Can You Hear Me Now? Probably Not.

Back in the old days people would actually use phones to communicate with each other. Now phones are used to hang up on each other.

My phone is quickly turning into an audio version of my email account, flooded with unwanted calls from obnoxious telemarketers who are hellbent on convincing me that I really and honestly truly to need to purchase a Citibank credit card which not only has a higher interest rate than all my other cards combined, but is additionally only accepted at one store in the entire northern hemisphere, and that store was burned to the ground by anti-NAFTA protestors last February. If any of you telemarketers out there are reading today's update, I would like to save you a little bit of time and convey the following news item to you: I will never, ever, ever buy anything you are selling over the phone. I hate the phone and the mere act of picking it up or thinking about picking it up fills my stomach with countless gallons of industrial acid which is powerful enough to dissolve Michelangelo's Statue of David, assuming NASA scientists somehow figure out a way for me to eat it in one sitting. They could conceivably cover it in that fake marshmallow topping that is served in Dairy Queen, because I swear to Christ I'll eat anything with that stuff on it even knowing full well that it has the equivalent nutritional value of injecting liquid styrofoam directly into my heart.

In a remarkable moment of non-irony, I just now received an unsolicited phone call from some dipshit "Terry Bell" at the phone number 816-350-0730, attempting to sell piano lessons to my children aged 6-12. I'm not making this up; if you don't believe me, feel free to call Terry Bell at the phone number 816-350-0730 and ask him why the hell he was trying to sell piano lessons to my children aged 6-12 which do not currently exist and will probably fail to exist in the immediate future due to the fact that no sane and logical female would ever willingly consider even looking in my general direction unless I'm chained to a metal pole and encased within an airtight protective plexiglass cube. Luckily this didn't stop Terry Bell at the phone number 816-350-0730 from deciding to drop me a line and ask if my nonexistent children aged 6-12 need help playing their nonexistent pianos. I'm sure Terry Bell at the phone number 816-350-0730 has my best interests in mind and honestly wants to lend a helping hand once I trick some unlucky broad into squeezing out a couple retarded filthbag children aged 6-12, so I'll be sure to keep in mind Terry Bell at the phone number 816-350-0730 for all my nonexistent children piano playing needs. Let me just copy and paste his phone number here in case I accidentally cut off the top part of my computer screen and lose his contact information, which would be a tragedy of unspeakable proportions like the time Dale Earnhardt drove his Ford into the Columbia space shuttle: Terry Bell at the phone number 816-350-0730. Here's that information in the color red and boldfaced in the event that I become colorblind and suddenly cannot distinguish the color black from white:Terry Bell at the phone number 816-350-0730.

Anyway, back on track: I have never purchased a single item from anybody selling anything over the phone and shall continue to uphold this sacred tradition until the day people begin calling me up and offering to sell Vicodin. My philosophy revolves around the insanely complex principle that if I want to buy something, I will go out and buy it. If I do not want something, then I will refuse to buy it, and there is no amount of phone calls which could possibly convince me otherwise. I often try to explain this principle to the overweight depressed telemarketers each time they call me up, but these attempts are not often very successful due to the inherent structure of their nefarious sales pitches, which are all along the lines of the following:

These two skirts know what I want to buy even if I don't agree with them. They're so smart!

ME: "Hello?" (Please note that at this point the phone hasn't rang yet, so I'm apparently talking to the wall)
PHONE: (Rings)
ME: (Picking up the phone) "Hello?"
PHONE: "hello sir or madam my name is edward and i'm with transmarketglobalmegacorporations incorporated which you can tell is a very important company because our name is quite long and if we weren't an important company then our name obviously wouldn't be nearly as long and i was wondering if you'd be interested in a time and money saving opportunity which could save you billions of dollars in home loans and interest rates and speeding tickets if you simply switch your long distance service to our gold premium platinum life insurance policy which was recently rated number one by a company whose name i cant recall offhand but let me assure you that they are a very great company who does many great things like help crippled orphans into golden wheelchairs which they were able to afford thanks to our silver ultra bronze hat and headwear insurance policy which invests in a fidelity yield rate of 50 quintuplets per megalon and is guaranteed to to double over the course of 100 meters per furlong if you follow our professionally professional advice and transfer your ira into a ipo of a stock market savings account now sir or madam may i ask you a question?"
ME: "Well I really don't-"
PHONE: "thank you sir and / or madam you see we here at markettransmegaglobaltranstrans limited know the value of a dollar which is why we're not going to try to waste your time and money selling you something that you don't need like an underwater chimney sweep or a device which transforms steak into pork so you can be sure that we're looking out for you and your individual needs when we tell you that our super premium unleaded service plan has been handcrafted by an elderly german man specifically for your wants and needs mr. kee-yunk-ah may i call you 'rich' thank you rich now we're not like those other companies out there who are only concerned with the bottom line as we value our customer service and cherish each and every individual like a delicate beautiful diamond-encrusted snowflake created from the finest asian silken riches that should be caressed and lightly stroked before bedtime and we think you mr. kuh-yeenk-oh are a consumer who values his or her privacy and the right to make informed business decisions about where your hard-earned doubloons go to in regards to minority-owned waterslide investment capital am i correct?"

"Sorry to interrupt our little interplanetary romp, Captain, but there's a phone call from some people who are interested in our spaceship insurance coverage. He says to set phasers for 'fantastic savings'!"

ME: "Wait a second, did you just say-"
PHONE: "i'm glad you feel this way mr. koo-yink-aw as our trained customer specialists informed me that you are a man or possibly woman who values his or her money and time and money time and money and are very very handsome and has an enormous penis or breasts as well which is why i'm excited to tell you about the exciting offer we are giving away to people just like you and in fact are only you because this deal is simply so orgasmically fabulous that we wouldn't waste our breath attempting to explain it to the many dullards out there who are unable to grasp the principles and foundations behind such a wonderful offer which frequently uses really intelligent sounding words like 'capital' and 'pretty ponies' so i'm glad we're both on the same page here and agree that globaltransmarketcorporations international can save you perhaps trillions of dollars by enrolling you in our asap-bbq-wysiwyg low interest investment portfolio which guarantees that if you don't receive at least a 200% return on your dividends within 30 days then you'll receive at least some other percentage which is definitely not 200% and could even be much much higher like a million billion percent now tell me mr. ka-yink-ow you like making money don't you?"
ME: "What are you trying to-"
PHONE: "let me in on a little secret mr. kuh-honk-auw my wife and kids left me last week because they couldn't handle how important and successful i was becoming thanks to the megatranscorporationmarketglobal gmbh program and to tell you the truth i don't need them anymore because i am now able to chew through solid steel and my hair is long and full and i can travel through time at an alarming rate all thanks to the super mega ultra gold platinum silver bronze nobelium msrp program we're offering only to people like you who also only happen to be you because if we tried to offer this fantabulous deal to somebody else then their face would start melting off like when the nazis looked directly into the ark in 'raiders of the lost ark' now you don't want to have your face melt off do you?"
ME: "Help"

In short, I have grown to loathe the phone and often begin blindly striking out in pure rage whenever I hear a sound which even vaguely resembles a phone ringing. The only calls I ever get these days are from telemarketers or my mom asking me how my dog is doing. Oh yeah, and Terry Bell at the phone number 816-350-0730. With this in mind, I have come to embrace the exciting new futuristic technology concepts presented in the following CNN article:

Web buyers sent bricks instead of phones - A teenage con artist using Internet auction sites tricked people into sending him money to buy cellular phones and instead mailed them bricks, police said. The 18-year-old boy was arrested this week in the central city of Ciudad Real after duping people all over Spain, including residents of Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.

I'm at the point in my life where I would gladly welcome a brick phone and prefer it over my current non-brick phone. No matter what type of non-brick phone I purchase, I'm always confronted with the same issues which never get resolved no matter how many times I repeatedly complain to their ineffective tech support line: annoying salespeople call me every hour of the day, a goddamn cursed fax machine dials my number at least once each morning and tries to share with me its critical message of "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP," and I receive neverending messages from deathworthy folks who are thoroughly convinced I'm hiding somebody named "Steven" in my house and I refuse to let him speak on the phone no matter how many times they call from different areas of the globe at random times throughout the night. The only fatal flaw in El Brickboy's plan was that he originally promised these Spanish cretins a cellphone and instead sent them a brick, which is remarkably not a cellphone and will not be a cellphone no matter how long you look at it and ask the god of your choice to magically change it into one. All god can do these days is make statues cry and show the faces of his most famously holy MVP followers appear on Mexican donuts, so the whole holy brick / cellphone switcharoo is definitely out of his jurisdiction. If we weren't currently stuck with this wussy New Testament god, then things would be a lot different, as the Old Testament god not only would've turned the brick into a phone but he would've also demanded we jab knitting needles through our eyes and use the runny liquid inside to scrawl out a secret code on our front doors by midnight or else he'd command a magical wind to sweep through our neighborhoods and cause our collective gall bladders to transform into a hive of scorpions that shoot laser beams from their claws.

I simply believe that many people these days would appreciate a nice and simple brick phone over all the annoying technology companies like Nokia and Texas Instruments are shoveling at us, and I plan on capitalizing on this demand by producing the new limited edition Something Awful Blockphone. Take a look at the prototype I just pieced together this morning while trying to avoid the millions of ants which are magically teleporting into my kitchen and attempting to band together so they may haul off my entire sink and pawn it on eBay:

The Something Awful Blockphone! New and Improved! Snake-Free in '03!

This exciting new entry in the world of "consumer electronics which are made from bricks" offers an alarming amount of useful features which would make you exclaim "holy fucking shit!" if somebody walked up to you on the street and began shouting them at you while holding a knife. For example, one of the first things you may notice about this brick phone is that it only has two buttons on it, both of which are the number three. This is to cut down on the amount of wrong numbers you may accidentally dial when attempting to call your credit card company and ask why, after purchasing a Something Awful Blockphone, there are suddenly hundreds of $35.00 charges labeled "DVD PURCHASE - SEX HOT LESBIAN LUSTY LOINS PRODUCTIONS." Additionally, the number "three" was mentioned in a particular Third Bass rap song where they said something along the lines of "play AT&T and check the three on your telephone; DEF." I believe the name of this particular song was "Herbalz In Your Mouth," but since all the members of Third Bass successfully vanished into obscurity about a decade ago, I cannot verify this. Below the two number threes is a small divot which can be used to collect rainwater. This is so you may know if it's raining directly above your SA Blockphone and you won't be at a loss for words when somebody eventually asks, "so what's the weather like over there?" If your SA Blockphone is not currently collecting water in its patented SA Blockphone Water Hole, then you know that it's either not raining or you're positioned in a location where rainwater is unable to fall onto you and your Blockphone. You additionally know that you're insane because if you hear anybody talking to you through a baked clay block, something is obviously a little goofy in your head.

However, what makes the SA Blockphone so incredible is not the features, but rather the lack of features. We promise that you will never get a single obnoxious call from harassing telemarketers when using the SA Blockphone. We offer a 100% guarantee that your obnoxious in-laws and other dimwitted relatives will find it nearly impossible to connect and call you through the SA Blockphone no matter what time of the day it may be. You will never be rudely awoken in the middle of the night to the shrill sound of your phone ringing, as the SA Blockphone has absolutely no device in it capable of producing a noise unless you were to pick it up and manually bang it against a screen door for a few hours. Say goodbye to outrageous phone bills because the Something Awful Blockphone costs a whopping $0 per month to activate... and the best part is that you can use it anywhere and at any time without the fear of any roaming charges or additional fees! Take your blockphone with you on a beautiful cruise through Asia, across the sandy deserts of France, or into the murky depths of space and we guarantee that you'll get the exact same crystal-clear reception as you would at home or in hell! But don't take it from me; check out these actual comments by actual satisfied customers who actually once existed either in a real or imaginary form at one point in time!

"This is the best phone made out of bricks that I have ever tried to eat!" - A.B., Highly Important Business Executive - South Dakota
"Gwaaarl hurrrrr buuuuuuuuh!"- B.C., Professional Infant - Maryland.
"Michael Madsen is a great actor and 'Vengeance Unlimited' was a fucking awesome show and I hate the network assholes who canceled it." - R.K., Unfunny Writer and Future Homeless Person - Missouri.
"The Something Awful Blockphone made me the man I am today!" - D.E, Jelly Belly Engineer Who Created the Revolutionary "Buttered Popcorn" Flavored Jelly Bean - Canada.
"My name is Terry Bell and you can reach me at 816-350-0730!" - T.B., Professional Phonecalling Asshole, 816-350-0730.

Buy three SA Blockphones and get the fourth one for the price of the third! If you act now, you'll also receive free of a charge a free phone call from Terry Bell at the number 816-350-0730, who will give your imaginary children aged 6-12 complimentary piano lessons shortly before trying to feel them up and trick you into buying him an Arby's combo meal. You can charge it all to your Citibank card.

Darlin' you give love, a bad name

Ryan "OMGWTFBBQ" Adams here, really regretting waiting for the Packers to finish mopping the floor with the Bears before starting this weeks Goldmine. Ug.

We here at Something Awful seem to like movies. A lot. Like more than average. Especially when it comes to the Comedy Goldmine. You can look back and see how many times we've done something about movies. It's a lot. But will that stop us from using movies as a topic now, or in the future? HELL NO! This week, we've decided to forgo the usual Photoshop artwork to utilize the lowly MS Paint. The subject for the week? "Alternative movie endings." How did it come out? You tell me. Here's an excellent submission from SA Goon Stryder:NOW THAT SIR IS KOMEDY WITH A K!

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)