I am the reason reason your child will be crying this Christmas day.
Your child. My fault.
I’ve had a Wii of my own for about a year, but I’m just as desperate for a Wii as all of you bad parents out there who haven’t been able to fulfill your child’s every fantasy and given the gift of a Nintendo Wii. And I don’t want just one more Nintendo Wii, I want a dozen more (as long as its before December 23rd or so).
Why would a 35 year old nerd with a toddler son who hasn’t even seen TV, much less video games want more than one video game? I could say I want to get one for my 12 year old niece, but the truth of the matter is that I’m just greedy and I want to sell it to desperate people for a huge profit.
Nintendo has basically created an entirely new underground market, never before seen in video game history. Despite Microsoft and Sony’s best efforts at fighting the Wii, they have yet to create the frenzy that Nintendo has. For a solid year Nintendo Wii’s have been selling for retail price and higher on the black market known as eBay, and when the Christmas season rolls around all logic and sanity fly out the window when it comes to satisfying the wishes of your offspring.
But you won’t see me camping out on the sidewalk in front of Best Buy for three days and you won’t see me scouting out Target’s parking lot on weeknights to see if delivery trucks are bringing in any surprise shipments. That’s all for losers. And, besides, I did that for most of December last year.
Nope, this year I’m using every online tool available to me. As I write this I have a website up that is constantly checking for Wii availability, I have my cell phone ready for instant text messages, I have Outlook open and checking for any email updates and I have at least three other desktop PC items that will blink or flash or bing the moment a Wii is for sale for retail price anywhere on the internet. When a Wii does become available I’ll either immediately be able to buy one or I’ll be startled to death and die of a heart attack.
I’ve considered selling my used Wii on eBay this year and just taking the profit, knowing that I’ll eventually be able to buy a Wii again for the retail price come March. I might even lick my Wii and THEN sell it on eBay, just to make myself feel even more powerful.
I am proud of my ability to capture a Wii for my family last year when so many went hungry. I often hold it up as a trophy and sometimes parade around the neighborhood with my Wii in my hand, showing the world what kind of man I really am.
My name is Tom Coffee. I am hunting Wii.
Or is the Wii hunting me?
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Did you know you can safely wash your computer keyboard in your dishwasher and have it come out working just prefectly?
I’m typing on my super clean keyboard right now! For a long time I’ve been reeding about how you can wash a computer keyboard in the dishwasher , so I decided to give it a try mysself. My curent keyboard is a Microsoft ergonomic keyboard of sone sort which is about threee years old and never actually been cleaned anymore than an occasional wippe down and quick vacuum from time to time.
You can wash your keyboard in the dishwasher with no problems at all1!
The first step in washing your keyQboard in the dishwasher is obviou$ly disconnecting the keyyboard from the PC./. This process of washing youf keyboard in the dish’washer takes about two to four days be((ause your keyboArd has to air dry aaaafter the washing. I haven’t found anyone who reco#mmends trying to pvt youk keyboard in the clothes dryer. Because% of this dely you migght want to HAvE an e&xtra keyboard hand^o to use on your c0mpu~ter for a few days so yooooou don’t suffer from internet withdrawaaal.
Nofw all yourt do is take yikour k@1yboard and pl*vace it key side do5wn into the d111shwasher. Some prople recomhmend wrap22ping the USB or PS/2 jack in a little pla<>9tic bag and putting a dubber 9and around the end to m$ake sure tHe connector doe%n’t get wet. I figur4 the rest of the kaaayboard w0s goin*g to get w$et, 3o why n0t the codddnector? You sh$uld put the ke99board in your diwshwasher without any othher pots and pans, by the way. Th3re’s n0 point in washing your keybo@rd only 2 have a bunch of lasagna no0dles encRUSTted onto the Enter key. Y1u p4oBably also wjnt to sk1p the dish w@shing det3rgent. Yes, it’s appppealing to hAve a lemon scentd ke#yb%oard, but so&me of the che\}mical:s in tEHe s0ap cduld dammmage some of the e1ectroni(s inside.
ClosEd the $oor to your dmnhwasher and set it dn a lighter settting with no d@ry cycl.>. I don’t recomm?@end aMythiLg hea~y or Th3 pots% and* pans s-etting. Rem6mber”:? youu want 24 clean yo…ur keyboard, not w1pE th3 leTter$ right offf the keys. Now vou just shit back+ and pray Mhile youCF dishwasher runs thro{ugh the cYcle; cleanilg your keyboard.\+? The m44oment the cycle emds, you vvant tO0Wo get yeRq keybboarp out of the dishwasgsher anmD 4ake it o8uts@ide for a go@od sha*ke. If keyS $tart f@lling of1f then yo5u can safely a$sSumE th.at something wenzt wronlg and you’d b9ettDr start lOockin9 for someone t() blaMe this9 on.
aF5fter 7hakin9 out4 y#our Keedoard to ^get r1id of m0st oIF thE ex?cess/ water.., you wAnt to ploce it someplace wHer3 it vv1LL either be e\xpo[sed }to inKHdiredct sunelight2 or b1e e4xpos(edF to dRy air f4r a few da77sss Now: yo”u can plNFug i3t bac(k into y#our PC(,fd crosss yeour fWinger1s, and t{urn o
g3#p fu(KK Amp H@8881 typ!Mg?!
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Another local election day has come and gone here in New Jersey and once again I dutifully voted for the local political candidates that are the most qualified, the most experienced and best suited to take bribes and embezzle money on behalf of taxpayers everywhere. My wife, being a native of New Jersey, didn’t bother to show up at the voting booth this year because she had already filled out and sent in all six of her absentee ballots.
A stack of New Jersey Voter Registration Cards.
In my little town we had a special election for mayor because the previous mayor was ousted on corruption charges for taking a $1500 bribe to award government contracts to housing developers. Our entire town was shocked and appalled that he wasn’t getting at least $3000 to rig lucrative contracts like that.
Other mayors in about a dozen other towns south of us were being caught for making bribes of $5000 or more, so we all knew our mayor deserved to be caught for not being more proactive with his bribery. In a brilliant political move the former mayor stepped down for “personal reasons” and the entire town government was run for a month by an unelected office worker who had been a secretary in our city hall for years. A month later the Town Council approved a temporary mayor and then tried to sue the clerk for “doing mayor stuff.”
Here in New Jersey all of our politicians are required to be corrupt by law, so we try to vote for the person whom we think has the least chance of getting caught while in office. Getting caught just screws up our entire economy because then bribes have to be resubmitted, threats have to be repeated and it simply slows down any progress our government makes with needless paperwork and legal trials.
The mayoral race in our town was between one older white guy and another older white guy. One candidate had the magical ability to always looked as though he stumbled out of a bar at four in the morning on all his official campaign literature. Even in the photos where he was obviously in a photo studio and posing for the camera left him looking shocked and amazed in his photos. The other candidate looked like a slick financial kind of guy who likes to tell people what to do with their money but doesn’t pay his own income taxes for years. The reason he looks like that is because he was a slick financial kind of guy who likes to tell people what to do with their money but hadn’t paid his own income taxes for years. Go figure.
The slick guy won because he had more “voter registration cards” available than the photo-impaired guy.
Other than local politics, we had a few state wide issues to vote on:
We had to vote to decide whether or not we wanted our increased sales tax to be given back to us in the form of a check that is meant to offset the increased property tax.
We had to vote to allow New Jersey to do set aside and give out about $450 million dollars to research projects involving stem cells. I applied for a couple million bucks myself in hopes that the process for receiving grants is just as corrupt as the process for assigning mayors.
We had to vote on something involving farmland preservation, Green Acres, Arnold the Pig and Eva Gabor. I might have that a little confused. I fell asleep trying to read that resolution.
Finally, we had to vote on whether or not the New Jersey State Constitution should keep the words “idiot or insane person” in describing people who are not mentally qualified to vote. Seeing how the simple act of choosing to live in New Jersey voluntarily seems pretty much assures that you are an idiot or insane, it would seem to me that no one in the state would be allowed to vote. I chose to delete that phrase from the New Jersey Constitution because it was redundant.
All in all it was a pretty exciting voting day. You could feel the anxiety in the air almost everywhere you went. For example, I stopped and got a cup of coffee on my way to work and this heated argument broke out right in front of me between the clerk and a customer:
“Hey, you owe me another quarter in change!”
“Oh, sorry. Here you go.”
“Thanks… Have a good day!”
Woah! We New Jerseyans sure take our politics seriously! I don’t know the final percentage of people who turned out to vote in this vital local election cycle, but I’m betting we broke the single digit!
It’s good to be an American.
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