Nokia BLADE a Painful Tech Hit

arents’ groups and otologists alike are up in arms over Nokia’s latest entry into the increasingly cutthroat cell phone market, the Nokia BLADE, an innovative new cell-phone/pocket knife combination that offers users with limited pocket space the best of both gadgets in one sleek package.

“We think the BLADE will be a hit with consumers who are tired of carrying a cell phone and a big, bulky knife everywhere they go,� explained Nokia spokesperson Dalton Hughes. “Or also with people who are sick of having to switch hands to go between talking and cutting tasks.�

“This phone is da bomb!� gushed teen Roger Salmong, bleeding profusely from the ear. “When I’m not hollering with my homies, I can cut shit!�

In spite of a generally positive reaction among consumers, the new phone has raised the ire of parents’ groups who had a hard enough time getting their kids off the phone for family time even before it became a handy cutting implement.

“I thought it was hard to keep Stacey from bringing her cell phone to the dinner table before,� lamented housewife Greta Thomas. “But now she says she needs it to cut her pork chops. What do you say to that?�

Otologists, or “ear doctors� to the unwashed masses, also take issue with the new phone, citing a sharp spike in the rate of ear contusions being reported in hospital emergency rooms since the phone’s release last month.

“It really is a serious problem,� explained a bashful Dr. Dennis Loham, sporting a large white bandage covering his left ear. “You think you’d have to be stupid to forget to retract the phone’s folding blade before trying to take an incoming call, but it really is easy to space out on it. In my office alone, we’ve seen—hold on, I have to take this. Hel—oh sweet fucking Jesus, not again!�

The rise of multipurpose phones in recent years has concerned parents nationwide to varying degrees, having a large impact on concerned parents, yet hardly any at all on alcoholics or other individuals who give less than a shit about their children. For concerned parents, however, the thought of their children carrying a telephone, web browser, video game console, digital camera, personal data organizer and MP3 player around in their pockets has unsettling ramifications. Some even remained concerned after the commune explained that all of these functionalities were packed into a single small cell phone, not a large assortment of bulky devices likely to damage a child’s expensive church slacks. Others needed an explanation of what an MP3 was, or wanted to know if their phone at home could take pictures.

The small handful of parents who understand both the technology and its ramifications share concerns about giving children and teens unsupervised access to the Internet, violent video games, or scary futuristic Herbie Hancock music via their cell phones. Now that a sharp, ridged blade has been added to their list of concerns, many parents are considering drastic measures. The most appealing of these involves sending their children to military school, where they’ll at least learn to handle a knife/phone, and will stop carving “FART� into the banister out in the hallway.

The Nokia BLADE retails for $149 and is available in blood-masking red, surgical silver and camouflage.

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OH MY GOD SNOW

A Note From Emil: For all you true commune addicts out there like me, I discovered something fantastic! As you probably know, columnist Rok Finger has had a long and storied career in publishing even before he became a commune staple—so I was delighted to find a stack of old Fingers in a collection of my neighbor’s old Wah Wah Adult Men’s Magazines. Apparently he wrote there for quite some time. So sit back and satisfy yourself with old Finger. I can’t wait to read it myself… it looked surprisingly current, but I’m saving it to read once it’s in print.

Good gentlemen and ladies who read Wah Wah, I’d like you to take a break from your intense visual arousal long enough to talk politics, specifically, the Middle East. You may think everything in the Middle East is terrorists and jihads at this point, but I’d like to assure you we’re in good hands: The hands of a young man named Osama Ben Laden.

Who? You may not know that name, but you certainly should. While other young Muslims are running around strapping bombs to themselves and charging as much as $10 a barrel for oil, Osama Ben Laden and men like him are making the Middle East safe for democracy.

For ten years, Ben, as I like to call him, and other faithful Muslims have been fighting against the deadliest threat ever known to America: the communist Soviet Union. Their good soldiering and guerilla tactics have made Afghanistan a most unwelcome home for the Russkies, and finally, in February 1989, week-kneed smilin’ Red Mikhail Gorbachev pulled the last one of this commies from Afghanistan. Lesson learned: It may take you a long time, but the most earnest and well-trained army can bring down the biggest enemy!
We Americans should be extra proud, because thanks to Presidents Reagan and Carter, Operation: Cyclone helped train these proud sons of the Arab world. That’s our tax dollars bringing us safety in the Middle East for generations to come. It would have been easy to finance the less extremist groups, or even send our own troops in to stand up for our interests, but as the old adage goes, do you want it done right or do you want it done quickly? As Americans know, there’s only one answer to that.

I met up with Ben and some of his buddies after a late-night meeting of their elite gentlemen’s club, and I found him quite a surprise, even for a Middle Eastern commie-killer. For one thing, he’s not like any Joe Muhammad off the street—he’s not even from Afghanistan, but from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That makes no never mind to Ben: "You can’t sit back and watch an infidel disgrace a fellow Islamic stronghold. Do you mind getting your feet off my Quran?"

He’s right, and I did. More than that, ol’ Ben is the son of a billionaire! That’s right, he comes from big oil money, and there’s few bigger than Mohammed Ben Laden where Ben comes from, the U.S.-friendly country of Saudi Arabia. His dad was worth $5 billion, at least before he died in 1967 in a plane piloted by an American. Just think about that: Here’s a guy who has every reason to hate Americans, but he’s fighting for our side. You gotta admire that.

Instead of wasting away his multi-million dollar inheritance on fast cars and publishing adult magazines, Ben put his talents to learning the art of justified war, and his money to training fellow soldiers. But never forget a lot more money comes from us, champs!

When I sat down to talk with Ben, he was a very imposing figure, standing at 6’4" (almost twice my height) and weighing in at a solid 102 lbs. You wouldn’t want to see that coming at you across a battlefield. He expressed his fondness for having several wives and Wah Wah magazine, particularly articles like "What Do You Get With Too Much Tit?" and their annual Vintage Anal issue.

Asked what he thinks of America, he smiled coyly. "How could you not like a country where everything is owned by the Jew and women in bikinis are made CEOs?" I couldn’t agree more. I’m not sure which Jew he’s talking about, I’ll have to ask my contact Saul Bergoweitz if he knows anything. I also wouldn’t mind finding out more about this bikini CEO.

So hear that, Saddam Hussein: Your invasion of Kuwait has no friend in Osama Ben Laden. Better watch your step, or you’ll find yourself on the wrong end of that Russian-made assault rifle.

I had to leave Ben, and thanked him for our interview with some backissues of Wah Wah and other dirty magazines I used purely for research purposes. I also helped feed his interest in American architecture by supplying the pictures he requested of the World Trade Center buildings. I was anxious to get back home to my longstanding wife, Arvelyn, and see what she looked like in a burqa.

But for those of you terrified of a war with Saddam Hussein’s boys, let me ease your minds: We have nothing to fear from Iraq as long as boys like Osama Ben Laden are in the Middle East.

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Nedwrinkle Nedmiller has a dream, ladies and gentlementarians. It is a dream that one day a giant mouse will come to town driving a fire truck, and everyone will give that mouse money, but Nedmiller will be out of money. Ned spent all his money buying cream pies to throw at the governor on the Eve of Meringue, a holiday tradition that goes back as far as the settlin' days, when the wild coyotes played Frisbee in the prairies and them prairie dogs done pushed a couch into the river and nobody can get their undershorts washed for Sunday churchin' because of it. Goddamn them prairie dogs.

In this dream Nedmonkey's got no cash to be givin to the fire-truck driving mouse, and is feeling right ashamed because of it. The rest of the town is having a grand old time, giving the firetruck mouse their tens and twenties, their fives and their rare commemorative eight dollar bills that were minted so folks wouldn't have to break a twenty when they're renting rollerskates for the annual Holy Molar-Rink skating party to promote good teeth and God and all. Though Ned always had to break a 20 anyways since he liked to get his skates sharpened and his incisors capped on a yearly basis.

So every damned body is forking over their greenbacks to the fire-truck driving mouse, little kids be smashing open their pigglybanks with little newborn puppies and women older than Union Steel are prying open them change purses to fling their buffalo nickels at the mouse. And there's Nedrumple, penniless and excluded, feelin' like a polo jockey on prom night.

So Ned hops on the back of a pair of safety scissors that're waltzin down the street, and rides them lefties to Giant Land, where things is bigger than average. Ned sneaks into a giant's house and steals himself a gigantic mousetrap from the giant's attic. On the way out, Ned hears a boomin' voice speak out "Feeb Flies Fort Fumes! I Smell the Cologne of an Old Spice Man!" but Nedrip is purely an ambergris kind of Nedmiller so the biggun must've been speaking to another tiny man come visiting from the Land of Average-Sized Things. Anyhow, t'was not Ned's concern so he made his way back home via a hole in the Time-Life Conundrum, picking up some butterfly milk on the way home.

Once back in the Land of Things Not So Large, Ned set up them giant mouse-trap in the middle of Rhubarb street, aimin' to teach that giant mouse a lesson about comin' to town and acceptin' money from everybody on days when Nedro was flush out of funds. Ned was about to think up a brilliant plan to lure them mouse into them hinged contraption of doom when out of nowhere the governor came running up to see if the mouse would take Mastercard. The gov'ner done stepped in one of Ned's cream pies, which stuck to his shoe and he stumbled right into the giant mouse trap, which cut him in half like a giant fellow bent on making a meal of governors.

It was as tragic a scene as Ned has been witness to in the last three-quarters of an hour, but when that trap came down on the governor, just before he was divided into two equal half-governors, he let out a squeak just like a giant mouse would be expected to do, resulting in such comedy that Ned and the giant mouse laughed themselves half silly. Having bonded so completely, Ned and the giant mouse went and sat on top of the great pyramid and ate giant flavored gumdrops, best friends from that day forward. Until moments later when Ned was woken up quite unexpectedly by crabs a-nibblin' on his toes and the dreamtime was done. Ned Nedmiller has this dream.

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