon.  There’s overwhelming evidence that all most Facebook users (Facebookers?) want is a way to “Dislike” those stupid cat pictures or political rants or the “share this post or you’re a heartless bastard” blackmail.  However, Facebook decided that it would be too “hurtful” and “negative” to let us actually dislike things.  I imagine when we get older, we’ll realize this cyber-guidance was for our own good.

4 — We can only have one emotion at a time.  As we all remember from puberty, adult emotions can be tough to deal with, but the folks at Facebook understand this and are making sure we go slowly at first so we don’t do silly things like “hate” something so much we make ourselves “sad.”

Anyway, I love these new emotions on Facebook.  I’m feeling all excited and virginal, and even though I can hardly wait to try cyber-crying for the first time, I kinda wanna save myself for the right moment.  Maybe I’ll just light some candles, open a bottle of wine and wait for somebody to post pictures of puppies — homeless puppies.