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Digital Slob Curt Brandao |
This crank will keep
you on your callsWould you rather be stranded on a deserted island with a Digital Slob or a Respectable Person?
That's a tough call. A typical Digital Slob can't survive the elements any longer than a shitzu in the Serengeti, and would drag you down with him, eroding your will to live, asking you to remember punchlines from his favorite sitcoms until you both die of exposure.
But getting stuck with a chronically "can-do" Respectable Person would be no better. Once you fail to build his split-level beach-front condo up to code (with bamboo and coconuts), he will goad you into a murderous rage and you'll strangle each other with the curtain drawstrings he made you weave out of dune grass.
So it's slow death via "Seinfeld" flashbacks and dehydration, or violent death over tropical architectural specs -- tough call.
Stuck between two scenarios that make "Lord of the Flies" read like "The Berenstain Bears Go To Camp," it's easy to see why people spend millions of dollars on survival gear in the faint hope there might be a third option (rescue).
So let's think this through. Since there's two of you on the island, odds are you started out with about three cell phones between you, maybe more. If they were lost in the plane crash or the open sea, there's still 180 million cell phones littering the United States alone, so there has to be at least 20 or 30 lying around any deserted island, blown in by the trades if nothing else, right?
Even so, no cell, self-migratory or otherwise, can keep its charge for long, so you're still doomed holding a dead phone unless you bump into the Professor from "Gilligan's Island." But not if you have a SideWinder Charger (www.sidewindercharger.com).
This tiny crank-operated device (no batteries) plugs into cell phones, providing six or seven minutes of calling after two minutes of manual labor from anyone with an opposable thumb. It also has an LED light. Not bad for $25.
And if you're a marooned teenage girl and, before dialing for rescue, you must first call your best friend Christi to see if Cindy is still going to Homecoming with Todd after Julie caught Todd making out with Chloe -- because if Cindy broke up with Todd you want Christi to tell Cynthia (Todd's sister) that you didn't die at sea but are on an island and will soon be home and you can now easily fit into that dress you bought because you haven't eaten solid food for six days, and you think Todd is cute and now you've got this killer castaway tan -- just crank the SideWinder as you talk, talk, talk and your cell will hum along until your arm falls off.
Simple cranks simply rule, sharpening grade-school pencils for the last 100 years, starting cars in the 1900s, churning homemade ice cream since the 1800s, and torturing godless heathens as far back as the 1400s. Whether you're a second-grader toiling over long division for your math class, or an executioner ripping the flesh off a heretic for the Spanish Inquisition, there's just nothing like a crank to get the job done.
So if you're a terminally domesticated Digital Slob or Respectable Person who foolishly leaves the tether of their broadband connection to venture out where an estranged Mother Nature can finally exact some revenge, the SideWinder Charger can help you call for backup once you are reminded roughing it can sometimes get rough.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Curt Brandao is the Star-Bulletin's
production editor. Reach him at
at: cbrandao@starbulletin.com