Once upon a time there were phones. These phones plugged into walls and enabled you to correspond with other phone owners. When someone wanted to contact another person with this contraption they dialed a number which in turn, through many technical hijinks, eventually sent a signal to the recipient's phone that caused a little hammer to strike a bell repeatedly, creating a pleasant "ringing" sound.

Well, progress waits for no man, so as soon as phone creators realized they could create this ringing electronically and without moving parts, thus cheaper, the bell and hammer was ditched in favor of a little speaker that created the desired sound. Now that we moved to a speaker, phone makers could experiment with all sorts of sounds, but the majority still opted for the ringing sound or variations of a repetitive electronic "bleat" that was still easily identified as a phone ringing. All was still good in the world.

Then cell phones came along. For a time, people were still locked to what their cell phone vendor wanted you to hear when someone phoned you, but again, progress waits for no man, and soon enough you could choose what you wanted to hear. The things you could choose from were aptly titled "ring tones," as there were tones that sounded like rings, but this too would soon pass.

Somewhere in the early part of the Twenty-First Century, a woman named Missy Elliot would write a song titled "Get Your Freak On," which, I can only assume, sounded just like a phone ringing to some people, because I began to hear it coming out of people's phones in place of the oh-so-familiar ringing sound. The majority of people seemed to still prefer the sound of a phone ringing, but again, this would not stand. As time rolled on more and more people jumped on the "songs instead of rings" bandwagon, the term "ring tone" came to mean nothing, and it has snowballed into our current situation:

There isn't one single actual fucking "ring" sound to choose from on my phone.

My previous phone had the usual plethora of annoying ass songs to choose from, and almost as a tip of the hat by the provider, had one single ring sound appropriately titled "Ring." Well, my company did something to our phone plan which necessitated us getting the newer version of the same phone we had (the Nokia 6010), which in turn had all these snazzy new features, minus the one freaking ring tone I used. Sure, I can pick from classics such as "Just Jazzy," "Tap Dance," "Bee Boogie" or any number scrotum tighteningly bad songs, but there's nary a ring in sight.

What's a boy to do? Well, one option is to go to the now pervasive ring tone purchasing sites on the Internet and simply buy a regular ring tone. What's that? They only sell ring tone versions of current Hip Hop songs and annoying catch phrases? You don't say! How can these sites, which have untold thousands of ring tones not have a single actual ring tone?

Any ideas?

UPDATE: The hand hath been delivered! Please check this update for critical insight and pictures!

Apparently Nintendo has this little contest going with prizes being DS's, DS games, and cash of decremental worth depending on wether you land in first, second, or third place.

The prizes themselves aren't really the point of this post here, but rather the contest itself: take a picture or video of a disembodied hand, freely acquired from Nintendo, in a quirky, funny, or entertaining situation, send it in, and see if the crack smoking people who dreamt this up deem it worthy of praise.

Well, for me, winning a DS pales in comparison to getting a free disembodied Nintendo hand in the mail, even if I never use it for the contest, which I probably won't. I only hope it's the same kind as the ones featured in the creepy ass example videos on the right hand side of the contest's site.

Anyway, getting one seems as simple as registering for a membership at Nintendo.com, then jumping over to TouchingIsGood.com and requesting one with your membership credentials. They don't really say how long it will take or anything, just something along the lines of "ok, we received your request," so I'm not sure I'll even get one, but a man can dream, oh a man can dream.

If there actually is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow I do receive one, you can fully expect a detailed rundown of the hand's qualifications as a piece of kitsch crapola in the coming weeks (months?).

Well, the big day is almost upon us. Brenda's family is starting to trickle in, and everyone keeps asking me if I'm nervous.

If you're at all wondering, yes the picture to your left is the actual location of the wedding at the Celtic monument on the median between West End and Ponchatrain Blvd. I don't know if it has a more formal name other than "that Irish monument thingy," but if it does I sure has hell don't know it.

Now for a bit of back story. There have been a few discrepancies between many things I've heard and read about the spot, but here's the basic gist.

Where West End and Ponchatrain Blvd run now used to be the New Basin Canal, which was apparently extremely useful for getting from the city to the lake during the late 1800's, seeing as the city didn't extend all the way to the lake at the time. It was mainly dug by Irish immigrants, of which around 8k of em got killed off by yellow fever, cholera, and the assorted grab bag of goodies you get from standing waist deep in stagnant water while digging a canal in a mosquito infested swamp.

Anyway, apparently many of them were just sort of buried where they fell, or in the vicinity, I would guess because they were immigrants with no family, but that just my deduction. Around the 1950's the city proper had sprawled all the way to the lake, and cars were getting pretty common so they just filled the damn thing in and built the roads that stand there now.

If I've heard right, at some point in recent history, a Sav-a-Center (or something more local at the time, like Schwegmann's) bought the land up to build a grocery store on. When they went to break ground, lo, they found quite a plethora of grinning skeletons. I'm sure they instantly identified them all as micks what with their boney little fingers clutching whiskey bottles and the like, but this is pure speculation.

From there I gather the land was bought back by the city or whatever civic body owned it, and the monument was erected. This is the story as I know it, and I can't really vouch for its veracity.

In conclusion, come and join us in a good Irish celebration of love and togetherness as we all stand mere feet above the decaying corpses of men who died digging holes in the ground.

(For more info and pictures from the era of the canal's existence, the most informative link I've found would be this one: clickity.)

***UPDATE***

It's going to be at my brother's friend John's house. To get directions, go to http://www.glitch13.com/#######.php where the seven #'s are my phone number without area code or hyphen.

***END UPDATE***

Come one, come all to the Bacchanalian extravaganza that will be known as "Brent's Bachelor Party".

I already am going to be uncomfortable as it is, what with me being the center of attention and all, I'm going to need friends to be there or it's just going to be me and my brother's drunken derelict friends. And strippers.

Don't get all meek on me now, I've been astonished by the lack of experience amongst my friends as far as these events go, and I've already had a few friends drop out because they're scared to live a little. Calm down, the strippers aren't going to grab your bird or call you out. 99% percent of the focus is usually on embarrassing the groom. These things are fairly common, there's nothing to be afraid of.

Anywho, it's this Friday (the 11th) and the more the merrier. Get in touch with me, don't puss out, I'm only getting married once.