Unworthy denizens of this pathetic planet! Behold!

A phone! In a… Cup…. Of… Water!             Holy Crap!

And get this. It is slim. Fujitsu’s new year’s resolution worked. Their handsets went on Jenny Craig. Valerie Bertinelli and Kirstie Alley got drunk and made out with it. Now it is slim and sexy. Ready for the runways of Milan… The underwater runways that is!

In a time where being the first seems to be more important than being good, or even being useful, my good friends over at Fujitsu have touched the gods. (not inappropriate touching either).

For the person who drops their phone in the toilet once a week, or the sloppy drunk who can’t seem to direct the beer into his/her quivering mouth, a large electronics corp has devoted their resources to make this incredible creation. While companies across this planet could have been making greener phones who’s compounds don’t poison the earth, or phones that get solid reception in elevators, or have better video capabilities, or emit less radiation, or are cheaper, or have better web access, or higher resolution screens, or smoother keypads, or can buy clothes, or open your garage door, or change the channel on your Tivo… Nope Fujitsu made a slim waterproof phone. Amazing!

BTW kudos on the branding guys. With a name like F705i the Razr better hide and the iPhone better run for the hills. I have been privileged to find out that the F705i was actually chosen over some of these other great names.

The following is a secret Fujitsu Marketing email that I intercepted.

—– Begin Transmission ——
To: Frank DelNipple
From: Carl
Subj: Possible names for the waterproof phone

Hey Frank,

The marketing team and I have come up with a list of hot ass names for the new phone. This thing is gonna sell like hot cakes to the 1 meter deep snorkeling cellphone community. While we all love the name F705i, we feel there may be some market share that we’re not tapping into. Please choose from the following list, and we’ll move forward with the “Hey, it’s in a cup!” Ad campaign.

These are the alternate names.
(I’m all about #4)

1. The Fujitsu Drooler
2. JHX2347QNGE
3. Fuji Sponge
4. Electric Gerbil
5. Meat Juice Fujitsu
6. Not Wet Talky Thing
7. Cocaine (this was Dierdra’s idea, I have already fired her)

Hugs & Smooches,

Carl

—– End Transmission ——

Next up Fujitsu will be launching, these great new products.
Spring ‘08 - The Chubster (the fattest waterproof phone)
Fall ‘08 - The Unicall (a unicycle cellphone for clowns)
Winter ‘09 - Mobile Pastrami (a lunch meat version of the F705i)

Okay, that’s enough…

Why am I ripping Fujitsu a new one here? I have to say I don’t quite know. The company never insulted me or my family. They never pooped on my lawn (I don’t even have a lawn). Their products seem fine. I even like their logo. So why would I do this to them?

I’ll tell you. Because I am a blogger, and bloggers defame with impunity. So defame I will. With impunity!

Here’s the cellphone gadget I just bought.

Talk about useful!  You can get it here

- Captain Cellfish
Amateur Beta Tester

p.s. I hereby formally apologize to Yoshihiko Masuda CEO of Fujitsu for any bad things I said. I was only kidding. (seriously though, the name is pretty whack)

It is here. The Cellfish Facebook app. We have launched. And so far its maiden voyage seems to be going great.

Oh yes, and what an app it is. Check it out here, or here, or you can even check it out here.

Basically, this bad boy lets you take any of your pictures, or any of your friends pictures and get them right on your phone. Simple, sexy, and clean. Like a dumb, gorgeous, dental hygienist.

So here’s the deal, go download the app, then get all of your friends to download it. Next thing you know photos are being zipped to phones all over the place. And then we’ll be one step closer to world peace. (not quite sure how, but I’m 98% sure we will be)

There she is, in all her glory. To tell you the truth sometimes I just sit at my desk and stare at it. It’s a syndrome called Application Obsession Disorder. Or AOD. If you suspect that you might be afflicted with this horrible disease, ask your doctor if Cellfish is right for you. Side effects include, euphoria, prickly toes, and sheep.

Hugs and Kisses,

- Captain Cellfish

Founder of IHOP

Okay, you could accuse me of being a broken record if I knew what a record was, but I don’t, so you can’t!

Well, the G-men have done it yet again. They have released Google Mobile Maps 2.0, and they have released it for free (yes, free like our ringtones). And from all reviews it sounds like it kicks serious back end. Check it out this is Jean Claude Le Goog’s demo video.

(they’re getting pretty good at these nifty little animations aren’t they?)
I also found good reviews of it at Sevenclick and Adam Howitt’s blog. (If you like reading the industry side of things check out Gizmodo or Moconews.)So here’s the thing, I think most people would agree that Colonel Goo is very powerful and wealthy. They make a “shit-ton” (a mobile industry technical term synonymous with the more common, “butt-load”) of money. So will someone please explain to me why they keep giving away all their software and great ideas for free? Anyone?… Anyone?… Matthew Broderick?

Okay fine, I’ll tell you. G-Diddy gives it all away because they are… Geniuses. They have a long range vision that is going to keep them on top for a very long time to come. You see, Baron Von Googy knows that in the incredibly tricky, shape shifting world of technology you’ll only win if you and your services are the basis from which technology is created. You have to BE the language that the developers speak, and the products and tools that they all use. And while you will not immediately receive financial reward for giving away your services, you will almost certainly create virtually limitless financial opportunities for yourself down the road.Yes, Professor G. Hendrick Oogle has done it right, and they have done it right publicly, in front of us all. A shining beacon of capitalism at it’s best. Literally giving away billions in potential sales for the opportunity for trillions down the road (I would pick up my jaw off the floor if I could just stop smooching their butt for one second, but I can’t).

So why oh why, won’t anyone else learn. Especially in (what should be) the wide open mobile industry. As I have stated many times before (see The Story of Thanksgiving) the carriers seem to be stuck in a December 24th Scrooge scenario when instead they should be in a x-mass morning, joyous, pajama clad, “Say boy!… Boy!… Come here boy!… Go and buy that fat-ass goose for me boy!” kind of mood. It would do us all a lot of good. Carriers, consumers, companies, etc.

When will they learn that the more they try and squeeze dollars out of the mobile industry, the more market share they will lose. I can tell you this, the home boys and girls over at Verizon’s $9.99/mo GPS service are none too pleased. And I’ll take it one step further. If Verizon had been giving away their great GPS service for the last three years, they’d have a whole “shit-ton” more subscribers who really wouldn’t give a damn what the Duchess of Goo had just launched.

Well, we here at Cellfish.com say, “Go Ogle!” whether you care about us or not. We love what you do, we love your business model, but bigger than that, we think how you handle the mobile world is not only financially wise, but that it will lead to a greater, more robust, and more exciting marketplace. This saucy critic says, bravo to you!

So, with all that in mind we have some pretty great news of our own!

ANNOUNCING… ADD TO PHONE!

Yes, our Add to Phone API is out and it let’s you do some pretty fresh things. You can place any of our buttons on your blog and with one simple, mousy click, your readers can get your content on their phones to take with them wherever they go.

Now your readers can be checking out your latest post while their wives deliver their children. Nuclear power plant monitors can be watching your videos while on the job. Pilots can see pictures of your family’s thanksgiving food fight while flying 747’s full of orphans. It’s awesome! And here’s the thing. It is free! Gratis, on the house, no cost, zilch, on the Underhill’s tab. Why are we doing this? Have we gone mad, are we nutty? No!

We want everyone on this blue planet of ours to get their blog news/videos/photos on their phones through us.

So here’s to hoping you all go out and grab one of our buttons and add it to your blog. Pease enjoy this little ditty about how it works.

- Captain Cellfish
2007 Best Supporting Actor Nominee

Gather ’round my little cherubic friends and I’ll tell you a tale. Come warm ye paws by my hearth, drink some of this here meade (Colt 45), and open thyne ears.

In honor of this, our yearly feast I will offer a retelling of the great American fable. The Story of Thanksgiving.

This version will be slightly different than the traditional version. In this version, the role of the Native Americans will be played by the Cellphone Carriers and the role of the Hungry Pilgrims will be played by us, Cellfish.

So here goes…

It was fall 1621 and the Pilgrims were hungry. Our fledgling crops looked pretty lame, and we needed help. We were a strong bunch of motivated, religious zealots, and we were ready to make a go of it in the new world.

We were going to make mobile entertainment here as big as it is in Europe. American mobile technology was the new world and our rickety ship had made the daunting trans Atlantic journey. And when we landed we marveled at the vast wide open spaces, the incredible marketplace that was this great land. Sure we had our stupid black hats on, our belt buckles were cumbersome, and our shoes were impractical, but we gave it all we had. Then we found that this great open territory was not quite as forgiving as it had looked from the poop deck of the Mayflower.

So we, the scrappy little pilgrims were hungry, weary, and looking for a little help from our native friends (the carriers). We were merely looking for a way to monetize mobile entertainment, so the public could get what they want, we would be able to put over-sized fowl on our tables, and the carriers could continue to rake in the dollars.

This is what we were looking for…

(btw that’s me there, the little puritanical looking number with the bonnet, giving some bread to the carriers)

But in our little version of the Thanksgiving story, we were not helped. In fact, in our version of the story, the carriers come and take our crops, let us starve in the bitter Massachusetts winter, pee on our fires, and leave us for dead.

Our version of the tale looks a bit more like this.

(that’s us with the pinky finger in our nose)

So here’s how our version of the Thanksgiving story ends. All the pilgrims die, the New World never flourishes, and Twinkies, Johnny Cash, iPhones, and the Ford Mustang never exist. The end.

If your children are crying due to the tragic nature of this tale let them know “the world is a cold place, get used to it.”

So what are the lessons that this Thanksgiving tale teaches us?

Instead of being giving, forward looking and open, the carriers have been the opposite. They have held onto every last penny making sure that the consumer has had no choice but to find alternative ways to get music and videos on their phones. If the mobile entertainment world is going to survive in the face of iPhones and Androids, something is going to have to give, and if it doesn’t, this beautiful unspoiled new world harvest which could have looked like this…

Will very soon look like this instead.

But never fear. We here at Cellfish.com have plenty to be thankful for. Our web site is kicking butt, our users are extremely happy, our offer of free ringtones is still going on (go get ‘em people, cause this giving spirit only lasts for so long) and life is all together peachy.

So happy Thanksgiving everyone.

- Captain Cellfish
Director of Revisionist History

Mobile Mumps & Cellphone Syphilis… Coming to an ear hole near you!

Yes my friends, that’s right. As these little devices in our hands get more and more powerful the little maggot hackers of the world can’t seem to help themselves. It’s official, we have Cellphone viruses now.

Here is picture of a little cell phone virus that I caught while talking to a friend of mine in Thailand.

Nasty litter bugger. Started text messaging all my friends setting up drinks that I never even knew I was going to. Next thing I know all my friends are all drunk at the bar without me, and I’m chilling at home watching Re-Runs of Project Runway. That was a bullshit Tuesday.

Seriously, these things are out there and they are growing in numbers as viruses tend to do. So be careful where you stick that phone, pal. Gone are the days of chatting with loose women and shady dudes in the park in alleys. No sir! Not no more.

So far most of the viruses are pretty harmless, like little mobile herpes. Annoying little bugs that slow down your service to a crawl or erase your contacts, but the bad ones are out there lurking. There are viruses now that will start calling foreign countries and running your bill up as high as malaria runs up your fever. Or spying on your and your family. Yikes! Paging Dr. Orwell!

So what should you do to protect yourself?
Here are 5 handy dandy tips to keep yourself from becoming The Typhoid Mary of Mobile

1. Don’t take candy from strangers!
Well the same goes for ring tones, games, wallpapers, and videos. Make sure your ring tone site is legit, cause there are a bunch of scumbags out there. (psssst! BTW I know a great place to get ring tones for free. I work there. We’re called Cellfish.com)

2. Watch for suspicious attachments to text messages
If you don’t know who it’s from, and it has an attachment, beware! You’ve been warned.

3. Get cell phone anti-virus software
You think I’m nuts? Well Symantic has the software, so do with that info as you wish. Sure Larium makes you hallucinate, but it keeps you from dying as well.

4. Watch your phone carefully
If it starts to slow down or act weird, don’t blame it on sun spots. Pull out the battery, back up your contacts immediately, and go get the damn anti-virus software I just told you get in point #3. (Check out how to back up your contacts at Dumb Little Man) If your coverage just blows, don’t go dousing your handset in rubbing alcohol. It probably means your carrier just fell asleep at the switch again.

5. Practice Safe Cellphoning
The good people at Skins Mobile have come up with a truly revolutionary concept. The phone condom. Check it out in actual, real life demonstrations.

And thank you very much Nancy for that wonderful demonstration! Really solid work there. I feel like I’m back in 6th grade getting the quick “special hug” discussion.

Here’s a pretty good post from Cell Phone Guider that tells you what to do if you do have a Cell phone virus.

Okay y’all. Class dismissed.

Oh, and a quick message to all those pud-stickers who are making these viruses out there… Why?… Can’t you do something useful with your amazing computing skills. For instance, why not put up “My Little Pony” videos on the Al Qaeda beheading video sites, or transfer Halliburton’s funds into the Mississippi public school system. Don’t attack my phone. That’s like the whackest thing you could do with your time. Smoke some pot and play halo 3, I don’t care. Fold your mother’s laundry (it’s the least you could do after living in her house for 42 years). Just do something else.

Viva La Revulsion!

- Captain Cellfish
School Nurse
St. Agatha’s School for Ailing Donkeys

Okay, so that title may fall under the umbrella of, “If you needed to warn me about that, I shouldn’t be a parent” statements. But don’t let my stupid title fool you, iPhones actually contain more toxic chemicals than any other major brand of cellphone out there. (Check out Good Clean Tech’s article on the subject) So much so, that Greenpeace has decided the whales can wait, it’s Mr. Jobs (a.k.a. Colonel Earth Poison) they’re going after now.

Here are the facts as Techcrunch reported them:

“The iPhone contains toxic brominated compounds, (brominated flame retardants (BFRs)) and hazardous PVCs. Two of the “phthalate plasticisers” found at high levels in the iPhone headphone cable are classified in Europe as ‘toxic to reproduction, category 2′ and are banned from use in all toys or childcare articles sold in Europe.”

It also turns out that you can’t remove the battery to recycle it, and it looks like the Center for Environmental Health is getting ready to take legal action against Apple.

As a consumer, the phrase “toxic to reproduction” is not something I want associated with a product I put up against my face approximately 48 times a day. So tech hipsters beware. If you are quitting smoking and that oral fixation is nagging the crap out of you, do your best not to chew on your iPhone headphone cables. Your ovaries will applaud. (Applauding Ovaries is, by the way, the name of the Captain’s debut folk album, dropping this holiday season)

So here’s the thing. Apple does such a great job of being so sleek, and modern, and cool, and arty, and edgy, and friendly, and downright neat. They make their customers feel like they are in a non-exclusive club of blue jean wearing, clean-cut hippies, who are not ashamed to say that they still smoke a little pot when watching a good movie. It’s a club made up of the coolest college professors, the most talented graphic designers, and the all the fun people they hang out with. Yes, Apple is the new way, the calm, non-aggressive, liberal way. Feel the love. I myself, am a recent convert, and my new iMac was such a joy to unpack, that I could feel the hairs on my arms stand up as I opened the box. It was like a first date, that I knew would end with some heavy petting. Oooga! Electric!

I mean, come on, their product line is just so sweet.

Take my teenage brother as an example. He acts as if he’s been indoctrinated into some kind of cult when it comes to Mac. The kid’s got no less than 23 YouTube videos praising all things Mac and his Mac life. Check out his page here. My parents are considering an intervention. But this young lad’s story is not unique. For him and many others Mac is the new porn.

I have no problem with that. (The porn actors guild is pissed, but what can you do?) Leopard is just plain hot. So go ahead, enslave the youth, redefine technology. I’ll be cheering you on all the way. But here’s what I do have a problem with. A company that looks this good, acts this friendly, and has legions of young hipsters on their knees at the alter of Jobs, should not destroy the environment. They should save it.

I want so badly for apple to be the good guys. I want Justin Long to environmentally bitch slap the dorky PC guy into a conservationist 21st century. Out with the old, polluting ways, in with the new… Polluting ways?

Come on now Apple, be better than that. We know you mass produce your products in slave like sweat shop conditions. (We hate to overlook it, but we’re not given an alternative) We know you need flame retardants to keep these bad boys from blowing off people’s ears, but can’t you just use some slightly less toxic ones? Can’t we root for at least one company to lead the planet in a new direction? Crikey Apple, where the hell are the good guys? I thought for sure, you were them.

These iPhone batteries of yours are gonna be rotting away, un-recycled for centuries, spilling high powered lithium into the ground, creating a race of super newts that can play clarinet, write celebrity blogs, and work as telemarketers. Let me tell you, that will really suck.

Apple, I beg of you, please be better. Shave .0003 cents off your profit margin. Pay your factory workers a wage that will move them up a few tax brackets, from desperately impoverished, to totally destitute. Make your phones less toxic. Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson, have all changed their manufacturing policies to make greener phones, why can’t you?…

Oh wait, I know why. You’re American.

That’s cool, I forgot. Don’t worry about it then.

You see, since this nation was founded, America has had a, “the best defense is an ass kicking offense” policy in effect (hey, it’s working for the New England Patriots), so why change for the environment? Well, it looks like we won’t, so this is how it’s gonna go down.

One day, very soon the environment is gonna really get pissed off, and wreak some, no-joke havoc on the world. That’s when President Obamillery Guiliromney will turn to the 24/7, FOX, streaming, oval office news-feed and say, “Mother Earth has F-d with the wrong planet!” Finally we’ll be able to do what we do best. Play a little, with-us-or-against-us offense. We’ll kick old mama nature’s ass so hard she’ll wish she’d never created us.

So here’s looking forward to that day. I’ll be gnawing on my iPhone cables, annihilating my sperm and praying for my OS Leopard, Time Machine feature to take me back to the 90’s.

I pose this question to you, my readers. What does Apple’s “i” stand for? iGnorant, iMpoverished, iNsane…

Please send me your suggestions. In the meantime I will be using the cellphone my parents gave me for my birthday.

Viva la Revulsion!

- Captain Cellfish
Bronze Medalist, 2002 Seal Clubbing Championships

Well, here it is.

The Captain has discovered that T9 predictive text (the software that governs text messaging functions for almost all cellphones) has some major programming issues.

We’ve all had the experience of trying to type a text message and the phone doesn’t recognize a friend’s name. How could it? Why would it? (My cellphone does not know my friend Kenji, and I don’t blame it) Now, some of us have gone a step further and come to the realization that our cellphones don’t recognize slang words (wassup, homey, aiight, see ya, etc…). Even fewer of us know, that when it comes to cursing, our cellphones are just plain square. Which is odd, because the cellphone industry does everything it can to make us think our phones are the hippest things since retro tee-shirts (see Motorola Razr 2… A weapon?), yet for some reason the text messaging software remains downright Puritanical.

This got me thinking… Who decided exactly what words the T9 predictive text software would recognize, and which words it would remain ignorant of? Who decided what I can, and cannot text to my friends, family, and enemies? And while I know it is still possible to spell out the words letter by letter, it is a real pain in the ass. So, in effect, the cellphone industry, through the T9 software, has censored me (or at the very least made it nearly impossible for me to speak freely).

So I decided to I spend my morning testing the T9 system on my Verizon Samsung, and I am here to report some very interesting/frightening/ridiculous findings.

Here’s how my study worked. First I tried to type the desired word, then I cycled through the options, if it never arrived at my word I made a note of it. (In some cases, my phone wouldn’t even let me attempt to finish the word).

Study 1. Standard Name Calling

Notable findings:

1. The word “Chubi” really should be the new “Bitch” (my brother-in-law pointed this one out to me). This is how you would use it in a sentence, “Stop acting like such a Chubi and come drinking with me till we passout on some church steps, and embarrass our wives!”
2. “Whore” is not recognized but “hooker” and “prostitute” are. Is one better than the other? And what’s with the denial of Shakespearean synonyms?
3. Is “bastard” even a bad word? Some of my best friends are bastards. (Here’s where my puritanical complaints begin)

Study 2. Exclamations

Notable Findings:

1. I know religion is always a contentious issue, but am I not allowed to type “goddamn?” What would James Brown say?
2. The cellphone company knows that I am well over 18 so how come I can’t drop the occasional F-Bomb if the feeling strikes me?

Study 3. Bodily Functions

Notable Findings:

1. Since when is “crap” a bad word? (I think you can even say it on Nickelodeon)
2. They make “fart” just way too difficult to type. I need that word always at my finger tips.
3. How come I can text urinate and I can’t text defecate? (The only way to talk about #2 is by typing “poop”) (which ain’t so bad if you ask me).

Study 4. Body Parts (now here’s where it gets really interesting)

Notable Findings:

1. How come you can type “Vagina” and not “Penis?” These are both technical, medical terms, neither of which should be (or are) offensive to anyone. Maybe it’s just me, but there is something slightly sexist going on here. It feels a lot like how male nudity gets you a stronger film rating than female nudity.
(The, It’s-okay-to-see-a-little-Hoo-hah-as-long-as-you-don’t-see-any-Dong-dong principle)
2. If I was a feline, I would be insulted, outraged, and up in arms about the fact that if a friend wanted to call me a “pussy” they would only be able to call me a young dog. Cats of the world rise up and take to the streets!

So there it is… The definitive T9 predictive text, censorship study. What have we learned? Well, frankly, I’ve learned that I might have a bit too much time on my hands (don’t tell my employers). I have also learned that while some of this is kind of silly, (try texting “Man-gina” sometime and watch your phone freak-out) there are maybe just a few cultural issues here. I am not claiming that T9 or Nuance the company that just bought the software for $265 million has any real bias, but there are some things they might want to examine.

I, for one, am kind of sick of having corporations tell me what I can and cannot say. Now I know that you can add words to the phone’s dictionary, but that is a real pain in the assime (T9 - asshole). I say open up your dictionaries and let the public decide what they want to write. Make the under 18 dictionary a bit tamer, and then get rid of this Amish software you’ve forced on us! I ask you my wonderful blogging public to go forth and spread the word. Try these words out on your own phones. Then write and link back to me any inane, ridiculous, or just ducking (T9 F$@king) offensive glitches you find in their program. It’s time we tell those Chubies out there that we will not abide!Here are some other stories I found of people who have battled, and in one case won, the fight against predictive text.

Man’s phone prefers one sibling over the other
Digital Host’s Sanguine Penguin
Commuter Writes Book Using Cellphone

Viva la revulsion!

- Captain Cellfish
Runner-Up, 2nd Grade Spelling Bee

Beware!

Check your junk mail and check it carefully.

It has come to my attention that every piece of tree chopping, junk mail that gets sent to you may, in fact, be your one and only chance to spare yourself from an endless cavalcade of promotional text messages. So when I say check your mail, I mean check it with a fine tooth, magnifying glass, because now you need to opt-out to keep your cellphone, in-box free of promotional spam.

What in gawd’s name is ya talkin’ about Cap’n? Well my toothless bootleggers, I’ll tell you. Verizon is making a few “minor” changes to their CPNI (that stands for Customer Proprietary Network Information). A nice acronym, rolls off the tongue really. What is it? Well basically it is your phone number, your call history, your information, and other people’s right to use it for marketing purposes.

And here’s where it starts to smell (a nice, aged Gorgonzola type of smell). What Verizon has done is sent you a mailer that is a long legal looking document, that almost no one in their right mind is going to read (only 2nd year law students, and weirdos who collect newspapers and bits of string). (You can download the document at Moconews.) And here’s the rub. If you fail to find this legal needle in the junk mail haystack you will have, by default, agreed to it. So unless you actually open the letter, comprehend what the F it is talking about, call the 800 number, enter your cellphone number, your billing zip, the last four of your social, and then press nine (or was it two?), you will be IN. And when Verizon, the “IN” network says your in, boy are you in.

The cutest part of the whole thing is that the headline of the document is, “Your privacy is important to us.” Heck yeah it’s important, it’s an extremely important revenue stream is what it is. A veritable untapped pool of cash. And like any good American corporation, V is gonna tap it like sweet mama crude in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. Hell yeah! Screw the caribou! (I know I have)

So , if you don’t opt out within 30 days, it is very likely you’ll start getting text messages with offers you don’t even understand, and if you try to opt out of those you’ll probably just be signing up for others, soon your cellphone in-box will look like you clicked the “send me offers” box on every Viagra and refinance email you’ve ever gotten. It will be ugly. Something like this:

We wouldn’t stand for this type of behavior anywhere else would we? What if the Red Cross took blood from you simply because you didn’t tell them not to. Or if at Red Lobster you were served food before you ordered, merely because you didn’t tell them you wanted to choose for yourself. It’s like having unknown forces above you decide what you will read and when you will read it. It’s like… Holy crap! It’s like Communism. Wait a second… Did unabashed capitalism and dictatorial communism just share a saucy little tongue kiss on a dark country road? Yikes! This can’t be good.

Verizon really nailed it in their ad campaign. Thousands of employees constantly looking over your back and following you everywhere you go. Sounds about right to me. But this is not to pick on Verizon alone. I have heard rumors that AT&T is about to do the same thing. And Cellphone carriers are just the beginning. Here’s what it boils down to. Every single time you absentmindedly click one of those “I Accept” buttons you are placing a bet. You are betting that the company you have just agreed to everything with, has a good conscience. I personally have placed that bet with probably over a hundred companies at least. Now, knowing what I know about the world (which is surprisingly little), I would guess that I have gambled a few too many times.What’s the answer? Tough one. If those lengthy legal statements weren’t in place, we’d all start suing these companies for millions of dollars, just so we could buy our new flat screen and agree to those terms and conditions. And now that they are in place corporations can molest us, and our precious brain space at will. My solution… Impose a Bullshit Tax. 3% will do. This fund will literally be used to pay for the removal of all excess jargon, customer service wait times, frivolous lawsuits, unwanted promotional marketing material, identity theft, trans fats, non-alcoholic beer, mass produced dream catchers, and blogs about Britney.

BTW if you are a Verizon customer I highly recommend you call this number 800.333.9956 and opt out while you still can.

Take a look at some other solid articles written about this issue:

iHack Edge
Telecom Jungle Musings
Lockergnome
Mobile Freak
Embracing Chaos

Hey, just in case you thought I was getting too serious, take a look at this video about what’s going on here at Cellfish.

And by the way, the talented actor who is portraying me (very well I might add) is a paid actor (we gave him $12,000.00 and a foot massage for this role, what a bargain!). I can actually be found in the longer version of the spot on YouTube.com.

Viva la Revulsion!

- Captain Cellfish
Former Exotic Dancer (aka Jazz Octane)

Well it has arrived, Blog Action Day. Over 15,000 bloggers all writing about the same, very important topic, all on one day. Yes, my friends, we are talking about the environment, ol’ mama nature, the humid lady herself, and what we have to say is not good. Between the 70 degree October here in NYC, the drought in California, the brand new raging rivers of Greenland, the all new Canadian wine industry, the Chinese smog, the burning plain states, the mass death of the bumble bees, and all the f-ing garbage, something has to be done.

Now we all know the top ten energy saving tips that are out there (get your florescent bulbs, don’t browse through your fridge, turn down your thermostat, unplug your chargers, etc.). That stuff is all well and good, and will most definitely help the cause, but frankly we need to do more. We need to change the way we think, reprogram the psyche, act more responsible. Will gov’t incentive programs work? Maybe. Will amazing global concerts spark a revolution? Possibly. Will 15,000 blogs do the trick? I sure hope so. But if you really want to know what will make the difference look no further than your mother.

We all know what gets us to act in the end. It’s not personal conviction, or thoughts of responsibility. It’s guilt. Good old fashioned thoughts of disappointing your parents. Hey, it’s worked for Jews and Catholics for a very long time now, so let’s make it work for the planet. So I, Captain Cellfish do hereby launch the, “Guilt the ever lovin’ crap out of them campaign for global change.”

We will start by listing the top five ways to guilt people into conservation.

1. If you ever see someone drop a piece of garbage, hand it back to them and say, “excuse me you dropped something.”

2. When you catch one of your friends being environmentally unconscious, rolls your eyes, sigh and simply say the line, “you disappoint me. I thought you were a better person than that.”

3. If your place of employment doesn’t recycle, go into your CEO’s office, point to the picture of his/her smiling children on the desk and say, “Too bad you’re destroying their future, anyway, how about those TPS reports.”

4. If you catch one of your neighbors, letting his car idle just to cool it down before he/she gets in, say, “I’ll tell the baby polar bear who’s mother you just murdered, that you just wanted to cool off the leather seats in your car before your pristine butt touched the upholstery.”

5. The next time someone tells you how beautiful this 65 degree weather is, even though it’s January, reply with, “Your idle, small talk is akin to global genocide.” Then spit on their shoes.

So that’s it. Through our guilt we will promote change. It’s a relatively simple idea, start the revolution through nagging.

And now here’s where the Captain goes mobile. You, my savvy sexy little readers… I want you all to hit the streets, and take Cell Phone pictures of people who need a good dose of enviro-guilt. Shoot cell phone shots of garbage dumped hither and thither, polluters in action, water being wasted, people having gasoline fights, etc. Then upload them to Cellfish where I will compile a massive list of all things environmentally guilty. I will then print them all out, and turn them into an evening gown that I will wear in front of the White House for no less than 20 days straight, or until the secret service removes. You wanted blog action? You got it.

No but seriously, shoot pictures on your cell phones of the bad guys and send them into Cellfish. We’ll get quite a catalogue going. It will be great. I will post them all on the blog, and we’ll see if we can’t make at least one person feel genuinely crappy about what they’ve done.

Viva la Revulsion!

- Captain Cellfish
Former VP, Oil Exploration, Chevron

Wow, say that one five times fast!

Well friends, another mobile social network has been eaten by Google. Yummy!

You know how Google puts out those cool holiday themed Google home pages? (The ones with the fireworks for the 4th, or the pregnant woman for labor day) They should make a new one where the “G” is a giant mouth eating the littles “o’s”. They could put it up every time they buy another mobile company…  Oh wait, that would be every day.

Yesterday Google bought Finnish, mobile, micro-blogging site Jaiku.com.  This is now their 16th (I think) mobile acquisition this year, and their 2nd within two weeks. (See the amazing post, Google buys Zingku: Mobile Social Networking arrives! ) Don’t quote me on this, but I think Google might just be up to something mobile. I’m not sure, but my spider sense is telling me I may be working in the right field.

Yes, Google obviously knows what we here at Cellfish have known for a while. Just like Thursday is the new Friday, and Bisexual is the new Native American, Cellphones are most definitely the new Internet. Google will not allow itself to do what the record companies did. Google is not about to let technology pass it by. They’ll see your industry predictions and raise you a trend creation. Yes, they not only know what is next, they are going to create what is next, and we here at Cellfish.com thank them from the bottom of our mobile hearts… I’ll tell you, if I could make love to any company out there (without angering my wife) it would most definitely be Google. They’re just so dang sexy.

I would also like to thank Google for making another ridiculously named company disappear. Zingku is gone… Now Jaiku, all they have left to do is buy Flibbertu, Moogumbu, Nippleter, Crinklebonk, and Blibbit, then the world will be spared having to type these inane, meaningless words into their browsers.

Wait a second… Now here’s an idea (my second one this week). As soon as I’m done writing this post I have to call my wife. You see, we’ve been trying to figure out a way for our seven-month-old daughter to start earning some cash (my Cellfish salary of loose change, and left over Cobb salad isn’t quite cutting it). Here’s the idea. My daughter is going to be VP of Strategic Planning for my new Internet Development firm. She’ll name your web site for no less than $75,000.00. She’s just getting warmed up these days with company names like, Gabu.com, Mahwaa.com, and Glurburt.org. All you’ll need to do is buy the domain, then wait two years and Google will purchase you. It’s guaranteed.

No but seriously. Mobile social networking is the next thing, and while the giant internet corporations get their armies ready for battle we here at Cellfish.com urge you all to come and check out what all the fuss is about. Because we do everything those giants are going to do, but we do it NOW!

Anyway, if you’re fed up with my satirical take on this situation, or you just want to find out what Microblogging, or Jaiku is, just read some of these posts, I found them highly informative.

Read/Write/Web

Venture Beat

Network World

Search Engine Land

Josh Kim.org

- Captain Cellfish

VP Marketing, Wumpluv.com