cheap and tiny

When I think Bluetooth, I think of that time when I was a kid when little Sammy Horsenphifer next door got hit in the mouth by a runaway hubcap. We were playing in the middle of the street, mostly because my Aunt (who I was staying with for the summer) was being particularly irritable that time and suggested to my six-year old self that I “go out and play in traffic”, which I felt was a strange request, but whatever. So there we were, in the middle of road, running around and pushing a robin egg we had found (and had thoroughly hard-boiled) with a bit of wood, when a car drove down the road. We moved out of the way and waited by the road for the car to pass by. Then, before we knew what was happening, the car rolled over a small rock in the road and one of its hubcaps flew off.

The hubcap zipped through the air and struck Sammy square in the mouth! He flew back a few feet and landed loudly onto the pavement, twitching violently. I froze; I didn’t know what to do. I thought, my god, who’ll I play with in the neighborhood now? Jenny Pitchmeyer down the block is kind of a spaz, and Brandon Puttle on 3rd Street eats his head lice. I quickly snapped out of my daze and started to run back into the house to call for help. But as I passed Sammy’s shaking body I noticed something strange. I carefully inched forward to take a closer look. His mouth was blue! I thought it was going to be red, since the hubcap slammed into his front teeth pretty hard. But it wasn’t.

That was when I realized that Sammy was a robot, and after his parents sent him in for repairs, we had lots more fun the rest of the summer.

Buy the Motorola HS820 Bluetooth Headset for $35.

Ever wanted one of those Palm Treo thingies but were too cheap to pick one up that didn’t fall off the back of a truck? Opt instead for a smaller, less-known brand from a company that stands the most to gain by pushing out cheap, reliable products! The Sierra Wireless Voq Smart Phone is currently on sale for $125, down from $599.99 *slaps side of face*. Well, I can’t actually vouch for Sierra Wireless since I’ve personally never used them, but considering that you can get yourself a smart phone for the less than two Benjamins, we’d say take the plunge if you’ve got the funds. Then again, it’s not our money, so you do whatever you want. Still looks like a good deal though.

Ah, screw it. Just buy it already! You know you want it!

Me: (thinking) Wow, this looks like such a good deal. Maybe I should just keep it to myself…

Winged Purveyor of Evil: You really should keep it to yourself! Those ninnies who buy your things don’t care about you! They don’t. They’re ninnies!

Winged Purveyor of Goodness: Don’t listen to him. He’s a bad man and he doesn’t know what’s good for you!

WPE: Eh, what do you know you anal spelunker!

WPG: You must do goo…wait, what did you call me?

WPE: Nothing.

WPG: No, you called me an anal spelunker.

WPE: So what if I did?

WPG: Well, that’s a really mean thing to say, now isn’t it?

WPE: Well, what’d you expect?

WPG: I expected at least some gentlemanly manners from you, you cad!

WPE: Cad? CAD? Is that the best you can do? What the hell does that even mean?

WPG: You always do this! You always make fun of my comebacks! Why do you always have to be so hurtful when we have discussions? I knew mother was right when she said…

WPE: Oh, for &@$* sake, don’t bring your mother back into this!

WPG: I very well will bring up my mother anytime I please. She warned me you’d be like this! She said, “Barbra, you have to watch out for that man of yours. He’ll be a handful considering what that job of his is like…”

WPE: There you go again, raggin’ on my job. I told you I’m under a training program!

WPG: What? For eight years?!

WPE: So what, you want me to quit? How do you expect to keep yourself in these fancy robes of yours?

WPG: I already have a JOB!

WPE: You’re a $%&*@^ volunteer, for $%&*’s sake!

WPG: Stop it! Stop swearing! I don’t want to talk about it. You don’t love me! I want a DIVORCE!

The lack of a screen and space for roughly a dozen albums may not instantly draw anyone to buy an iPod Shuffle despite what other qualities Stevey boy may boast about. Factually speaking, five dollars off probably won’t do it either, however the inclusion of extra peripherals might change your mind, most especially if you’re already on the fence about becoming a part of the Borg faction known as the Mac masses. With that, Mac Mall is giving away Sony SRS-T33S portable speakers and a Belkin FM transmitter after rebate to sweeten the deal.

Think of it. Now you can listen to all those locked music files you impulsively bought off iTunes instead of going through the hassle of burning CD after CD and reimporting them. Join the so-called Apple revolutionist movement today! Resist the urge to be uncool and own an iPod. I mean, do you really want to bump uglies with all those other egregiously uncool MP3 players forever?

Cheapskates, 10-year olds, and voyeurs may take pleasure in the knowledge that they can have their own digital camera for not much more than a full tank of gas. RadioShack’s 3-in-1 DC-141C 1.3 MP Digital Camera can take pictures and video and act as a webcam, features that would normally be valid selling points if every single digital camera on the market today didn’t already do those things. It is, however, a great throwaway camera for those dangerous trips you’ve always wanted to take to places like the Congo or Flint, Michigan. Plus, it’s blue, which would not only go really well with that gunmetal shade of the handgun you just purchased (for security reasons, no doubt), but its high visibility will ensure ample distraction for your assailant when you throw it at him, giving you precious time to pull out your weapon* for some well-deserved street justice.
So before you bust a cap in some punk, bust out your wallet for this deal. It could very well save your life.

*Cheap and Tiny does not condone violence in any way, shape, or form. The guns in our possession are strictly for ornamental purposes and for getting us into bangin’ hip-hop parties.

What can we say about the Panasonic SV-SW20A 128MB Digital Audio Player? It’s an MP3 player that also handles WMA, has a built-in FM receiver, and comes with a pair of behind-the-ear headphones. It’s also got a monochromatic display which (obviously) lets you check what song’s on, which would really be neat if I wasn’t illiterate. And a liar. And really greedy.

So imagine you’re walking down the street and some guy shouts at you, saying “Mm mmm, girl! Where you been keeping that jelly this whole time? I swears I gots to get me some of that!” And then you say, “Why you gotta do that? Be all disrespectin’ and s***?” And then he says, “Woman, I just lookin’ at the fine piece of art tha’ chu are!” And then you retort, “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” And then you give him your number.

See how easy it was to waste two minutes of your time?

So you’re in your car, you’re ready to head down to the Chez Jolie by the coast for a weekend of meditation, self-examination, and maybe an hour or two of wanton debauchery, and all of a sudden you’re struggling with the wires on your MP3 player and then you’re flying off the mountain face at 60mph. Not a very romantic image, you have to agree; somehow the whole screaming fit headed down the cliff ending with the explosion and subsequent gasoline plume would kinda sorta kill the mood. Keep yourself and your mistress alive and membered with the HP Tunecast II by Belkin for HP iPod and Apple iPod, an FM transmitter that allows you to listen to your music without the hassle of life-ending wires. End the tyranny of wired connections today!

There once was a man
Who thought as he ran
For the bus down the street
Could he speak on the can?

The toilet he considered
Grimy and littered
His hands were filthy!
He exclaimed with a twitter.

A headset he bought
From Amazon he sought
Affordable it was
A deal he had caught.

And so you buy it now
Buy buy now now now
We want your money
You buy you buy now.

You might be wondering, what’s so special about this watch that would make us place it on the front page of Cheap and Tiny? Can it tell your future as well as the time of day? Does it schedule your day for you, even if you really have nothing planned? Does it remind you to eat your vegetables and then send you off to bed without dessert for refusing? Can it rid the world of hunger, poverty, and Joan Rivers? Is it the reigning symbol for peace in countries that still endure mass genocide and Machiavellian forms of government? Or is it the one final message from the Powers That Be to get our lives back in order or risk eternal damnation? It could be. It very well could be, my friend. Yes, it could be.

Given all the current types of monitors out on the market, the one with the best quality image is still the classic CRT monitor. Granted, the ridiculous things weigh slightly more than two pre-rehab Mary-Kate Olsens, but most of us are willing to suffer our LAN (Local Area Network to all you non-geeky types) parties just to be able to save money that we’d rather use to upgrade our video cards and RAM (Random Access Memory, technophobes).

So, for those who would rather break their backs than be pwned by some n00b (beaten by a novice) with a faster rig, we propose an easier, gentler way to work yourself up to permanent back problems. Check out the GearGrip CRT Monitor Carrier. It’ll at least make the trip from your crappy car to the rank confines of QuakeCon a lot more bearable.