This is the curator’s corner; a place where I express my own thoughts about whatever crosses my mind. The jokes are much more fun to read. This section of the site can safely be ignored.
So here lately, a YouTube channel has been promoting a new sponsor called, “Visible”. They are offering something that I thought seemed very compelling. Unlimited text, talk, and 5Mbps data including hotspot for $40 a month. Unlimited!
OK, so this sounds like a damn good solution to my problem. 5Mbps is actually good enough to stream YouTube or Netflix without any trouble. Sure, if you’re downloading the entire internet while trying to stream video, you’re going to have a bad time, but just by itself, 5Mbps will stream good quality video without buffering, and $40 a month is right in my comfort zone.
So it looks like I found my perfect wireless ISP. Problem solved. I guess I won’t have to bitch and complain about this anymo- oh no, no, no… They’re not quite the promised land I was looking for, and I wouldn’t be ranting about it, would that it were so simple.
First of all, it’s through Verizon’s network (not that that’s a bad thing), and none of my devices are compatible with their service. OK, so let’s get their cheapest device for $99 and oh… the hotspot is only available through their app and limits the connection to one device at a time. A proprietary hotspot? I got a bad feeling about this.
Also, they’re still in their early access phase… So they aren’t ready for primetime anyway. It’s a startup, funded by Verizon, manned by former Verizon employees, trying to pass themselves off as the hip new MVNO that’s actually just a front for Verizon.
Of course I guess it depends on how much streaming you do over your phone. I use Mint Mobile’s $20/month plan with 8GB of (much faster) LTE data and unlimited talk and text, and I’m just fine with that because I’m not constantly watching videos on my phone. On the other hand, if I were regularly streaming audio/video on my phone, I could see this unlimited 5Mbps service being a very attractive offer.
So while I’ll keep an eye on this one, it looks like they tainted their service enough to make using it as an ISP problematic at best. On the other hand, if they ever package their 5Mbps as a wireless home ISP for $40 a month, I’m in.
It’s the little things, and in this case the very little things. I just wasted five #$%^ing hours trying to fix the dot over the ‘i’. Let me explain. You might have noticed the font used in the comic is unique to this comic. That’s because I spent way too much of my free time building my own custom font using a program called “Fontforge”.
So when I redid the panel templates for 2019, I used different sizes of fonts and noticed the larger the font size, the more the dots over the i’s looked a little off. I did some manual tweaking and resizing in the bitmap editor, but I didn’t want to mess with the hassle of editing the font itself.
Fast forward a few months, and it was still bugging me… Just look at the “i” in the “Twice” in the page header. Why is that dot so small? Basically, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. This needed to be fixed.
There were a few other problems with the font as well. The dash was too long, the copyright symbol was not proportional, and other minor things I felt needed a tweak. Since there had been an OS reinstall since the last time I work on my font, I had to install the latest version of Fontforge before I could start editing.
Oh the joy. This latest version of Fontforge insisted my font had errors. It proceeded to #$%^ up a few of the letters like ‘b’, ‘e’, and ‘q’. It took me three hours to fix everything. It bitched and complained about anything else it could whenever I tried to generate the font. Finally, after I got rid of all the errors and glitches, I generated the font, and then for some reason, the font would not work.
The #$%^ing font would not work.
First of all, Fontforge is a travesty of a font editor. Looks like something designed for Windows 1.0. It’s about as intuitive as reading a technical manual written in Jenglish. While I would never have been able to create my font without the program, I still want to hunt down the program designer and beat them with a pool noodle.
I spent another two hours pouring over everything on that font. Finally I realized I was generating the font into the wrong format that my bitmap editor couldn’t even read. Ugh! I’m such a bonehead! I changed it to “Truetype”, and magically the problem was solved.
I just spent five #$%^ing hours trying to fix the dot over the “i”, and nobody in the entire #$%^ing world will give a shit.
What am I doing with my life?
Kudos
These jokes don’t write themselves, and they probably weren’t written by George or darkmare either. Nevertheless, they sent in the jokes that you’ll be reading this week, so thanks goes out to them for the help they’ve given me. If you want to help out, please go to our submission page, or add flush2x@gmail.com to your list of recipients when you share jokes with friends and coworkers. Every bit helps!
Time sure flies when you’re working overtime. I desperately needed it too. After being sick for two weeks, I really missed that sweet, sweet O.T. on my paychecks.
Don’t get me wrong, I still get paid time off where I work, so I’m not quite destitute, but there’s no overtime on the P.T.O. checks, and I really like the extra money.
I heard some financial adviser say this decades ago: “If you earn more than you spend, budgeting isn’t necessary.” Of course, the trick is to earn more than you spend, which under normal circumstances is nigh impossible, but when you get lots of overtime, you spend less because you’re at work, and you make more, because you are at work. Win, win!
And what about work life balance? Well, if the checkbook isn’t balanced, then my life is going to be way out of balance, and working overtime brings it back into balance.
But seriously… if I ever get ahead, I’ll try to set aside some extra “me” time. Meanwhile, I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go.
Kudos
Jokes were contributed by two individuals known as George and darkmare this week. It’s something that cool people do. If you want to be a cool person, submit a joke by using our submission page, or e-mail your jokes to flush2x@gmail.com. Stay cool!
So for the past couple of weeks, you might recall that I was suffering from a mild case of Captain Trips. Suffice to say, I’ve recovered, so let’s move on.
One of my perennial rants is my home internet connection, and there’s been some incremental developments that I thought I would expound upon here today. Back at the end of January, Mint Mobile increased their 10Gb data plan to 12Gb. That’s 12Gb of 4G/LTE data for $25* per month. I use two of those plans for my home internet, so I get 24Gb for $50* per month… Which is less than the non-promotional rate that Spectrum charges ($65.99) for their unbundled 100/10 internet.
(*Full disclosure: To get the $25/month price you actually have to pay for a full year in advance which is really $300/year, and if you get 2 of them, that’s a whopping $600! It’s a bit of a commitment, and honestly I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really hated your landline internet provider.)
Quick backstory: I used to bounce back and forth between DSL and cable whenever they raised prices, and prices ranged between $25 and $50 per month. After the shitheads at Spectrum bought out Time Warner Cable, they jacked up my internet from $40 to $60 per month. They claimed the promotional 12 month rate had passed, but that was a lie. My promotional rate of $30 had run out the prior year.
After canceling Spectrum, I was further shocked to discover that AT&T would no longer allow for new signups for DSL in my neighborhood. Left feeling cornered and violated by a twisted power drunk monopoly, I was forced to tether my mobile phone’s data plan while I sought out possible options.
I ended up buying a T-Mobile hotspot device and plan. It was $50/month for 10Gb of 4G/LTE data. The plan advertised that you would get 3G data after you used up your 4G data, but the store kind of did a bait and switch, and it was really just 2G data speeds, which is highly limited in its usefulness.
Not long after, I discovered Mint Mobile, an MVNO that uses T-Mobile’s network. They offered the same deal but at half the price of T-Mobile, and their SIM card would work in my hotspot device. Fast forward to today, and I’ve got a better hardware setup and 2 Mint Mobile SIM cards that get rotated every 15 days.
How’s the speed? Not bad. Online bandwidth tests are unreliable for mobile data, but I can easily watch 1080p videos with no buffering. I’m guessing it varies between 15 to 45Mbps. The bigger problem is things using up bandwidth when I don’t want it to. I’m paying for each Gigabyte, so speed is NOT a problem. The data plan limit— that’s still the biggest problem.
One of the most important things you have to do is to find and use every trick in the book that minimizes data usage, and that can take some getting used to. I’m talking about watching YouTube videos at 240p, using Chrome’s “Data Saver” feature, using ad blockers, video blockers, and realizing that some sites just aren’t worth it. If you can’t budget very well, this is not the plan for you.
I also look to augment my data whenever possible. Mint occasionally has these promotions where you can get 3 months of their 8Gb plan for just $20. That’s an extra 8Gb/month at 84¢/Gb! Woohoo! I bought one last December, and I just got another one Thursday. When they’re used up, I just toss’em out.
Weirdest quirk— Mint Mobile’s IP addresses default to locating me in Philadelphia even though I live in Dayton. Online shopping and search results that localize their content frequently show me non relevant results, and sadly, YouTube TV won’t let me sign up for their service until I “get home”.
What about reliability? I realize that the T-Mobile network is frequently criticized for not having the best coverage, but I have a connection that has proven itself to be incredibly stable and reliable. I’ve got a computer, a netbook, 6 smart bulbs, 2 echo dots, and a cellphone. None of them ever complain about their connection.
What’s the biggest inconvenience? Mint Mobile 4g/LTE plans only go up to 12Gb/month. If you need more data, you could pay them $20 for a 3Gb extension which is crazy-expensive, or you could buy a separate plan and swap out the SIM cards like I do.
Swapping the cards isn’t exactly hard, but it’s not particularly convenient either, and while my modem doesn’t seem to mind the frequent swaps, its obvious that frequent swapping was never the intent of the design. I’m currently on the lookout for a better system, but honestly I just wish that Mint Mobile would provide higher data plans or allow users to share their data plans among multiple SIMs.
So for right now, it would seem that $2.08/Gb is the cheapest LTE data that doesn’t require a contract, restrict how you use it, or force you to buy into “family plans”. Let me know in the comments below if there are any other deals that I should be aware of because I believe people need alternatives to the price gouging monopolies that Americans are forced to contend with.
One last note: All of Mint Mobile’s plans are technically “unlimited”. After you use up the 4G/LTE data, your internet speed drops down to 2G speed which is a hard maximum of 128kbps. It’s hit or miss as to whether or not a website is usable at that speed. Sites like Flush Twice will still load just fine, but the moment any site tries to use audio or video, you might as well hang it up.
Hey, I hope you found this week’s “rant” interesting. While I always manage to put something up here every week, I actually put some effort into this one. Oh, and Spectrum, if you’re reading this: Go fuck yourselves you price jacking fuckers, and you can shove your overpriced “bundles” up your arseholes too.
Kudos
We have new jokes this week thanks to George and darkmare. Their selfless contributions lead to your laughter. You could be a part of our contributing team by using our submission page, or e-mail jokes to flush2x@gmail.com. Have a great week!
I had to go to the doctor’s to be put on a nebulizer this past week. While I’m starting to move towards recovery, my bronchitis has been particularly nasty. It was trying to turn into pneumonia, which is basically a death sentence to a fat middle aged guy like me.
So will I live? Hell, I don’t know. My shits still all fucked up, and it hurts to inhale. I’ve coughed so much, it damaged my lungs, and now I’m coughing up foam. Google it. It’s not a good sign.
Any good news? Well, you’ll get five new jokes this week. I’d say that’s some pretty good news. Other than that… No.
Kudos
Of course daily jokes would either suck or not exist if it weren’t for contributors like George and darkmare. Thanks for sending the jokes. If you’re a fan of this site and would like to help out, please send jokes to our submission page, or drop me an e-mail at flush2x@gmail.com. Thanks for being awesome!
It was round about late Tuesday morning when I felt that nagging little irritating spot in my sinus cavity. Like when a piece of dandelion fluff goes up your nose, and you can’t get it out. Not even sixteen hours later, my entire throat was on fire, and I would be staying home from work that day.
A day an a half later, it was clear that the shit had settled into my bronchioles. Every breath would crackle and wheeze with the sound of mucous. I coughed so much, I thought my throat might tear open, leaving me to drown in my own blood. Somehow I survived.
Do you want to know the most amazing thing about this rapid onset of bronchitis? It’s the fact that I haven’t had bronchitis in over nine years! I used to get this stuff once or twice a year, but back in 2010, I started vaping, and a year and a half later I had smoked my last cigarette.
Over time, I had stopped coughing up lung butter every morning in the shower. Of course I had a few colds here and there, but it never settled into my chest like this one just did.
Now these days I know how fashionable it is to shit all over vaping and criticize how it’s getting young kids hooked on nicotine with fruity flavors, but the harsh reality is they would have been smoking “Black and Milds” or “Kool” cigarettes otherwise.
I hardly vape anymore. I fill my tank maybe once every two weeks… Maybe. I charge the battery about as often. I keep it around more as a security blanket than as an actual daily habit. Whether I’m using it or not, I’d like to continue to hang onto it if it’s all the same, thank you.
But this past week my new found superpower had failed me, and my throat is a raw, soar snot coated tube of flesh that reminds me just how delicate the balance is for health and wellness.
Stay healthy.
Kudos
George and darkmare continue their generous roles in providing jokes for our enjoyment. Of course anyone can contribute by using our submission page, or sending an e-mail to flush2x@gmail.com. Thank you for your support.
Some of you have been wondering, “So what happened? Why don’t you credit Glenn anymore?” In short, nothing. Glenn still sends me jokes, but I don’t use them. Honestly, he keeps sending me the same jokes, over and over and over again, and either I’ve already used them, or the jokes are so bad that I could not even entertain the notion of including them in the collection. (Seriously, they are just head-scratchingly bad.)
I’ve mentioned this site to Glenn numerous times before, but he’s an old friend who has never even bothered to visit Flush Twice. He’s kind of a refugee from the ancient times of AOL, and I think he gets the bulk of his material through Facebook these days.
Most of the older jokes on this site were contributed by him, and if the joke was particularly raunchy, it was probably one that Glenn sent me. He also sends me vulgar and politically incorrect comics, pictures of naked women, and links to videos that would make Benny Hill blush.
But there have been many contributors that I have never credited over the years. Dan, Darrin, James, Justin, Kenny, and many more. I never hear from them these days, and some of them, like Kenny are no longer with us.
While it’s been technically possible to give individual credits for the jokes, even the people contributing the jokes didn’t personally write them, and generally the people I know don’t want their names showing up in public places, much less placed along side material that could possibly be taken offensively.
I can understand that. Up until 2008, I didn’t even feel comfortable enough to sign my own comics, and it was not until 2016 that I signed my comics with my full name… Though technically my first name is actually Dietrich. It’s a name that has been shortened much like you would shorten Matthew to “Matt”, Johnathon to “John”, Albert to “Al”, or Timothy to “You’re a fucking asshole, Tim.”
So we digressed a little bit, but in case anyone was worried, Glenn is doing fine, and he still sends me jokes… Just not any new jokes.
Kudos
Speaking of people providing me with jokes: It’s still darkmare and George providing the jokes for this week. Some of them are pretty good as well! You can send me jokes to be featured on Flush Twice by using our submission page, or just fire off an e-mail to flush2x@gmail.com. As always, your contributions are greatly appreciated. Thank you.
So by now, it should be warming up, but this past week, the Midwestern United States saw some rather low temps, and a lotta snow. On Friday I could have literally taken a snowmobile to work. It’s winter here, and it’s normal to have this.
Honestly, I remember it being a lot snowier in the past. Although Ohio didn’t see the worst of it, the blizzard of ’78 was pretty big. It was typical for us to get a lot of snow in the winter, and I frequently went skiing at the local ski resorts as a kid. Of course these days it’s snowing one week, and raining the next. One minute the temperatures are below zero and the next thing you know, it’s 50°F. It’s chaotic.
One good thing. My heating bill isn’t as high as it used to be.
Hmmm…
Kudos
Fortunately, darkmare and George are still on the job! They generously contributed this week’s jokes. To put it another way: If they weren’t still sending jokes to Flush Twice, there wouldn’t be any new jokes to read. I still take time to do the comic and these rants, but I got a lot of other things to take care of, so it really helps me out to have people sending jokes to our submission page, or use the old fashioned email system and mailto:flush2x@gmail.com. Contributions are much appreciated.
Maybe some of you will recall… About a decade ago I was about to be deployed to Iraq when a medical issue came up. I tried to minimize it, but the Army wasn’t taking any chances and shipped me back home. I had to have surgery to fix it, and I thought everything would be OK… Then another medical issue popped up… Or rather out. I had an umbilical hernia than required another surgery. And for some reason my recovery wasn’t going very well. My health really started taking a nose dive, and that’s when a blood test revealed I had a very severe case of hypothyroidism.
About 6 months later an endocrinologist did some more blood tests to find out I was suffering from a rather nasty case of Hashimoto’s disease. This isn’t like that chubby emo girl’s thyroid condition where she uses it to whine and complain every g–damn day of her life. The blood tests were quite clear that I have a severe autoimmune response to thyroid, and the doctors don’t hold back at throwing thyroid prescriptions at me. I have to take about 300mcg of levothyroxine every day in case you’re wondering. Sometimes I switch over to Naturethroid, but for now it’s the synthetic T4.
There is no cure for autoimmune disease, and for the most part I just go on with life… But every once in a while I’ll have one of those “Hashi Flare Ups”, and it will just ruin my fucking week. Every g–damn joint is on fire. Moving is hell. My neck is tender, I swell up like a tick, and my head feels like it’s about to explode… Or rather it was. It started to clear up Saturday.
I’ll be OK, but man I hate this shit.
Kudos
Well, it seems that our mystery contributor last week was none other than “darkmare”. So thank you darkmare for the jokes, and thanks for using the submission page. Also the usual thanks goes out to George. It always means so much to me to have people sending me jokes. Of course anyone can send in the jokes via our submission page, or send an email to flush2x@gmail.com. Your contributions make my efforts at keeping Flush Twice online a genuine pleasure.
So last week I got a call from work. They wanted me back on first shift, and they had already let the last remaining 3rd shift temp go. To be honest, I was relieved. I had had enough, and was eager to return to days.
Don’t get me wrong. I actually enjoy working 3rd shift, but this time it was different. It wasn’t like it used to be. I couldn’t just go in, do my job, and go home. I had to deal with a whole bunch of random chaos every night.
So what’s it like now that I’m back on 1st? Well, it’s basically still chaos, but at least there are other people I know and trust to help me through it.
Kudos
Some of the daily jokes were provided by George, but a couple were left in the queue by an anonymous donor. Thanks goes out to George and whoever the mystery contributor is. It means a lot. If anyone else would like to add jokes to the site, you can do so on our submission page, or send an email to flush2x@gmail.com.
Flush Twice has been around since May of 2003. It started out as a JOTD (Joke of the Day) website. New jokes were published every weekday. Over the years, good jokes were increasingly hard to come by, and eventually they got so rare that I just stopped trying to publish them.
Since 2004 there has also been an eponymous comic. I still occasionally publish a new one on Saturdays. It’s also rare anymore, but sometimes it happens.
Here lately I’ve been posting a “Link of the Day”. For the time being, I will be featuring a new website from my enormous collection of bookmarked websites every weekday. None of it is solicited promotions, and no one is paying me to feature their site. These are just websites that at one time I thought were interesting enough to add to my bookmarks folder.
I highly encourage using some kind of ad blocking extension before clicking on any of these links. You’ll also hear me say this phrase a lot about these posts: “They can’t all be winners.” But it’s better than just leaving the site abandoned.
The jokes were generously provided by friends and visitors such as yourself. I want to express my eternal thanks to everyone over the years who helped contribute to the collection.
So what is it that makes a joke funny?
It all boils down to a sudden shift in perception. The story starts you thinking one way, then the punchline turns that thinking on its ear. The art of the joke is to craft a short story that isn’t overly contrived, then deliver a punchline that suddenly shifts your perception about the story you were being told.
Many of the jokes on this site are offensive, and I make no apologies for it. Offensive jokes work by making the reader uncomfortable through the use of a taboo subject thus enhancing the underlying humor. Without the offensive element, the joke would simply not be as funny.
