Iridium's Problems

Due to all the alcohol in my system, I've been thinking a lot aboutthe problem with Iridium. In case you're not "in the know" (I heard that term on the Jenny Jones Show once), Iridium was the brainchild of mega-communications overlord Motorola, a company that owns approximately 63% of the entire planet. A long time ago in a thinktank far, far away, Motorola decided to show the world that even the largest of companies are able to make incredibly stupid business moves, so they decided to launch their Iridium service, a global communication network that would allow their users to speak to each other from anywhere across the world. This would be accomplished by sending up about 70 satellites worth $6 billion US into orbit around the globe.

While this sounds just like an utterly fantastic idea (who isn't thrilled by the prospect of having their boss be able to communicate with them anywhere in the whole freaking world?), it ultimately failed... in a huge way. Why? Well, for a variety of obvious reasons.

First off, the phones weighed approximately 200 pounds and were the size of full grown Labrador Retrievers. They literally looked like those bulky mobile communication devices that the Army generals would use in 1950's sci-fi films. You know, ones where they would frantically call for backup shortly before the aliens vaporized their entire squad with a Atomic Death Ray Gun (tm). The Iridium phones were just as large and even more prone to Atomic Death Ray Gun (TM) attacks.

Another factor that caused this company to go broke was the fact that the phones initially cost over $4,000 US (and $9 a minute to use). Yup. Four grand. For just the phone itself. Think of how many copies of Valu-Soft games you could buy with that amount of cash. Hell, for $4,000, you could afford to purchase an entire Valu-Soft programming team (assuming they actually have programmers). It comes as no surprise that the biggest proponent of this failed communication company was the US Government, who tossed them a 1.4 million dollar check for 1,000 of their phones. Ladies and gents, your tax dollars at work!

Anyway, Iridium failed and they failed bigtime. Before declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they had just around 55,000 subscribers - and were about $5 billion in debt. Now comes the big problem: what should be done about their satellites orbiting the Earth? I mean, when the UFOs come to implant tracking devices in the back of my skull, the first thing they'll see upon approaching our planet is a series of metal blobs the size of pregnant Volkswagens circling the planet. They could crash into Iridium's satellites and the next thing you know the US is being sued by Emperor Gnaarl'Rashaan. This is clearly a bad thing for the US, because the last thing we need is another intergalactic lawsuit.

So what is to be done with all the failed satellites hanging around our planet? It will cost 50 million US dollars to get all the systems to de-orbit the planet and burn up in our atmosphere, money the company clearly does not have. No company wants to buy out the financially strapped Iridium because, well, it'd just be a really stupid idea. Luckily, I have the solution for all of Iridium's problems: American Capitalism.

Iridium Command - the new frontier of interactive entertainment!

Iridium should seek out a wealthy entrepreneur who has tons of cash to burn, and then offer him the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to play a real life version of Missile Command. The satellites would be programmed to head towards five major US cities and the wealthy investor will get the exciting chance to shoot down these satellites with the US Missile Defense Shield rockets. Everybody would be a winner in this situation: America's military will get another chance to see their Missile Defense system in action, Iridium will make a few quick bucks in the process, and some really rich guy will get to live out his all time favorite video game. Like always, I can't see any flaws in this plan... well, besides seeing the city of Chicago explode because an old rich guy has really poor physical coordination. Of course I've been spending all day drinking Mexican beer, so maybe I'm not the best judge at this point.

What? Another guide? Yup, I decided to get off my soon-to-be-fat ass and write up a little Something Awful Guide to Apartment Hunting, since I'm painfully familiar with the whole "apartment living" thing. Included in the guide is a detailed translation of each apartment term they'll use to sucker you into renting their tick-infested wooden box of death, with such detailed and helpful descriptions as the following:

I don't like to make sweeping generalizations, but everybody in the entire world should read it. Do your part now.