When it comes to the use of a cell phone, I’m a dinosaur. I don’t need bells and whistles, and I don’t ask much from my cell phone. All I want to do is be able to make telephone calls with ease. When are the cell phone companies going to cater to simple folks like me? I’m not extinct (yet) and my money is green.

I don’t need the internet on my phone; I have a computer at home. I don’t want to write a letter (I tried texting a message one time and I can leave three voice messages in the time it took me). Yes, I Twitter, but I don’t delude myself into thinking there is anything I do that is exciting enough that it can’t wait until I get home. Y’all don’t really want to know what I’m doing anyway (trust me). I already have a camera, so I don’t need that.

Doesn’t someone make a simple cell phone?

It’s time for me to get a new cell phone, because my little Motorola won’t hold a charge anymore, so I’ve started searching.
I saw this Jitterbug Cell Phone, and it is exactly what I need. It’s got large buttons for my pitiful arthritic fingers to punch. It has a big screen and huge readout for my pathetic blind eyes to see. It’s got a padded earpiece, so my poor old ears can hear. It’s even got a live operator in case my feeble mind gets confused…

Wait! They call it a “Senior Cell Phone!”

I can’t be having that. That’s bordering on condescending! Can’t we just call it an “Amish Cell Phone” and leave it at that?

I’m going to swallow my pride and look into the Jitterbug Phone, but I’m not going to dance right out and buy one. I am not familiar with the company, so I don’t know how reliable they really are. I say that as if the “big” companies are reliable, but “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.”

Has anyone else out there tried this? If so, I’d love some feedback. And, if there really is an “Amish Cell Phone,” somebody point me in that direction!

You thought that was going to be a joke didn’t you?

It’s not! I’ve been planning this post for awhile, and want to put it on-line before the Sunday edition of a very special comic.

On St. Patrick’s Day, I got this bit of blarney in my inbox:

Howdy!

I realize this is kinda tacky of me, but I was hoping you might check out my site, Blue House Comics.com. It’s a webcomic that my roommate and I publish and we’ve been working pretty hard on it for about a year now.

Anyway, whether you mention us or not, we just launched a new site and would love for you to see what you think.

Also, we’re both lifelong Texans from Houston living in College Station attending A&M… lol, if that helps any

but anyway, we love your site, and thanks for taking the time to read this.

-Shawn

They love my site?

I bet they say that to all the girls. But, they said the magic word: “Texan.” Fortunately, I was in a good mood when I received this bit of spam. I say “fortunately,” because I visited their website and it is delightful.

I admit that I opened the site expecting either porn or juvenile humor. Instead I found well crafted artwork and some darned funny cartoons. A lot of it is “college humor,” and I’m too old to get it. Quite a bit of it transcends their very young ages. Some of it is funny enough to make me snort coffee out of my nose.

It seems to have several sections to it. There is the main portion, called Blue House comics, which mostly features two young men who look suspiciously like the caricatures of Shawn and his roommate, Sterling. Shawn, who is a finance major, writes the comics. Sterling is a landscape architecture major, and he draws the comic and the artwork on the site.

This is The Adventuresome Toad, who at times seems to be a somewhat snobby lush. Other times, he’s just an elitist.

There are plans for a blog by a young man named John, who is a sous-chef in Pittsburgh. He will write about cooking and recipes and the life of a chef in a restaurant. It doesn’t have many entries at this point.

Under construction is an element of the site called “Tech Know,” which will be written by Jared, another roommate (and the site designer for the comic). It will include “tech-stuff and programming.”

Shawn tells me,

“Later we’re hoping to introduce user generated content to the site (such as enabling people through on-site tools to create their own comics and then hold contests for the best comic once per month).

We want to keep our site friendly to a general audience. There is no shortage of webcomics on the internet, but there is a shortage of webcomics that have generally appropriate content. We are huge fans of comics like Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes and really admire the business savvy of Garfield creator, Jim Davis. Ultimately we have a vision of our comic (perhaps too grandiose) where we bring that sort of comic strip to the new age on the internet. That’s our passion anyway. (That’s why we’ve designed the site to feel like you’re reading a newspaper on a breakfast table- to evoke the more traditional age of comic strips).

Finally, we want our site to reach out to more of an international audience. I have a huge passion for meeting people from different cultures and travel and the internet is a great way to reach other cultures. We don’t currently have any particular steps to this end, but it’s something that’s on our hearts and we’ll try to integrate in the future.”

What’s not to love about energetic, enthusiastic kids who are fans of Charlie Brown?

Ah, the idealism of youth! I hope they achieve their goals. They are working hard on it, and I do enjoy visiting their website. My only complaint is that I find it difficult to navigate. Being a blogger, I’m accustomed to that list of posts on the sidebar, and I don’t like having to search on an archive page. That’s a small complaint!

I hope some of you will check out the site. Again, that’s Blue House Comics. There is no place for “comments,” but if you have something to say, I bet you could tell them right here. They’d love to hear from you.

Heck no, this isn’t paid advertising. But, Shawn…you could work on my taxes, Sterling can landscape my lawn, John could whip up a fancy-schmancy meal or two, and Jared could help me with some of my WordPress issues. Then, I think we’d be about square.

How many Aggies does it take to make a comic? Three or four (if John attended A & M). These kids may be funny, and they may be Aggies, but they are no joke.

My head was pounding. My whole body pulsed with it. I felt as if a drummer were playing that fabulous drumbeat from the instrumental “Sing, Sing, Sing.” In fact, the whole band was in my head! Do you know the song? If not, play the video to get an idea of what was going on inside my head (if you are brave enough to know). This is the Benny Goodman big band playing Sing Sing Sing, featuring Gene Krupa at the end.

Now, I love that song! In fact, Mr. Tucker and I had that played at our wedding as the “exit song” as we left the altar. Even though I think the song is marvelous, I don’t want it throbbing in my head at 7:00 in the morning!

I didn’t ingest enough caffeine yesterday, so I had one of those awful caffeine headaches. If you are as addicted to caffeine as I am, you know exactly what I mean. Drinking half a pot of coffee didn’t banish the pounding. Taking a Tylenol didn’t relieve the pain.

I was frantic and frustrated. Through the haze of pain, I remembered a strange wire contraption that we had bought years ago in a boutique in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We hardly ever think to use it, probably because when we have a headache we can’t think. In fact, I nearly tossed it in with the garage sale stuff, the last time I made a sweep through the house. I’m so glad I didn’t!

I know it looks stupid. But, Mr. Tucker slipped those wires over my skull and gently massaged my scalp for about three minutes and my headache was gone! This is not my skull, it’s the mannequin that sits on my mantle. But, I can’t show you my skull, because I won’t brush my hair this morning.

Now, I know you think I’m crazy, and once again, let me tell you that this is not a PayPerPost. It’s a public service announcement! I wanted to tell you where you might find one of these, but I didn’t know what to call it. I googled “headache remedy + massager thingie” and discovered that it is sometimes called a “Tingler Head Massager.” I’m not going to link to any of the websites I found that sell it, because I don’t know how legitimate they are. But, you can Google “Tingler Head Massager” and find one for yourself.

You need one! It’s a miracle! You can thank me later.