I was driving home from work last night (this morning), on a deserted highway which eventually feeds into the cluster-copulation that is I-81. George Noory was on, and I was fiddling with the radio, trying to find a station with better reception.
And, after only two or three seconds, I looked up, and there was a GIANT deer standing in the middle of the road. Just standing there, like it was made of ceramic, right in front of my car. And the floor of my ass nearly fell out.
Instinctively I maneuvered around it, and almost went up on two wheels. And it wasn’t a conscious move either, my central nervous system just kicked-in and took over. I went careening onto the shoulder, then back into the lane, before I even knew what had happened.
There was an insta-spike of adrenaline, and my heart was banging around like an unbalanced washing machine.
What the hell, man?! Was it locked-in on my headlights, or something? Is that what they do? I don’t know, but it was scary. I’ll find out when I leave for work in a little while, but I think I might’ve shit the headrest.
A few weeks ago we were in Target, and I bought something on a whim. It cost a little less than ten bucks, but turned out to be one of the most useful items at the Surf Report Compound. I have it in the bunker here, and don’t know how I got by without it for so many years.
And this time I’m not setting up a joke… Here’s what I’m talking about. Oh, we have other flashlights around the house, some with functioning batteries and some without, but this one is kept by my computer and is the current Greatest Thing Ever.
What’s the best ten dollars you’ve spent recently?
Toney and I (Toney) are considering ditching our home telephone, altogether. It’s rarely used, everyone calls our cell phones, and costs us more than fifty bucks per month.
Have any of you done this? What’s the downside? One that jumps to mind is that the home phone can be heard ringing all over the house, because there are three extensions. But with a cell you might not hear it, if you’re not in the same room, or if it’s left on vibrate. Right?
Anyway, what are your thoughts on this dilemma? Have any of you taken the plunge on it? I feel like we’re flushing fifty dollars down the crapper every month. And fifty dollars will buy a lot of beer and cheese blocks.
Yesterday I signed up for a continuing-education class at the University of Scranton. It’s called HTML and JavaScript Basics, and will be meeting on two consecutive Thursdays in January. Twelve hours total, compressed into two days.
The reason? With WordPress I regularly need to perform minor manipulations of code, and don’t know what I’m doing. Don’t know shit.
The University offers a web page design certificate, which includes the class I’ll be taking, and if I like it I might do the Full Monty and get the certificate. But we’ll cross that burning bridge when we get to it.
It’s gonna be weird being in a classroom again. I took a fiction writing class in California, but it was basically just three people sitting around talking. Before that it was probably my half-assed attempt at college, in the mid-1980s.
I told my friend Tim about it yesterday, and he said, “You’re not gonna run the teacher’s shoes up a flagpole, are you?” Which is a reference to something that happened in high school…
“That’s completely up to him,” I answered.
Do you have any experience with continuing education classes? I’m always intrigued by them, but never actually take the time to enroll. What about you?
And finally, I spoke with the T-Shirt Lady yesterday. She said she’s still waiting on the full bolt of fabric sizes to arrive at her place, but thought she’d have them today.
She’s estimating our order will be ready for pick-up sometime on Friday. And if that happens Toney and I will lay in some quality beer, and set up a makeshift distribution center in the family room. Our goal will be to process every order in one marathon session.
So, if you want the kick-ass Evil Twin-designed West Virginia Surf Report v. 4.0 t-shirt before the “winter holiday,” get your orders in today. You don’t want to miss our hops and barley-fueled all-nighter this weekend, because it’ll probably be another full week before I’ll have the opportunity to tend to it again.
And I want to publicly thank Evil Twin’s Wife who simultaneously “pimped” her husband, and the new shirts at her site recently. Very cool. You guys have gone above and beyond, and I appreciate it. Also, the new look of the site is kick-ass!
That’s going to do it for today, boys and girls. Have yourselves a great Wednesday, and remember to steer every conversation toward Cobb salad tomorrow.
Do it for the children!
Yo yo!
Just got rid of my home phone.
I now can’t fax but never really have. Scanning to E-mail is just so much better if sometimes a little inconvenient.
Otherwise, just more beer money now.
I ditched the home phone years ago. i have been cell phone only for about 7 years. i actually enjoy the fact that i don’t always hear it when it rings.
Keep the bare minimum landline for emergencies. Ours is pared down to $18/month. They still can’t triangulate your cell location accurately enough and you just KNOW when you really, really need to call 911 your cell won’t work anyway. Plus no fax machine.
Jeff,
You gotta tell us when your further evidence page is creepy! I went to it, found it extremely odd, and started browsing the site, where I came across a series of pictures of two men in leather fondling each other. Dear god. My brain may never be the same.
Well, now you see what the deer butt plugging tool was REALLY for. You should have paid the 10-dollar price, and therefore not had to have Stanley Steamer attend to the Toyota seats.
Secondly, you’re a little late to the mini-mag lite revolution. The Ultra mag light, in case you wondered, is the same high quality, durable illumination device the L-A Police used to “gently guide” Rodney King the night he, ahem, became “confused”.
I have one of those billy club lights. I also have the one sitting by the bunker pc–but mine actually came with a holster to carry it on your belt–right next to the Leatherman and the skinning knife, but I don’t expect you’ll understand what either of those products would be.
They also come in a keychain variety for the poofters–which I suspect will become another of your MUST HAVE’s.
Buck Out
Best $10 spent in the last month was a lap dance. It was actually $20 but I received two (two-for-one dances from 4:00-5:00pm) . Does that count? LOL
Jeff, two comments. Number 1 – Keep the phone. Do like Limey said and get the bare bones version. Emergency services cannot call or locate you on a cell phone. Living here in the Kanawha Valley it is critical to keep a land line. The 2 a.m. calls at my house are always shelter in place warnings because Bayer just blew to hell and back. Number 2 – I have taken tons of classes over the years. Some for degree programs and some for certificate. I highly recommend them.
Top Ten?
Continuing with yesterdays local beer discussion, I find Golden Monkey gets overpowering after a few – unlike Victory’s Pilsner which is probably my favorite domestic beer. Stoudt’s Pilsner is also in my top 5 domestics, and both are local. The Stoudt’s brewery (Adamstown) does great food too.
Oh and you can get draught Hop Devil at the Flyers arena.
I’d dump the home phone if we weren’t tied to it for DSL.
Haven’t had a land line in about 6 years and never missed it. I’ve got special ring tones for people on my cell phone that I know I’d get off the couch for, and the rest of them can leave a message if I don’t feel like getting up when the thing starts a-ringin’!
Best $10: Mini hot plate for my coffee mug on my desk.
Continuing Education: I’ve taken two classes and they are overall worth it. And I don’t know if I can say this without sounding like a D-bag, but: be prepared for at least half of the class to be complete morons.
My dad has the entire collection of Mini Mag lights, all colors to go with every outfit I suppose… which he keeps handily in his shirt pocket. He promptly pulls them out in any dimly lit restaurant, along with his magnifying glass (which is stowed in his shirt pocket as well), of course while loudly proclaiming how dark it is. Ah, Dad… good times.
No home phone for a couple years now..don’t miss. I had a Rouge Santa Winter someting or other and it was very tasty.
Rogue??fucking spellin??
Jeff, if you think that flashlight is neat, check out Streamlight’s Stinger DS-LED and the Streamlight STRION.
They’re both small, rechargeable and the charge lasts quite a while, which is handy while walking in someone’s back yard at 03 dark thirty in the morning.
The downside is the cost of the replacement batteries.
I used to carry a full size Mag-lite but the smaller flashlights are more convenient.
Yeah, but if you need to crack someone’s skull not much beats a 4 D-cell MagLite. I have 2 in the house and 1 in the car. I suppose you could poke them in the eye with a mini MagLite, then hit them with your handbag.
Ms. Mamie, Ms. Emily, we gots to have some gas.
got rid of my landline phone years ago and haven’t missed it yet. oh, they tried to get me to keep it for 911 pin-pointing but i told ’em to blow themselves. i’m out in a place by myself and if they can’t find me by my cell phone signal then i don’t know that i want someone that incompetent driving me to the ER. …i’ll take my chances…
Mr. Knucklehead and I have been throwing around the idea of getting rid of our landline, too. Just can’t seem to pull the trigger on that one. Keep up posted, Jeff.
Happy Wednesday, Surfers!
We have mag lights in every vehicle, one in the kitchen, one in the garage and one in the nightstand.
The Army husband deems it so.
I must say that they are handy to have around,
I carry a Small non-poofter sized one in my purse for emergencies.
I actually used it last night while rounding up the neighbors horses that were out. Good stuff.
Only have a home phone cause it comes in a bundle with the DSL. So no real opinion on that.
Jeff you maybe interested in this device for your cell phones. It uses bluetooth from one or two cell phones to ring your home phones. Basically you plug this into your wall jack then you just need to leave your cell phones near the box. When someone calls your cell it rings your your house phone instead, pick it up and yack away just like your on a land line. I don’t have one yet but I’m seriously thinking about it!!
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=9871256
I used to use the mag light… both Buck size and Jeff size… I’m now on LED lights, though. The charges last longer, provide better visibility, and they’re more durable.
As for the phone… I went sans landline for about 2 years, but I had Vonage instead. I really liked Vonage, it let me call my friends who were studying abroad in Europe or wherever for next to nothing and it was only about $28/mo after taxes. I just bought a new house, though, and cannot get decent broad band to support VOIP, so I’m back to a landline plus a cell phone. I do, however, have the most basic landline since I never use it. I think the monthly bill is only about $13 or so.
Depending on your DVR provider, you may need a phone line if you’re not connected to your Wi-Fi for programming info. I also need something I can send/receive a fax with.
My house is too spread out to hear a cell phone ringing and having time to get to it and I ain’t carrying a damn phone around 24/7. I have a land line with 3 cordless deals that all work off the same unit, so only need one feed line to operate. I have never been a big fan of cell phones to begin with, only carry one so someone can get in touch with me to tell me they’re dead.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters………
Deer in the headlights, JK, THAT is exactly where the phrase comes from. Something about those high beams simply hip-no-tizes those woods vermin.
Be thankful you didn’t wreck out. Not only costly, but held against YOU in the insurance situation. As a licensed insurance agent here in the Commonwelf of PA, I always advise the clients to hold on and HIT THE DEER!!
One, you will pay your lower comprehensive deductible for the repairs and Two, it is non chargeable against your Premium. If you swerve to miss and subsequently hit something else, then it’s deemed a collision, thus you have to pay the higher deductible.
Pardon the little insurance rant there.
Mini Mag light in my desk here at work. Was schwag that one of my lender’s gave to me. I use it every now and then when we get hit with a power outage.
On the land line subject, I’d trim it down to bare bones local calls only service. With Verizon it’s about 30 bucks a month. I keep a land line because of my at home DSL internets and also because I don’t own a cell phone(I’m a freak, I know).
I’m in PA and my bare bones Verizon line is $18/month. You can tell them you don’t want the “free” local calls etc and really pare it down.
We have our cable, internet and phone bundled together from our cable provider. And, we use pay as you go cell provider because we just don’t use them much. If we were to ditch the land line, we’d have to get a better monthly service plan, and all the plans are confusing, so I don’t know if we’d be saving money or not. Plus, I kinda like my land line (reception is much clearer, etc.). Hmmmmm.
I haven’t had a land line in about 10 years…and I don’t miss it at all. And speaking from experience on the 911 triangulation…they can still find you as long as you have some kind of idea about where you are, you know like mile markers, cross streets, city names, surrounding businesses etc…but cell phone co’s charge for the call should you need to use it…I think that’s a rip off but whatta ya do?
Work pays for my cell phone, so I dumped the land line a couple of years ago. Unlike Jerry I don’t live in an area where “industrial incidents” are a real concern, so if anyone at 911 want’s to speak to me they can do it the old fashioned way and send a process server.
A few years ago I almost hit a deer on my motorbike. Like you I swerved around it, but I was close enough to reach out and touch it’s tail. Not a good feeling.
Cosgrove: Is this your first time on the internet? I’ll admit the “muddy boots fetish” is kinda weird, but over the years the internet has exposed me the the very depths of human depravity, so a couple of leather boys playing grab-ass is pretty tame in light of what else is out there. Most people install Net Nanny for their kids, but you my friend may need it for yourself. And you should definitely stay away from 4chan /b/
I recently purchased a universal remote for about $9 and it’s been great. Works the TV, stereo, DVD player, VCR.
We got rid of our home phone line and now have a thing hooked to the computer that serves as the home line. I think it cost $20 per year.
I took a CE course from Auburn which had to do with radon. My take is that the class was a waste of time and radon is another baseless sham.
Cosgrove, I too happened upon the page of dirty boot man and his “partner”.
Speaking of “strange links”
http://www.lulu.com/browse/preview.php?fCID=4956212
Makes you kind of yearn for garlic, huh Jeff?
Ugh… Jason… the crotch grab was the worst. I’m totally forwarding that to everyone I know.
I ditched the home phone a while back. After we had a kid and wanted a phone to always be at the house (in case there’s a babysitter or a lost cell phone) we got Vonage. I think you can get service for as low as $10 a month.
Works good, but is dependent on your ISP being up.
Also on the Vonage tip —
You can still use it to fax and it can be connected to your satellite box (to order PPV or whatever).
Just signed up for a home telephone for the first time in 5 years. I got rid of it when we got cell phones. The only reason I am going back is the alarm system needs to be hooked up to a landbased line (I just brought a house) I don’t even own a phone anymore. I gave them to Goodwill. Dangit!
We almost hit a deer in Ohio a few years ago in the exact same way. Took one second to fiddle with something on the dash then we look up and BAM, there it is. We did the same two-wheel evasive action with power-shitting. How in the hell do they get in front of you so quickly? I suspect they’re actually beamed there Star Trek-style by aliens, just to fuck around with us.
Got the mini-mag. Nice for nighttime walkies.
Never gave up the land line. Much better reception.
I’m currently enrolled in a pottery class at the local community college with a bunch of hip 20-somethings who make me feel ancient at 36. And by the way, when did it become socially acceptable to drop f-bombs on and around your teacher? Holy fuck!
Tyrosine: Yeah, I just discovered “squid porn” the other day (not that I was looking for it; apparently an image search on Google for “tentacles” quickly arrives one there).
dropped the landline about 18 months ago. Added a little to the cell phone plan, and got blackberry’s instead of freebie phones.
We have att DSL, which we had to sign up for by asking for “naked dsl”. I absolutely love not having a home phone. I’m not worried about 911, takes the sheriff’s deputies awhile to reach the homestead.
I had to look up “squid porn” out of curiosity. What is it with the Japanese and squids or octopi (Octopussy)? I don’t get it.
That’s awesome… http://www.caitlinrkiernan.com/tentacles2.jpg
Cosgrove if you think that is bad what about son of sam hanging out with a “rouge” Santa that conjures up some images:) Jeff Limey is right we had a recent case in Canada of a guy dying of a heart attack because he called 911 on his cell & they couldn’t find him! Buck I used to work for the greatest trucking Company in the States (Roberts Express out of Akron Ohio) Our customers were hard drinking production Managers their favourite “give away” The poofter mini mags! They could”t get enough of the suckers!!
We ditched the land line a few years ago and have not missed it since either. I get free broadband thru work, and like Brooke can tell by the ringtone whether or not I want to speak with the person on the other end.
Wally hit a deer a few weeks ago. Jumped off a hill right onto the top of the hood. $4000 in damage. $500 deductible and $200 to get the deer processed (yum deer chili). The most expensive freezer full of meat ever!
I have a residentail leasing license that requires 6 tears of continued education every 2 years. I can honestly say that must of it is shit I already know. But it always nice to get out of the office!
I meant hours of con ed!
Really, Jason? I would have thought you had a freezer full of mini-squid for unseemly purposes.
Adam: Yep, that was the first one I saw. And it went downhill from there. Holy calamari, Batman!
You use a flashlight daily?
The fuck you live? Bedrock?
JJJ
As far as the home phone is concerned, I ditched traditional land line service a couple years ago. Instead of reling on my cell phone alone, I went with a VoIP solution (Vonage). I highly recommend it. For under $20/month I kept my home phone number and all my extensions. Unlimted calling plans can be had for a little more. I like the idea of having E911 capability on hardwired phones for emergencies. My cell phone seems to grow legs and disappear in the house. I don’t want to play the almost daily “hunt-the- cell-phone game” in an emergency. The VoIP phone also helps here. When my cell disappears in the house, I just pick up the phone and call it. Many cable companies are now offering VoIP service at very attractive prices.
6 tears sounds better. Dr. Phil teaches that class.
What kind of man waits until he’s 46 to own his first mini-mag? Oh, a guy who can’t change his own oil.
Further education? Further education? we don’t need no stinking further education!