This morning while I was slowly killing myself with bobble-headed talk-show television I saw an ad for what I’m sure is the dumbest invention since the automatic pocket-sized Nutwhacker/Eye-Gouger 3000.
Presto works like this, you plug in the power and hook it up to a phone line, and suddenly you’ll be getting emails from your family all the time… or so they would have you believe.
Here are some of the many problems I see with this device:
1) The price. It costs $150 for the thing, and another $10 per month to continue to use it. And if you use it for a year chances are you’re going to have to replace the shitty little print cartridge because the Presto forces you to print out simple emails on elaborately designed and colored templates. So that’s at best another 40 bucks per year. So for about $300 per year you can send your grandparents’ emails whenever you feel like it. You certainly couldn’t spend $300 on POSTAGE STAMPS to write them A GODDAMNED LETTER every now and then. Asshole.
2) Spam. I can hear the conversation now… “Burt. Burt! Why is this man trying to make your penis bigger?”
“Shut up Gertrude! I’m talking to the people at Western Union so we can get our hands on those millions of Nigerian dollars!”
“Burt! Now somebody wants to sell us a replica watch! … And now more pills. And more watches. And another guy wants to send money. And some woman wants to be your semen bucket.”
Their stupid email printer would, at some point, continuously spew emails as long as it was plugged in, wearing out the print cartridge faster, and further alienating your grandparents from technology.
3) Potential for abuse. Besides spam, there’s other potential for abuse, and I’m pretty sure you might already know what I’m talking about. You know that aunt that you have that sends you the stupid chain emails with the deliriously retarded claims about Coca Cola being made with fiberglass, and margarine being one molecule away from styrofoam? And how she never bothers to delete the 17 pages of forwarded addresses? And how she has an email signature comprised of Bible quotes, jingoistic rants, and kitty-cat jpgs that go on for another 6 pages? Yeah, she’s going to be fucking STOKED that she can email the grandparents now, and you can bet that she’ll be cc’ing you on that shit too. I think at this point they’ll probably be burning through new cartridges fortnightly. And because they’re too stupid or lazy to learn how to use a computer, you know they’re going to be to stupid or lazy to change the printer cartridges, so the printer will either be dry heaving out blank pages for months on end, or you’ll be called upon to magically produce a super-proprietary print cartridge every other week.
All of this is not to mention that you can also text-message the account just like any other email account. So when your bratty 15 year old cousin gets on her Crackberry and texts everyone on her contact list that, “OMG i totalee kised a boi 2nite and he touchd my boob n now i gotta change my pants” you can be assured that your grandparents get that message too. Because I’m sure your grandparents would much rather see a soulless piece of paper being spewed out of their email printer that reads, “hapy xmas gma + gdad” as opposed to an actual phone call. You know what? With grandkids like you, they’re probably already planning on celebrating Christmas with the complete contents of their medicine cabinets.
4) Finally, Presto is being marketed to folks who are too technologically resistant to actually use a computer to get email, so why are all the controls, options, and settings for Presto web-based? “Shit, I can’t use email, but I downloaded Firefox, installed some plugins, and now I’m messing around with the sourcecode on my new blog about how regular my bowel movements have become. Oh, and I set up all that Presto shit too. God, I hate email.”
And who the fuck is going to be emailing these people? All their other geriatric friends will have their goddamned Prestos too, so they sure as shit won’t be emailing each other. The only people who will be emailing will be family, and nothing says “we don’t give a shit about you liver-spotted old coots” more than giving them a device that makes it easier for you to not pick up the phone or stop by to say “Hi”.
I hereby decree that anyone who buys this for a friend or family member is a self-serving asshole who is also retarded. You wanna fight about it?
