My Hammer-Wielding, Cell Phone Bashing Hero

Text messaging has become a rather popular part of the cell phone laden lifestyle that most of us are living with today. Some people text more than others, with younger age groups tending to far out-text older age groups. I don't know what it is about people, who are above the, say, 12-30 years old category, who have an aversion to texting. Texting is great. Fab-u-lous. It enables people to constantly and continually have dialogue and conversation with other people that they have NO interest in actually talking to! Granted, it would seem a bit easier to just stop talking to those you don't want to talk to. But the problem with that is it takes two to tango. You might want to stop talking to that person (and really, who wouldn't? God, they are annoying.), but does that person want to stop talking to you? Nooooooo. You are, apparently, just that fascinating! Embrace it! Or just text the moron instead.

But back to the teen texters. I think it's a safe bet for me to say that I send and receive probably a total of over 500 a month, the majority of which are to the same couple of people (and they're actually people I do want to talk to), but that's still a hell of a lot of texts. And while I'm agile and adept at the little keypad (and other things as well. Just throwin' that out there, in case anyone cares.), I'm not quite as fast as those little teenage bastards that can just text at the speed of light. Part of that is because, apparently, they just can. The other part of that is I refuse to use text-speak, I adore punctuation, always use proper capitalization and I am an uptight stickler when it comes to spelling. In short, I am a hoot! Oh, yeah. That's me.

The point is that if I didn't know that a teenager could text so rapidly, I would most likely not believe this story out of Cheyenne, WY that was covered by 9News in Denver, CO where a one 13-year old Dena Christoffersen sent over 10,000 text messages in one month! If you do the math (another one of my very exciting personality traits), that comes out to 333 per day in a 30 day month. Let's say that you're conscious 14 hours out of the day. That equates to 23.78 texts per hour. That's one text every 2 minutes and 32 seconds. That might not seem possible, but you have to realize that a lot of teenage texts consist of things like "Yay" and "omg" and "RU L8" and "<3> Unfortunately, the majority of these 23.78 texts per hour came when young Dena was in school. And while that's bad, it might not be the worst part of this technology gone awry tale.

Dena's parents thought (key word in that sentence: thought) that the texting feature of their cell phone plan had been disabled. I'm going to assume that they thought that if they hadn't signed up for it, it wouldn't be available to use. That is a reasonable assumption to make. But it doesn't work like that. Instead, if you haven' t signed up for text messaging and someone sends you a text, you are then charged for that text that you didn't want and didn't sign up to receive. Of course, that makes sense.

No it doesn't! They do it to screw ya. You don't see HBO leaving their channels all watchable and everything and only if we watch HBO do we get charged for it. No, if we don't sign up with HBO and we try to watch HBO, we will be watching HB-NO, as in "NO, you can't watch this channel, you haven't signed up for it yet." But I digress.

Dena's parents Gregg and Jaylene Christoffersen, were rather "surprised" when they got their monthly phone bill from Verizon detailing Dena's adventure into the electronic communications foray. "Surprised" is in quotes because I think to say one is "surprised" is an understatement if you are opening your cell bill and it tell you that you owe them $4,756.25. OMG!

Gregg said, "It just hit us like a rock, like you're stepping into a bus." I'm going to assume he meant "stepping in front of a bus" or "being hit by a bus" or something of that nature. But all is forgiven because he just opened a cell phone bill that was almost five thousand dollars. He can mix up his idioms and metaphors and similes all he wants with a five thousand dollar cell phone bill. Holy crap, five grand would cover my cell bill for almost four full years! But that's only going to cover one month over there in the hands of Texty Texterson.

In case you're wondering what all of that texting does to one's grades, Gregg said, "She went from As and Bs one semester to Fs in two months." Also, if you're wondering what all of that texting does to one's social life, Dena has been grounded until the end of school. But that's not all that came out of all of this.

Enter Gregg the Hero and his big ol' hammer. According to 9News.com "Hours after the enormous bill arrived, Gregg Christoffersen took a hammer to his daughter's phone." AWESOME! I wanna see it! And you know that you do too! Behold!

NOW it's disabled.

Awesome. Just awesome. Over there at 9News.com is the video of their news report on this story. And I came away with a couple of impressions about these people. One, the Christoffersen's seem like good folks. Two, their daughter seems like a normal kid and probably a pretty good kid. Three, you could tell that Gregg was mad. Man, he was pissed. But what I liked about these guys was that they actually did something that was reasonable and expected. Their daughter has a severe consequence. School isn't out until June, so that's a good two months of being grounded. When you're 13, it might as well be forever. Gregg took his anger out very appropriately on the phone and smashed the holy Verizon right out of it. AND the story also said that Verizon has been willing to knock the bill down to a reasonable level. (Nice job, Verizon.)

It didn't say what "reasonable" was, but these people knew that they were ultimately responsible for that bill and for their daughter's actions. They weren't whining or complaining about how their daughter shouldn't have been able to send texts if they didn't sign up for it. These people were normal! Why does that surprise me so much? It probably shouldn't, but it totally does!

I wish the story had focused more on the aspect of how Dena was able to send 23.78 texts an hour while in school. And while you could reasonably argue that the school not intervening when Dena was texting in class was essentially enabling her to rack up such a huge bill, you didn't hear that out of the parents. Just take responsibility for yourself and your kid and move on. But not before smashing the holy bejeezus out of her cell phone with a hammer. :::sigh:::: My hero.

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Most Disturbing Headline Ever

I just read what could easily be deemed as "The Most Disturbing Headline You'll Read All Year". Easily. The hands down winner. Now that I've said that, consider yourself warned. Here we go:

Man cuts off his own head with chainsaw after home was repossessed

No, it's not a headline from the National Enquirer or from World News Weekly alongside some story about that Bat Boy creature. No, that was the headline in The Daily Mail over there across the pond in not so jolly ol' England. That headline easily trumped my second choice "Man gets $300,000 for evaporating genitals". (Disturbing, yes. Equally disturbing? Hardly. Even if you're the one who has (or would it be 'had'?) the evaporating genitals, it still pales in comparison.) No need to fret, however. I'm sure you'll be hearing about the evaporating genitals soon enough.

But back to the man who cut off his own head. I thought that had to be a misprint. I wasn't even sure how that would be possible. And me, being the one who questions everything (the exact moniker is still in questionable negotiations), continued to read to find out if it was possible. Come to find out, it sure the hell is. But there are conditions. Two conditions must be met. One, you must have the inescapable desire and determination to end your own life. Two, you must be very, very mentally ill. If you don't meet the second requirement, there's no way that you're going to be able to carry out the first requirement. I don't care how badly you want to die, you cannot cut your own head off with a chainsaw unless you are at the far, far end of 'disturbia' on the 'mentally ill' scale.

Here's the scoop: A one David Phyall, of Southampton, Hampshire (again, in England) had been living in an apartment (that's a 'flat' if you're all uppity and English) that had been scheduled for demolition. All residents of the complex had been given a notice to move out on April 18. Mr. Phyall did not want to leave and the company that wanted to demolish the buildings had to take him to court to get the power to evict him So they did and they did. He didn't go quietly. Or neatly.

According to the article, (That's foreshadowing talk for 'I'm about to give some pretty sickening details here. Consider yourself warned.' That's one thing about the European press. They're not as touchy-feely as the US press. No, no, no. They tell it like it is. Or was. And they usually spare no detail.) Mr. Phyall, who was 50, "plugged the electric chainsaw into the mains and attached a timer to the socket.He then wrapped sellotape around the machine's trigger to secure it in the 'on' position and tied the handle of the saw to a table leg to hold it steady." Jesus! It's like Rube Goldberg meets Dr. Kevorkian.

He then "...rested the saw on his neck and waited for the timer to go off. The Black and Decker chainsaw sliced through his neck in an instant but kept going for a further 15 minutes." I'm sure the Black and Decker folks are less than appreciative for the plug. I know they say that 'all publicity is good publicity', but I can't imagine any part of this being 'good'. (And being as how this is very hard to imagine, not to mention extremely off-putting, I've recreated something that is probably nowhere near what we're really talking about, but it's still close enough that it'll creep you out a bit.)

The officer who discovered the 'scene' was a one Sgt. Mark Carter, who described what he found by stating, "I could see an electric chainsaw embedded in the man's neck - the blade was three quarters of the way through his neck. The handle of the chainsaw had been tied by white string to a table leg and the trigger had been tied up by sellotape.The lead was connected to a timer switch which was plugged into the wall." Oh. My. God.

And then, in the winner of the "Stating the Obvious Statement of the Year" award he said, "I have never come across an incident quite this graphic." Dude, I don't know if I've even read about an "incident quite this graphic" let alone found one! So, yeah, I'm sure you hadn't! You win! (By the way, I am in no way making fun of that dude. You walk in on something like that and you can say whatever the heck you want for the rest of your life. Provided you can actually regain the power of speech and stop rocking back in forth in a corner where you've been curled up in a ball for that past X-number of years.)

Another officer, a one Detective Sergeant Mark Huxford described what he saw by stating, "The head was still attached by the right shoulder and his head was lying to the left. A large area of carpet had blood splattered all over it because of the way the Black and Decker chainsaw had been spinning around." Oh. My. God.

So you've got a semi-headless guy lying there and a chainsaw attached to a table leg has cut through his neck and the saw is still going (because really, who's there to turn it off?) and it's flinging around blood and, I'm assuming, flesh all over the room and that's when you, the officer, walk in. I don't think I'd be able to return to work after something like that. Hell, I don't think I'd be able to go to sleep after something like that. Ever.

Do you want to know that they think it was about two days before they found his body? No? Me neither. Let's see...what else? Oh, of course his father said what the relatives of someone who does something heinous always say. John Phyall said that "...he had no idea his son had any plans to harm himself." "We had seen him a week prior to his death and he had appeared cheerful and had been making jokes. His death was totally unexpected." WHO could have expected this?!? I'm not thinking very many people could have, sir! My condolences for the loss of your son, but don't blame yourself for not seeing this one a-comin'.

The coroner on the case had said that "...Mr Phyall had killed himself in a bid to 'make a statement'." Oh, he did! That he did. The coroner also added his version of the obvious by stating, "The scene was clearly an appalling one.... it is the most bizarre case I have seen." And while I don't doubt that to be true for one second, might I just add, "Well, good!" Because I certainly wouldn't want to hear "This is the most bizarre case I have seen. Oh! Wait. Except for that one time. At band camp..."

"Mr Phyall had thought through how he was going to commit suicide very carefully - he went to a great deal of trouble to rig up the chainsaw knowing full well the result would be fatal. It was death in the most dramatic way imaginable. I find he did so to draw attention to the injustice he felt at being asked to move out of his flat." Well, it's unfortunate that he didn't think about the "injustice" that those who had to find him would feel, not to mention the 'injustice' that his relatives would feel after learning of his dramatic exit. And guess what dude? You still had to move! You still don't get to live there! Everyone else still had to move! Moron. Crazy, masochistic moron.

Sorry about the graphic nature of this. I haven't done one of these in a while. Don't worry. I'll get the post about the disappearing penis up shortly and we'll all be amused again. Back to happy! Back to happy! Unicorns! Leprechauns! Puppies! Thank God for the penis! (There's a phrase I never thought I'd say.)

The housing crisis. Who'd a thunk it would be responsible for beheadings as well?

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OMG, OGC!

The Office of Government Commerce over there in London decided that they needed some sort of a catchy logo to represent their department. They paid 14,000 of those lira things to have a logo created that would show a bold commitment to the body’s aim of “improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement”. Oh, it did appear to be driving something up. You'd think that for 14,000 lira things, someone within the group of people responsible for creating the logo might have been able to do what people who weren't responsible for creating the logo could. That would be to look at the design you've created from all angles, just to save yourselves from mockery later on. (Oh, and to save yourself from having to hear "penis" a lot. I mean a LOT.)

Here's the logo that was created for the OGC:

Not bad. Looks....wait. What if I....turn it...like....this:

And it's hard to say what's more amusing, the logo debacle itself, or the comments that were made by the OGC about the logo. So many puns, so little time. According to the fine folks over there at The Telegraph, “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC - and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.” Yes, good idea, boys. Make sure you get a "firm grip" on that. Hang on tight. Not too tight! You don't want to break it!

Another person who commented on the logo/man-holding-penis design was brand expert Michael Hamilton. Hamilton said that this could be a positive thing for the OGC. “They’re going to get more column inches than they could ever have expected before. If I were them, I would be pretty pleased.” Yes. I'm sure that their inches will grow as a result. Nice job, Mike.

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