A happy tale
My last few efforts on QOTW seem to be all fluffy and nice and unfortunately (perhaps) this is no exception.

There we were, blokes drinking heavily, sat smoking around the table (as you could in them days) and having much fun. One of my chums goes off for a wee. Jumping at the chance to add extra comical value to the evening I took advantage of his absense by grabbing his phone and texting his dad. It was nothing nasty, just something along the lines of 'I LOVE YOU DAD, MISS YOU LOTS xoxox'

HO HO HO!!! How we laughed. Chris (for that is his name) didn't laugh that much. It turns out (and this is why such pranks can go badly wrong) that he hadn't spoken to or seen his dad for about 4 years following a rather spectacular falling out. Needless to say I felt like a bit of twat, apologised and bought him a pint. He explained what happened (I won't bore you with that bit) and then his phone beepety beeped.

It was his dad.

I MISS YOU TOO SON. PLEASE COME SEE ME SOMETIME. LOVE DAD.

Chris was a bit stunned and went very quiet and disappeared off the toilet, returning a bit red-eyed.

He had spoken to his dad (in a drunken stupor) and agreed to go round the next day, and he did.

He met his half brother and sister for the 1st time ever, cleared the air with his dad, was Best Man at his wedding and is now in regular contact and they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

Quick Edit: Before this, whenever he spoke of his dad he was actually refering to his stepdad (he lived with his mum still back then) so I thought thats who I was texting.
( SpikeyPickle wishes he was mabazaritchie, Fri 31 Jul 2009, 15:56, 9 replies)

Having worked in a library
Quite often we'd get kids do the whole Trigger Happy TV thing of screaming "HELLO!" into their phones. I find repeating pranks pulled on TV to be about as funny as ear cancer.

It always got bad in the summer, to the point you knew where it was coming and you'd assume a start position to chase the little turd rapers out of the building. One kid was particularly persistent, and doubly as obnoxious when we threw him out.

One day he was sat at a computer next to an exceptionally large Dutch backpacker. Sure enough, there was the ringtone, the hello, and the jump-and-sprint. However, like a Brown Bear swiping at a salmon in an Alaskan stream, this backpacker plucked the little foreskin out of mid air and slammed him on my desk by his forehead. In a voice much, much louder than this child, he bellowed "MY FRIEND! I WILL ASS FUCK YOU!". I'm pretty sure the kid managed to poo his own heart out.

If I were a professional, I probably should have called the police or asked the large man to leave, but I was so busy laughing I'd snorted a giant bogey into my moustache, which made looking and sounding authoritative completely impossible. Oh well.
(Tiny Blindfolded Horse Kitten sound car horns would end road rage, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 16:09, 8 replies)

Free Calls!

People are thick. It's just a fact of life.

Years back, there was some discussion on a hacking forum about secret codes you could type into a mobile phone and it would give you free calls. So being a helpful sort of chap I sent in the FAQ of how to do this. It went some thing like:

On a Nokia type:

menu
1
5
7
3
3
#
#
OK

But you have to do it within 2 seconds for it to work.

I sent that off and within ten minutes there were a bunch of replies in the thread.

"Yeah. very fucking funny. My phone is now in Finnish. How do I get it back?"

There wasn't just one person who'd done this - there were dozens.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sun 2 Aug 2009, 5:28, 6 replies)

TheManWithThePlan
asked why I'm so fucked off about so-called 'humorous' texting...

Quite a while back one of my best mates, a lad named Jim, was struggling with his sexuality. He was gay. No problem with that. But where we grew up it was decidedly not 'the done thing' to be homosexual. We all knew Jim was gay and really didn't care. When he eventually came out to us it was quite the anticlimax - just a brief interlude before we got in the next round of drinks. But then, after a year or so of Jim being a proud gay man, some complete and utter tit thought it would be a great joke to nick his mobile and text Jim's parents. Up to this point they didn't know he was a shirt lifter of George Michaelesque proportions.

Oh, what hilarity...

Jim's dad went apeshit. Absolutely up the fucking wall. Jim ended up being thrown out of his house. He then spent the next few weeks sleeping over at various mates houses. But Jim was spiralling into a deep dark depression. Then, one day, Jim disappeared. Not sure where he went, some people said he moved down to London, others that he'd got work as a travel rep in Spain. But no one really knew - Jim just cut himself off from everyone who cared about him.

Then, a few years back, I happened to bump into an old mate I hadn't seen for years who told me Jim had passed away pretty much penniless in a bedsit somewhere, London I think. It made me fucking angry. Really fucking angry.

And all this can be traced back to the utter fucking prick shithead who sent the texts to his dad's phone. Fucking evil shit. I swear if I ever find out who that was, I will personally rip their fucking head off and piss down the hole.

So, kids - don't send shitty texts for a ten second immature giggle - it really does fuck up lives. Sorry for lack of funnies, but this subject is a bit close to the bone. Cheers.
(Big Grant, Fri 31 Jul 2009, 13:17, 14 replies)

there is a god
one day, i was on my merry way to the shops, on that infernal mode of transport known as a bus. all was going well, until the bus stopped and on got the Chav Princess. wearing head-to-toe pink, 6 inches of make-up and enough gold(ish) jewellery to put Mr. T to shame, she tottered up the bus, with her glittery pink phone clamped to her foundation-streaked ear.
the entire bus was then subjected to ten minutes of her loud and nasty conversation, ranging from the bloke she'd been "rammed up the shitter" by the night before, to how itchy her fanny was that morning. none of us wanted to hear this, but we really didn't have a choice. i remember her saying "yeah, i got a call back from that modelling agency, they said they've definitely got work for me. dirty bastard nearly cum on my tits while i was there! i don't really want to leave the salon, but they'll just have to manage without me."
by now, the whole bus was ready to throttle the little scrote.
then, something wonderful happened: her phone rang. while she was "talking" to someone on it.
she'd been caught out and she knew it. the snigger crept through the other passengers almost as fast as the blush of shame crept over her face. she answered the phone quickly, saying "yeah, dad, i'm on my way. i had to sign on first."
she jumped off the bus at the next stop. i doubt it was her stop, but if she could have got out of the emergency exit, i think she would have.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 0:09, 8 replies)

Cats
I used to be on T-Mobile, and their hold music was always that Royksopp song. Can't remember the name of it but it's the one that samples Blue on Blue by Bobby Vinton. Anyway, for a time I didn't have a direct debit on my account which meant phoning them up every time I wanted to pay my phone bill, and this invariably led to many a minute spent listening to this song.

One morning, whilst particularly bored and on hold for a particularly long time, I decided to sing along to the hold music.

"Dooo dooo doooooo, dooo do-do-doooo do......blue on bluuuuueeee, heartache on heartache...."

Still nothing for another 3 minutes, so I decide to sing it in cat.

"Miaow miaow miaow, miaow miaow miaow-miaow miaow..."

I was having such a good time miaowing along to Royksopp I'd not noticed that a rather bemused young lady had picked up and heard about 5 or 6 seconds of a man miaowing a tune at her.

I secretly hoped me and her would fall in love and it would be a cute story for the grandkids. Instead, I paid my £41.57 and hung up, feeling rather silly.
(Tiny Blindfolded Horse Kitten sound car horns would end road rage, Fri 31 Jul 2009, 9:06, 5 replies)

Apologies if it's ever been you.
When we were kids, me and some chums used to pick a random number out of the phone book and call it. When answered we would begin a casual yet rather silly conversation pretending we had mis-dialled a friend. Our most popular character, pre-dating Bruno by 20 or so years, would be to adopt a thick, camp Austrian/German accent...

*ringing*

Voice of randomly chosen number: "Hello"

One of us: "Hello Franz, eet ees Gunther. Mary said vu vould like to meet up to admire my weighty poppenschniel" (Or some other appropriately cheeky sounding word)

"Er... I think you have the wrong num..."

"Oh Franz, don't be a silly. Ve both know where this ees heading. My vieselcleft is hungry for vue"

*click*

This became even more entertaining when we discovered booze.


Two decades later, in our mid thirties, me an one mate in particualr still do this, but instead of calling people, it's texting. We normally take an existing contact and swap two or three numbers around. More likely to be a real number that way.
What we've found best is to just send a text that is mildly surreal yet almost plausible.

Recent examples include:

'I missed the ferry! Will the porcupines escape without guidance on the boat?"

'It was like a corned beef fritter dropped on a barbers shop floor!!!'

'Your experiments go against the laws of man and God! Stop it. Now!'

'Penguin! Penguin! Penguin!'

'Lionel has tits now'


And so on. You get the idea.


Give it a go, it's great fun when you get a reply. Most are just 'U got wrng numbr. lol', but some are almost as funny to recieve. Our best one, in reply to the the above 'Penguins!..' was:

'Piss off, Terry.'

Off topic? Probably. If it helps, I've also dropped my phone down the shitter.

Ta.
( sir_spicious2000 Crap I've watched: www.filmplop.blogspot.com/, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 14:26, 8 replies)

My heroine
A friend of mine was dumped by text. The girl who did it is secretly my hero. This was the text:

THINK OF A NUMBER

DOUBLE IT

ADD 5

ADD THE NUMBER OF LETTERS IN THE PLACE YOU WERE BORN

THINK OF A COLOUR

...

...

...

SCROLL DOWN

...

...

READY?

...

...

I can't be with you any more. It's just not working out.
(Tiny Blindfolded Horse Kitten sound car horns would end road rage, Fri 31 Jul 2009, 10:02, 4 replies)

Scarred
A few months back several mates and myself were at a student bar getting a few too many beers in, as students in student bars tend to do. We were sitting round a particularly large table chatting (I would love to say we were discussing the current state of the global economy or some sophisticated issue but it was probably about shagging, but I digress) and one particular chap, who we will name Dan for the purpose of the story, was texting on his mobile phone. He finishes the text, places his mobile on the table, and shuffles off to the gentleman’s room to take a leak.

Spying the phone left foolishly on the table, a second member of the group, my housemate Matt, grabbed it grinning like a Cheshire Cat, and after a brief twiddle with some of the buttons, replaced it back on the table with a smug look in his eye. Assuming he had found some gem of a text in the inbox, I settled back in my chair waiting for some sort of hilarious find to be revealed.

Dan returned several minutes later, looking somewhat lighter and relieved, picked up his phone, put it in his pocket, and the conversations continued (still talking about shagging no doubt). A few moments later, Dan fished his phone out of his pocket and began reading a text. Suddenly his face drained and he quickly shut his phone, looking decidedly nauseous.

“What’s wrong mate?” We ask, concerned for our friends wellbeing.
“Ummm…” Dan hesitated “Just got a text saying “looking forward to your big cock inside me again this weekend.” That’s all I read before I deleted it... It was from my Mum.”

Cue uproarious laughter, name calling, and all the usual mature reactions you can expect from such a revelation. Dan at this point was looking rather pale. The phone went off again. Picking it up and taking a deep breath, he looked at what it had to say.

“Sorry Dan wrong number! Please don’t tell Dad, will explain later. Love Mum.”

Suffice to say the rest of the night consisted of ripping into Dan and his mother, which everyone enjoyed immensely, except for Dan who was pretty pissed off at this stage and was looking like he would rather be in a Soviet Gulag than trapped in a bar with us lot.







As we were walking home I asked Matt what he had found on the phone that made him grin so much.
“Found?” Enquired Matt, “I didn’t find anything. I just put my number into his phonebook and stored it as his Mum’s. Then sent him a couple of cheeky texts…”
I wish I could have seen the next meeting of Dan and his Mum, Dan waiting for his Mum to drop the bombshell and his Mum not having a clue about the whole thing…

Length? Well apparently it was big enough for her...
(xerophytic has no idea, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 15:07, 6 replies)

Are you sure you want to send that?
Pearoast, and not strictly on-topic as it's about pagers, not phones. I couldn't give a monkey's...

Not long after starting work I ended up on the IT desktop support team, which involved looking after the trading floor for the bank. It took me a while, but I gained the trust and respect of the fickle teams I supported by keeping my promises, fixing important things quickly and having a sense of humour. Unfortunately, my reputation was almost destroyed by one click of the mouse.

When I started out-of-hours support, I received a pager. Contained in the box was the device itself and a printed sheet with two similar phone numbers on it. I thought it would be prudent to test it so I logged in to Vodafone's website, entered my name --big mistake-- then sent a test message to myself with a cheery reminder ("Don't forget Andy's birthday!"). There was no 'Are you sure?' message, no warnings whatsoever, it just sent it. I was impressed by the fluidity of it all…

…until about five seconds later, when I heard beeping behind me. Then to the left, then to my right, forwards, in the distance... phones started going off all around me. It was like the final scene of Lawnmower Man, when all the phones in the world start ringing simultaneously. "Who's Andy?" asked a colleague. Oh crap. As I was based on the trading floor, I had a dealerboard phone with 40 lines. They started lighting up quickly, then my boss raised his furrowed brow over my screen, grinned nervously and whispered "chart cat, do you realise what you just did?"

I'd paged the fucking disaster management distribution list, which included the entire management team for the bank, the board of directors, head traders, front, middle and back office and the IT department. Worldwide. Around 3,000 VIPs in total.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the morning and afternoon was spent fielding phone calls from high-ranking, irate people who wanted to know who this Andy figure was and why I was abusing the alert system. One director in New York called me to complain that I'd woken him up for nothing, another in Singapore called to tell me how I'd ruined the expensive dinner he was enjoying with his wife. One chap sarcastically wished Andy all the best and offered to send him a ‘present’. I felt dreadful; my fledgling career looked like it was in ruins just because Vodafone didn’t distinguish distribution lists from personal numbers, or provide any kind of warning on its website. Then my mates got wind of the situation and began prank-calling me, which was exactly what I didn't need.

After hours of apologising and being made to feel very small indeed, interspersed with my friends conspiring to make me feel even worse, I'd had enough. I picked up the phone for what felt like the millionth time and on the other end was one of my mates, again, this time pretending to be the head of 'Global Data Centres'. He was masquerading with some ridiculous name and speaking in a ludicrous foreign accent. I decided to give him a piece of my mind using as many swear words as I could cram into the rant as possible.

Sadly for me, it really was our head of Global Data Centres. I frantically checked our group directory and lo' and behold, I was talking to the top IT manager for the company. I’d called him a stupid, feckless cunt and insisted he stop wasting my time. To his eternal credit, he took my disgraceful, provocative and seething gross misconduct unbelievably well and told me to be more careful in future, as other managers might not be so forgiving.

From that day forwards, I was known as 'Pager' until I switched roles (hooray for graduate training programmes!).
( chart cat has an itch, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 6:16, 7 replies)

The old hole
Next to the old office in London, there's a pub called "The Coal Hole". Affectionately known by a few of us as "The old coal".

After a long day in the office one summers evening, I texted a few colleagues to see if they would be stopping there. However, I was blissfully unaware that the word "COAL" shares a few other spellings in the T9 Predictive Text dictionary.

What I meant to text was "Anyone fancy a bit of the old coal later?"

What I actually ended up texting was "Anyone fancy a bit of the old cock later?"

Unfortunately, it got even worse. A (very female, very beautiful, very breast-endowed) colleage texted me back asking me whether I was serious. Realising my mistake, I replied.

What I meant to reply was "Oh, sorry! Predictive text! I meant COAL!"

What I actually ended up texting was "Oh, sorry! Predictive text! I meant ANAL!"


I'm surprised I still have that job, to be honest...
(Ant Marching And for my next trick... GWARGGHHGWWGGGH!, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 19:11, 5 replies)

The Ringtone of DOOOOOOOM
In my second year of university, I picked up a Motorola RAZR, which was a stupid phone with a stupid name which, stupidly, crashed a lot. I did like it for it's thin, clamshell design (which is important, as you'll see) as well as its pretty loud speaker; I am occasionally blissfully unaware of my phone ringing, unless it has a very loud ringtone. The ringtone was quickly changed to something hard and heavy (some may rememeber the RAZR required some *dodgy* software to change the ringtone).

My friends at uni weren't really into my taste in music (and therefore my ringtones) such that Megadeth and Opeth aren't du jour amongst the 'popular' types. It was during the exam period, and at the front of the exam hall we had to leave our bags/phones/dildos/whatever. I arrived with the guys, and left my phone in the front compartment of my bag. Most of my friends had left the exam early, generally due to lack of revision (HA!) or just rushing through the paper.

After this exam was done and dusted, there was a second exam an hour later. As before, all my friends left after a short while, whereas I had actually done some work and was scribbling away. As occasionally happens, a phone ringtone went off. Wait, this wasn't just any ringtone, it was a ham-handedly mixed medley of beelzebub's birthing.

..."Young man, there's a place you can go..."

".. I said *CLICK*.. IT'S RAINING MEN!.."

".. MACHO MACHO MAAAAAAAN!"

finally topped off with a sample of crazy frog *sigh*.

The confusion and hilarity was palpable, everone (including myself) was wondering which loser had such an auditory nightmare as their ringtone. I finished up my paper, handed it in and picked up my bag, and proceeded to walk out, at which point the ringtone started again. I turned around to see if I could figure out which bag this big jug of ear-rape was being poured from, but as I turned, the sound appeared to remain behind me.

Shit. Fuck. What?

What I hadn't counted on was that in leaving early, one of my friends had taken my fucking phone out of my fucking bag when they left, and promptly changed my ringtone before the next exam. The phone was surreptitiously replaced into my bag, and remained untouched until the exam in the afternoon when the trap could be sprung. Now.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the phone, which had now been wound round and stuck shut with duct-tape, and was blaring out the ham-touching mix. The 30 people still sat at their desks stared with contempt at our hero, a long-haired ruffian holding what appeared to be a sticky lump of plastic, a DIY-engineered seer stone that bleated the future in lo-fi camp disco, as he rushed to tear out its soul.

I scrabbled outside to find my 'buddies' collectively micturating in their pantaloons, laughing at my predicament.

Bastards.

In other news, I am currenly eating pineapple jelly, yum.
(Lythium deals in lead, my friend., Thu 30 Jul 2009, 13:18, 3 replies)

My brother
Used to send people things via bluetooth on the tube. He would take a picture of himself smiling, send it to whoever said 'okay' on the tube, and then when they looked around, he'd smile and wave manically.
(meat2veg hello!, Fri 31 Jul 2009, 13:47, 7 replies)

I once had a date with the dizziest girl in the world
When I arrived at her front door to pick her up for the evening, I noticed a set of keys in the lock, so I took them out and knocked. And waited. And waited. And knocked again. And waited. Eventually on the third attempt the door was opened by my flustered looking date. “You’d better come in, I cant find my mobile”. I stood in the hallway while she flung cushions off of chairs and emptied the contents of her handbag onto the floor. I noticed that she had a landline, “Why not give your mobile a ring?” I suggested. She furrowed her brow and said “But who’s going to answer it?” I laughed thinking that she had made a joke. She hadn’t. “We might hear the ringing,” I explained. Her face lit up with understanding as she thrust her hand into her coat pocket and pulled out a mobile phone and started punching in numbers. “Is that your work mobile?” I asked (already suspecting the answer). “No, I don’t have a work mob…” she trailed off, “You must think I’m an idiot?” she said looking embarrassed. “Not at all” I lied, “Shall we go? The table is booked for 8pm”. “Ok” she said, “I just need to find my keys”.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 15:14, 12 replies)

The mysterious case of the crusty mobile
Some things are just so wrong you feel like ripping out your own eyes, reaching inside the bloody sockets, and tearing out your own brain in an attempt to rid the terrible vision from your memory...

“I don’t know what that girl’s doing with these damn things,” complained my mate Sully as we walked to the pub, he examined the latest in a long line of mobiles his daughter, nine-year-old Marie had managed to fuck up. “Look at the state of this thing!” Sully proceeded to clean the crud and filth off the unit, attempting to get the damn thing to switch on but with no luck. He licked his finger and rubbed spit on the foggy screen. Then he returned the finger to his gob and repeated the process until the cheap Samsung sparkled a little. Still didn’t work though. “This is her third mobile this fucking year!” Sully lamented. “I only let her have one so when she’s playing out she can get in touch with me, you know, if somethings up – kiddie fiddlers are everywhere, you know.”

And Sully started scraping the gunk off the keypad with a nail. “Wouldn’t believe this was only two months old – look at the fucking state of it!” And he proceeded to use the lick and spit approach to cleaning the unit – it was a little like watching a particularly large and hairy cat with tattoos and a stupid hat indulge in a spot of grooming.

After the pub we went back to Sully’s for a Sunday afternoon meal. Marie met us at the door: “Uncle Spanky!” said Marie, as she attempted to punch me squarly in the nuts – her way of saying hello. We settled in the living room, pissing about, when Marie started telling me that her phone had broken – I explained I knew, her dad had told me. Marie then asked if I had a phone as she wanted to show me a trick. Intrigued, I offered her my brand spanking new, shit hot, amazingly fucking expensive mobile telecommunications device.

Marie then fucked off with it, thudding up the stairs with an evil laugh like the bride of fucking Chucky. I followed. Marie beckoned me into her bedroom. “Make it vibrate, Uncle Spanky!”

Now, this was obviously starting to feel a little bit wrong... Sully was down stairs preparing a meal, and I had a horrible feeling his daughter was about to demonstrate how she enjoyed sitting on vibrating mobile phones because it made her feel all tingly. With growing trepidation, I set off the vibrate function thing and handed over the phone, then Marie ran over to Binky’s cage and dropped the mobile inside so it landed softly on the hay. Phewww!!! I should explain that Binky was Marie’s pet rat – ugly little fucker, Binky – half a tail missing and walked with a bit of a limp, but Marie, bizzarely, loved the mutant rodent.

“Watch this!” said Marie.

And I watched. And Binky rustled in his hay bed and leapt onto the mobile, and then proceeded to violently and with great fucking effort, shag the arse off my pride and joy. Marie proclaimed with glee: "Binky's dancing! Binky's dancing!" It was fucking odd watching the furry arsed little shitbag shag the bollocks out of my Samsung – the unholy coupling of rodent and machine. And Binky was nipping and biting at his latest conquest while he grabbed hold. Then, before I could have a chance to react, Binky was spent and had scurried off to a corner. Jesus, I thought, give that fucker a cigarette and order him a pizza – he cums quicker than I fucking do!

Marie, giggling innocently, returned my phone. It was wet. I said: “Thanks,” and rushed to the bathroom to wash off the rat cum and spit, feeling rather ill. Then I went downstairs where I found Sully in the kitchen, as he waited for some potatoes to boil, he occupied himself attempting to get Marie’s mobile to work. Licking his finger to wipe away the crusty stuff, then returning it to his mouth. Over and over...

I didn’t have the heart to ask him what dessicated rat cum tasted like...
( SpankyHanky, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 14:04, 7 replies)

Not the sharpest utensil in the inappropriate cooking device.
A colleague at work recently performed the most comprehensive ruination of a mobile phone it has ever been my fortune to witness. It began with a simple accident that's happened to many of us at one time or another, but ended in unmitigated disaster. As this is really quite a dull story, I shall present it in the style of 24 to add dramatic tension.

10:17AM: Our hero is using the ladies when disaster strikes! Perhaps she is playing a sneaky game of Tetris, perhaps she's merely an oaf, but her mobile slips, somehow, into the toilet bowl. Panicking, she swiftly retrieves it and returns to the office. SPLIT SCREEN: Our heroine looks distraught. A colleague points and laughs.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

10:21AM: The mobile is still dripping, but this does not prevent our brave heroine from switching it on to see if it still works. Nothing. Undaunted, she connects the phone to her charger in case "the water drained out the battery, innit?". Upsettingly, electrocution does not ensue. SPLIT SCREEN: A dripping mobile is wired up to the mains. Our heroine is worried. A colleague looks on in horror.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

10:26AM: Drying the phone is suggested. It is disconnected from its charger and carefully wrapped in a paper towel, then placed on top of a radiator. SPLIT SCREEN: The forlorn bundle sits atop the radiator. Our heroine looks on anxiously, but not without hope.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

10:29AM: Our heroine has a plan! Having decided that her phone is not drying quickly enough (perhaps she has a call to make, a call of vital importance to NATIONAL SECURITY) and with the stealth of a ninja, she retrieves her phone and sneaks off to the kitchen. Carefully unwrapping the moist paper towels, she gently places her phone down, seals the door and sets the timer. Of the microwave oven. The microwave explodes*. SPLIT SCREEN: A colleague, alarmed at the noise and smoke, rushes for the kitchen door. The wreckage of the microwave exposes the blackened and ruined corpse of the phone. Our heroine falls to her knees, an exhausted, grief-stricken expression on her face.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Credits roll.

*Sparks, then breaks.
(wellgroomedwookiee is a filthy-minded hobgoblin, Wed 5 Aug 2009, 16:50, 11 replies)

My phone has Wi(fe)-Fi(nd)
I have told this story before, but it centres on a mobile phone so I think it's relevant.

Back in 2005 I went to Tokyo for a three-month project. The day after I arrived, London was hit by the July 07 attacks. The heady combination of jet-lag, jubilation for the London Olympic bid victory, a stinking first night hangover and mind-gurgling anxiety for my London-based friends resulted in hard drinking that lasted until my brother came out to visit me a fornight later. His arrival finally settled my frayed nerves, enabling normal service again, to the relief of my boss in Japan.

Midweek, my errant brother hooked up with a random girl, which was the last I saw of him that night. I went to work in the morning and left a key with the reception desk instead. Upon returning home, I found him with his travel buddy and his new lady friend, plus another girl, all drinking tea in my living room. We chatted for a while and I took the number of the other girl, thinking it might be 'useful' to have a friendly (and attractive) local among my contacts. Hers was the first entry in my brand new Japanese phone but I promptly forgot about it shortly after the girls left.

I waved off my brother to the airport on Friday and went out after work for our first proper team outing since I'd arrived. It was a fantastic, messy night, ending at around 7 on Saturday morning when I zig-zagged into my front room and collapsed face-down on the sofa. Around midday I awoke to the burning summer heat, crawled into the kitchen to get water for my parched mouth and slithered into my bed. I woke up again at 4:30 in the afternoon with my head spinning. The hangover made the room feel like it was shaking.

It was fucking shaking, a lot. A very strong earthquake (magnitude 7.0) was rocking the foundations of my rickety apartment complex. Panicking, I bimbled in a squiggly, drunken line towards the door and held on for dear life, vowing also to never drink again. The earthquake eventually subsided so I instinctively reached for my phone, but the only number in the phonebook belonged to the girl I'd met the other day. I dialled anyway. She happened to be watching a movie at my local cinema, so I threw on some clothes and went to meet her for coffee, which then turned into dinner and a night out, finally ending when I walked her to the station, where I received a sweet goodnight kiss.

We started dating soon afterwards. I returned to the UK, she came with me and stayed for a couple of years and we got married. We're now living in Tokyo together and it can all be traced back to that fateful day when I unboxed my new phone to add her details. If the phone had arrived a day later, I never would have seen her again. One of the many odd things that binds us together is the unfortunate fact that both our mothers have already passed away. Compounding the coincidences that made us meet, it was only later in our relationship that we found out that her mother died on my mother's birthday. We then realised that my mother died on my wife's birthday. I think the universe is trying to tell us something.

I just wish it wasn't always in the form of natural disasters and macabre date alignments.

/Obligatory 'marriage wrecked my life' joke goes here (except it didn't... not yet anyway)
( chart cat has an itch, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 9:32, 6 replies)

Phones are for wankers
I bought my latest phone on eBay, I normally do this as you can blag a decent, if a bit dated, phone cheap due to people getting upgrades on their contracts.

Anyway, I bought this sweet samsung thing that had a nice camera, internet connection, bluetooth AND it even let you ring people off it. The phone arrived swiftly, positive feedback both ways, everybody's happy.... until... I'm bored, i'm looking through the games on the phone
Menu: my files: games & more:
"oooh... " i think to myself "freekick, that looks fun... cannonball, i'll give that a go, Masturbator Pro, i've not heard of that... HANG ON. MASTURBATOR FUCKING PRO?!"

I open the file, curious, scared. The icon is a picture of a bunny rabbit, the 'game' opens, it's a choice of different vibration patterns: random, pulses, continuous.

I'd bought a phone that a woman had been using to frig with. I was not happy, I sniffed the phone but it didn't smell too 'used'.

Eventually I got over this trauma, I was looking through the calendar option which it seems the previous owner had used to log her peroids.

23rd June 08
Got some blood on jeans, pissed off.

24th june 08
Very heavy, it really hurts

Etc etc

Lesson: Don't buy second hand phones.
(nobface part time paperboy full time gangsta, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 17:22, 3 replies)

Not worth it
I was in the park with my little lad and he was having a good splash in the paddling pool. It was a nice day, the sun was shining and he was a very happy lad, smiling away. So, I decided to use my phone to take a picture to show the Mrs proof that I was a complete tool of a father.

Phone out, couple of pictures later....

A middle aged couple come wandering over and politely ask me to stop taking pictures of my son because they were concerned that their daughter (who was also playing in the pool) might end up on one of them and *~shock~* the pictures may end up on Facebook or worse - the Internet!

Anyway - a short discussion ensued and I ended it with the line "Well I wouldn't want to wank over your daughter - she's not that special"...

What I hadn't realised at this point was most of the parents were watching this discussion and the park had gone silent at this point.

Needless to say I had to make a quick get-away and bundle a semi-naked, wet child into my car.
( Mastic, Wed 5 Aug 2009, 20:39, 8 replies)

not so much a mobile disaster, as a 'had no mobile...should have spotted the disaster..'
it was the mid 90's, and unlike his best mate Loz, my fiance David didn't have a mobile phone. One night he'd gone out with his work colleagues and come home to an unholy row in the early hours as he "couldn't have phoned home, didn't remember his phone number". I was about as accepting as the non-Nazis were with the 'obeying orders' defence at Nuremberg. I cunted him off something chronic.
Two months later, and he's in hospital, having 'gone into one' after friends were over, and started talking utter nonsenes (despite only one can of Guinness) diagnosed with a massive brain tumour, the early symptoms of which were the apparent early-onset Alzheimer's he was displaying.
He fought. He fought hard. Two lots of brain surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the chemo he endured having been told there wasn't time to save his sperm but he'd be infertile, sorry.
So not a mobile phone disaster, but if he'd had a phone, I'd maybe have noticed something other than the "forgot your own number to get out of a bollocking" ruse he tried.
It's fourteen years now. I've never forgiven myself for not noticing the early signs. Maybe he'd still be alive.
( Sallyrsm, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 21:19, 10 replies)

The phone was innocent
It's me that's the twat. But if you ever need a couple of phrases to kill a relationship or friendship dead, I'm your woman.

First horror: was seeing a chap, let's call him P. Lovely bloke, Swedish, funny as hell. He'd stayed at my place a couple of times, but no jiggy yet; I just couldn't understand it - I'm not hideous, and frankly I was willing (a bit pissed). The third time he left in the morning, kissed me goodbye and said 'I'll call you', I was at the fist-chewing stage of sexual frustration.

Gnashing my teeth, I texted a mate: "P has just left, and still hasn't put out. Am clearly physically repugnant and should be shot. In fact, I think I'm going to have to go and finish myself off in the bathroom".

Yep, you're way ahead of me, I can see that. I sent it to P. Promptly ran around my apartment screaming, rang him, got voicemail, left a garbled apology and figured that there was nothing else for it but to start drinking to obliterate the horror of being in my own head. I never heard from him again. Yeah, funny that...

Second was a little more harsh, and frankly, you think I'd have learned from the first time. I had moved to a new job back in the UK had a made a few friends. One colleageue, M, was clearly quite keen on me, but was obviously holding back. One day he said 'I've got something to tell you. I'm a Christian' -as if that explained everything I needed to know about him.

Now, I'm not a Christian. I was raised as a Quaker but am not particularly godly. Also, don't let the Quaker tolerant thing fool you, I can be a total beeatch when I want to be. I got back to my office and texted one of my best mates (b3tan Rakky, in fact);
"M just told me he was a Christian. I didn't have the heart to ask whether I was talking to a 33 year-old virgin..."

Fuckjugs. Yes I did. I sent it to him. Oh, how we'll all laugh when the Judgement Day comes...

*pop* how was it for you? In fact, don't tell me - we both know it'll end in tears.
(Nunnerfly, Fri 31 Jul 2009, 11:34, 9 replies)

My 1st post and two phone disasters for the price of one, you lucky BOGOF bastards!
Twas my birthday a couple of months ago, so I went out with a mate, got well and truly twatted....and lost my phone. I was well pissed off at the time, but it was only a cheap nokia, PAYG, so I hadn't lost much. Besides, I was thinking of getting a new phone. One with a camera! T'interweb! MP3 player! Shininess! All the things my lost phone lacked.

Off I pop to the shops and decide to get a £20 a month deal, on an 18 month contract. 'Would you like insurance in case it gets lost or stolen?' asks Mr Salesman. 'Nah,' I reply, thinking I won't be so daft as to lose another phone.

A week later, armed with my shiny new toy, I'm out on the piss again with a different friend who's come to visit. We get rather mullered and get the night bus home, which, this being Sarf Lahndan, is full of the usual pissheads and generally dodgy looking characters. In between rambling drunkenly to my friend, I'm amusing myself by playing with my new phone.

The bus stops at a bus stop (they do that, you may have noticed), but instead of continuing on our merry way, the driver stops the engine and announces 'This bus is going no further until the passenger who hasn't paid his fare gets off the bus. I've called the police'. A few minutes pass, people start to get annoyed wanting to get home as by now it's about 2.30am, even offering to pay the (as yet unidentified) man's fare.

'It's the man in the baseball cap,' the driver helpfully informs us. Look, there he is, sitting a few seats behind my friend and I, pretending to be asleep. A few fellow passengers tut and suggest he might like to pay his fare so we can all go home. He's not happy with this, and goes to the driver's cab, trying to force the yob-proof door open, shouting at the driver to get off the bus so 'we can see what a big man you are'.

I detest people who threaten others like that. Beer-fuelled bravado kicks in. 'WHY DON'T YOU JUST PAY YOUR FUCKING FARE YOU FUCKING CUNT??!!' I shout. Oh dear. He comes over to us, shouting how he's gonna kick the crap out of me, blah, blah, blah..... Being too drunk to realise the value of shutting the fuck up in such times of imminent danger, I return his insults. Oh dear again. My friend by this time is standing up trying to calm him down, but he pushes her out of the way. Realising this leaves me, sitting in the window seat, a bit vulnerable, I hurl myself at nasty bloke. But I'm very drunk. So I miss. I end up sprawled on the bus floor, dropping my nice new phone as I fall.

After kicking me in the face and stamping on my head, he grabs my phone and jumps off the bus, at which point the driver hastily shuts the doors. Showing a capacity for logical thought which has so far eluded me I think, 'hmmm. That man's got my new but uninsured phone 1 week into an 18 month contract. That's not good.'

'OPEN THE FUCKING DOORS, HE'S GOT MY PHONE!!!' I shout at the driver which he does, bless him. I jump off the bus and there just down the road is my assailant.

'OI!! COME BACK WITH MY PHONE YOU CUNT!!' I shout after him. Which he does. Oh dear again. He punches me in the face so I throw myself at him, the impetus carrying us both into the window of a takeaway, which smashes. Other passengers jump off the bus to help restrain him, by which time the Plod turn up, nick him and return my phone to me. Phew.

Despite the bus being full of Afro-carribean passengers, and one police officer being of a similar ethnic origin, my assailant insists he's been arrested 'because I'm black isn't it?' My friend's reaction to this won't be repeated, but it wasn't very ladylike, put it that way.

After having statements taken by the slowest one-finger typist in the entire Met Police, we're allowed to leave the police station at 6.30am. Knackered.

I got a black eye out of it. He got 2 charges of common assault, one of theft and one of breach of the peace. There were no empty cells in any of the nearest police stations, resulting in him being taken to one about 5 miles away, so I'm guessing he got a long walk home too. Well, how else would he get home with no bus fare? :D

I still haven't got phone insurance. I'm not daft enough to let that happen again. Am I?

Too long?
( spesh., Fri 31 Jul 2009, 4:37, 1 reply)

A few months back Mrs Gooch and I were having relationship difficulties
We decided to have a break from each other from a while to work out what would be best for the future.
The upshot was that I moved back in with my parents, it was hideous.
I am 32, lived alone for the last 12 years and am more than used to my own independence.
As soon as I unpacked my bag my Mum went into "Mothering Overdrive", explaining how the Washing machine worked, telling me how to adjust the temperature in the shower, at one point I even thought she was going to clean my cheek with dreaded Licky tissue.

I had been there for about a week and was feeling really penned in and depressed about life in general, My Mum and Dad decided I needed perking up by feeding me Large Gin and tonics for the evening and going over all old family stories etc. By the time they turned in for the night I was plastered. As I sat alone downstairs contemplating life I could hear ominous creaking noises coming from their bedroom.

I decided to text my brother the good news, it went something like this:- "Mate, having a shit time here, Mum being way too much, to make it worse I can hear Dad drilling her upstairs. I am in hell"

I sent the message and then heard a text alert go off upstairs, I drunkenly checked my sent item and realised to my horror I had managed to spaz the recently used list and sent the message to MY FUCKING MUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Breakfast was fun the next morning :-(

in all fairness my parents are absolutely quality people, always there for me and I don't mean any malign at all in this post

( Gooch Is neither here nor there, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 13:07, 2 replies)

My mate Nick
leaned over while standing up, and his mobile fell out of his pocket, straight into his cup of tea which was sitting on the table.

Quick as a flash, another mate Davie piped up, "I didn't know you were with T-Mobile, Nick!"
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 12:27, 2 replies)

Mobile internet
Shortly after Christmas a couple of years back, I got my first ever phone with internet. This was exciting. Sadly, the screen was tiny, and the keyboard non-existent, so actually using it was a massive pain in the behind. Regardless, as it was a cool new toy, I used it fairly frequently, including on one day using it to look up some cooking stuff.

One of the articles was 'Better baked potatoes'. The advice given was twofold - first of all, rub oil and salt into the skin for extra crispyness. Secondly, don't slice it open with a knife when it is cooked - punch or karate chop it for extra fluffiness.

Obviously I was excited by these new cookery techniques, and hastened to try them out, even inviting one of my housemates to witness my new ninja potato skills. With a theatrical backswing, and full kung-fu film sound effects, I took a swing at the potato, with a perfect karate chop. The potato exploded, one half of it splattering up the window, the other half firing itself across the room like a beautiful starchy missile. The (admittedly very fluffy) potato centre stuck to the edge of my hand causing some fairly massive burning resulting in me hopping round the kitchen like an angry chimp, whilst my housemate lay on the floor, paralysed with laughter at my utter stupidity.

On later wondering why I'd been given such terrible instructions, I looked them up on my PC. 'MAKE SURE TO COVER THE POTATO WITH A TEA TOWEL!' was indeed written at the bottom of the article, but a combination of the tiny screen on my phone, and my desperate desire for better Irish juice meant I had neglected to read this fairly crucial piece of information.

The enormous blisters on the side of my hand somewhat put me off mobile internet...
(Merrep, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 22:08, 3 replies)

The look on that kids face will stay with me forever.
A few months ago, I ventured to that London on a college trip for a few days. A fine time was had by all, despite the fact that we were mainly confined to the hostel due to a few slight riots that were going on about a mile away from us. Still.... we all got hammered and had a great time for 4 days.

On the way home I was sat next to one of the lads from my course and we got to chatting about a wide variety of amusing things. Eventually, we strayed into the territory of amusing videos and began swapping videos from our phones via bluetooth, when suddenly someone began sending us lots of crazy messages and videos. Hatching a fiendish plot, the guy I was next to devised a way to find out who it was. He sent a video he had of himself when he was younger, in which he emitted a high pitched and very loud laugh. As soon as the person played it, we'd hear it. It worked, and we discovered the irritant was a boy of around 12 sitting a few seats behind us.

The messages continued, bombarding my mates phone with constant videos and messages, when suddenly he realised how to stop it. You see, one of the videos I had given him was the highly disgusting "make your own mcflurry" one, containing a scene from two girls one cup. As soon as I realised what he was doing, I tried to reason with him but it was too late, he'd already sent it...... the bluetooth messages came to a sudden and abrupt halt.

About half an hour later, we arrived at newcastle and the train ground to a halt. A lot of people were getting off when the boy in question walked past our seats. He stopped and slowly, ever so very slowly turned and looked my mate in the eye. There was a look of abject horror on his face.

I don't think he'll be doing that again in a hurry. He wouldn't even wave back after he got off the train either.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 20:13, 4 replies)

Hello? Sarah?
Back when mobiles were going through the smaller is better stage we were out for a post work bender with a few other wild young things (worked hard and played hard working for a large IT consultancy). One of the girls got her phone out and fiddled about with it for a bit before asking if she could borrow someone else’s to make an urgent call. She disappeared outside for a while and returned to her seat. For an hour or so after that she kept picking her own phone up , pressing a few buttons and putting it back down.

Eventually the lad whose phone she had borrowed asked for it back and she asked if she could make just one more phone call and disappeared again. She returned and gave the phone back with many thanks and a double whisky (single malt of course). A short while later his phone rang and he left the pub to take the call. At this point Sarah erupted in gales of laughter and said we should all watch Iain’s face as he came back. We watched as he returned and sure enough he had a rather perplexed look .

“What’s up?” I asked.
“Can you smell something funny on my phone?”

At this point Sarah could hold herself back no longer and with ill-concealed glee informed Iain that she had switched his phone to silent, put it down her knickers and speed dialled the number all night. She’d had a whale of a time, wiped the stickiness off and left the smell for him. As a small revenge he rang her at 2:30am and told her he was having a really good wank sniffing his phone. I love working with perves.
(Donkey Hotay Tilting At Windmills Since, Thu 30 Jul 2009, 13:53, 5 replies)

Predictive Text and Sizeable Choppers.
Well, once upon a time I'm going out with a lovely young filly called Sue (none of that is true, her initial was V and she was a cunt).

Anyway, Sue was quite an attractive girl and not particularly shy, but she was somewhat self conscious of her teeth. Not that they were enormous, I mean she could eat and talk to people without lacerating passers by, but they were largish and she had a lower front tooth that stuck out a tiny bit. I thought it was cute at the time, but this is before I found out she was a manic depressive with a growler like Brian Blessed's chin and the personality of a freshly raped Smiths fan.

Anyway, now that the build-up is much larger than this story justifies, I sent her a goodnight text one evening. Something along the lines of "Had a great night[lies], see ya tomorrow honey xx".

Honey being the word I'd like to focus on here. The word which requires a key sequence of 46639. A key sequence that's also used for the word 'goofy'. Which alphabetically is earlier in the selection sequence than honey.

She withheld what little affection and niceness she was capable of mustering for ages after that. Interestingly, she had a similar response to this when I told her the thing about her growler, but at least I meant it that time.
(NoveltyCondomHead Clanks Wams., Wed 5 Aug 2009, 14:48, 10 replies)

ha i forgot all about the jizzard of oz...
thanks for dredging this up, scaryduck.

a couple of years ago, fellow b3tan rebeccaslicker and i went to tenerife for a few days. it was very last minute, so my boss insisted that i was back for an important litigation conference. we got completely lashed on my last night with some random boys that we met, to the extent that i had to get a taxi straight from the bar to the airport in the morning.

so by the time i got to the conference, i was feeling absolutely dreadful. i switched my phone to "meeting", threw my bag at the back of the room, and sat down to listen to 3 hours on the dilapidations protocol. that would finish anyone off in the prime of their life, but trust me, on an evil hangover and no sleep, it is actually life-threatening. then, halfway through the talk, i heard something vaguely familiar.... the jizzard of oz!! i shuffled down in my seat as the back few rows who could hear it all jumped, wondering who was singing "if i only had a dame" (to the tune of "if i only had a brain"). thank fuck nobody could tell who it belonged to, as my bag was miles away from me!

it is not, as such, what you would call a polite song. eventually, the final strains of "i'd be always penetrating even when she's menstruating" died away and the lecturer carried on his merry way. but by now, i had remembered how hilarious it had seemed the night before to set all the rude tunes that the boys had bluetoothed over to us as our profile settings, and i was hoping against hope that the caller hadn't left me a voicemail.

my hopes were in vain. two minutes later, the unmistakeable sound of donald duck receiving a serious blowie rang around the room, on full volume this time..........................
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 2 Aug 2009, 23:37, 4 replies)

Some chap
Seems to have the number of my works phone. He keeps texting it - I assume it's on a group list or something. So I keep texting him back with increasingly more bizarre things. I've only ever had one response, and haven't heard anything for a couple of weeks now.

Him (I assume it's a him): "Can everyone dial in to the conference call at 1645 at the usual place"
Me: "Will do captain!"

Him: "We've got to beat Essex this month - targets are "
Me: "I'll set those as my own personal targets! I'll flog myself if I don't meet them"

Him: "Please submit your QFD reports by close of play today"
Me: "I love you"

Him: "We need 25 more appointments by the end of the day"
Me: "I can do that in my sleep"
[later that day]
Him: "Well done team, we exceeded our targets!"
Me: "You're my hero!"
Him: "You're mine too"

Him: "We really need to push on the sales today - Essex are catching us up this month"
Me: "I'm pregnant. I think it's yours"

Not heard anything since.
( shadyron, Fri 31 Jul 2009, 0:27, 1 reply)