Hey, Macgazmos!
How are things? Have you seen the new iPhone 3GS? A compass? My God, the thing’s a witch!
Me, I’d love one, but the dogs need to eat and peanut butter doesn’t grow on trees.. Well, actually… ANYWAY, I’m broke, so I’m sticking with my iPod touche. I don’t like talking on the phone anyway, and seeing as how I’m unable to be away from email or the Internet for more than 10 minutes without convulsing, the touche does me just fine.
I did, however, upgrade to the 3.0 software. Pretty good deal there, although us steerage folk had to pay $9.95 to get it. Nonetheless, I am impressed. The ability to cut and paste has been sorely missed, as has typing an email in landscape mode. Now when I compose email, I actually LOOK like I’m using some sort of smart phone, even though I’m really a sub-human touche user, snarked to death daily, by you surface-dwelling 3GSers.
But I digress.
I have a iPod touche story for you Apple crunching minions of the one called “Jobs”. It involves me (duh), my touche (double duh) and the NYC transit authority (not so duh). So, here we go…
I’m always on some sort of deadline and I’m always late – My lack of regular posts on this here web portal should be your first clue. So, a few weeks back, I was visiting some friends in NYC and we were to take in a Yankees game at the new Yankees Stadium. I was beyond excited about seeing the new shrine… So excited in fact, that I neglected to write my scripts for that week of comics due into the syndicate. This is a problem as they hate surprises and a week of strips filed without review is a big surprise.
Just before we were about to embark onto the 4 train for said journey to baseball nirvana, my email blips and I have a short, but clear reminder from my editor: “Scripts needed in the next hour”. Crap. Well, sorry, but I ain’t missing a Yankee game for this. My thoughts raced as to what to do. Can I sit at my laptop and eek out six comics in six minutes? No way, Jose. It’ll take my ancient MacBook six minutes just open Word.
Think boy, think.
I could fake a fever, have my wife email and say I’m so sick I’m not even funny, nor could I be funny, even if pumped full of NyQuil. Nah, I’ve used that card too many times. They’d see right though it like grease on a Famous Ray’s napkin.
Just when it seemed all hope of Derek Jeter turning two was lost, I reached into my pocket and pulled out li’l touche (pet name). Of course! I could write the scripts en route. It would be a challenge, the trip is just about 45 minutes… But it could be done. In fact, I was so jazzed by my idea, that it now HAD to be done. If executed correctly, I would be a hero of my industry, able write professional-grade gags from anywhere!
My plan was two fold, I’d finish the line up in the mail app, and because there was no service in the subway, I could attempt a “send” and it would put in the drafts folder, giving me saved copy. When I arrived at the stadium, I’d use their wifi to send the scripts to the syndicate. I could not lose.
A Fake Rockstar writes funny in a subway
Well, it was a lot harder than it sounds. The distractions were many and with only 3 stops from the stadium, I had only 4 days of comics written. There was no way I’d make it… Until we had a God-send… A ten minute track delay got me through the last two and all I had was a quick review and some editing, when we arrived at 161st Street. We walked into the park and into the huge new Grand Hall, where I would attempt my “send” part of the plan. I seached for wifi, using the “wifi track” app. There were a ton of Yankee public wifi options in the list! One after the other… FAILED. None of them worked.
GAH.
The next ten minutes were a blur of experiencing the new, awesome park and frantically trying to find SOMEONE, ANYONE, who could solve my wifi dilemma. Finally, after two mindnumbing loops of the entire park, I found the info desk – right in front the gate we had entered. I explained to the nice young page my problem.
“Oh, the public wifi isn’t online, yet.” She kindly quipped.
DOOM.
I was toast. End of story. I ended up having to send the scripts when we got back into the city, four hours later. My editors were sour, but got over it.
But hey, I used one of the greatest advances in public technology to accomplish something only few would attempt… Nay, DREAM OF attempting.
Clearly, I still rock.
Yours in public comedy, from any venue,
Corey “FRS” Pandolph
