Battery Saving Tips for Android

Hypermiling is driving your vehicle a certain way to maximize fuel efficiency.  Since we have no official term for what we want to do, let's call it hyperandroiding, at least until someone seriously objects to it.  What we want to do is maximize the time between charging the beasties.

I'm going to list a bunch of tips to extend battery life - choose what you like best.  People who like blinky lights and iDevices are not going to like these ideas for the most part.

I own an HTC Sensation and a Samsung Galaxy 10 tablet.  Your mileage may vary but this is applicable to most Android devices.  RUN A BACKUP BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE!


Wallpaper: no live wallpaper.  No wallpaper at all is better.  There are a few apps in the market called No Wallpaper, which set the background to black.  This uses much less juice.

WiFi: kill it.  On my device, this is the biggest battery-sucker.

Bluetooth:  shut it down by default.  If you need it, start it with a widget or shortcut.

GPS: Need you ask?  Kill it.

Location Services:  There is no good reason for this to be enabled.  You are asked when setting up the phone if you'd like to use it and should have said NO then.  This is merely a tracking device.

Launcher:  Your phone came with whatever launcher your carrier included.  These tend to suck up power like mad.  The most efficient launcher I have used is Zeam.  It just works - nothing fancy.  The more blinky lights, transitions, and live wallpaper you add, the less battery life you'll have.  That is all.

Social Apps:  Since there are no anti-social apps, I have nothing running.  Every social app you have probably runs in the background, sucking up valuable juice.

Email:  The magic phrase here is MANUAL email.  Most phones are set up for push email, which the phone winds up doing all day, every day.  Do you really need the latest piece of spam available the moment it hits your inbox?  Set email to manual so when you open the email app, it goes out to retrieve the mail.  This has the added benefit of not bothering you every fifteen seconds.

Instant Messaging:  do you think this doesn't use any battery?






How can Android help me?  Your carrier may have included some features to minimize battery use.  Android Assistant has these.   You can allow the phone to control screen brightness, keep brightness low, keep ringers and music low.  Android Assistant also has a startup app killer, which will shut down certain programs and services, should they start up with the phone.

There are a few apps devoted to this.  My favorite is Timeriffic.  I set my phone to shut down while I sleep and activate when I get up, saving lots of battery time.



The latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, has a very interesting and valuable feature.  It allows you to shut down and disable the majority of apps.  Since carriers bundle all kinds of garbage with phones and won't let you uninstall (without rooting), this is the next best thing.  Go to APPLICATIONS and click on one of the buggers you don't want running (my first stop was Faceyspaces).  CLEAR it, STOP it, then DISABLE it.  Poof - it won't start again.

WARNING:  Android has given you the weapons and ammunition to shoot yourself repeatedly in the foot, if not elsewhere.  You can essentially brick your phone or otherwise render it unusable.  How do I know this?  I disabled the wrong function and couldn't use the phone without a factory reset.  This brings up another very important topic: backups.  You should do them.

Backups can be accomplished automatically and for free.  There's a very good program called My Backup (available free and paid) that will do routine backups by itself.  Another efficient solution is one of my favorite programs: Android Assistant.  This program has a whole bunch of useful apps contained inside, one of which will allow you to back up individual or multiple apps.  It also allows you to transfer apps to your SD card.  This saves space and allows you access to your data even after a factory reset.  How do you think I got my phone back up to new after my reset?  RUN A BACKUP BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE!

Linus Flips Nvidia the Bird

As you know, I love and use linux as my primary operating system.  Our founder and spiritual leader is Linus Torvalds.  Linus is a pretty bright guy, given to speaking his mind.  Sometimes he's a tad grumpy, especially during this exchange about Nvidia's statement that they are flatly ignoring and not supporting linux.


What, you've never seen an octopus hitching a ride on a dolphin's genitals before?


Remember that Princely fellow William who recently got married to a Kate?  Kate has apparently been shown her place by Lupo, the cocker spaniel.  We here at ThermionicEmissions wish to salute William on his excellent taste in black cockers.  While Marshall is upset that Lupo is an English cocker, what else can we expect from the Limeys?


Well, it's been a few days since our friends at the TSA have been in the news.  This week I bring you news of a different kind of TSA story.  A lady had a serious complaint about how she was groped, so she groped a TSA agent.  We need more stories like this.


Over in Bedford County, Virginia, a dead dog received a voter registration form.  I don't know about his voting plans, but if he ran, I'd vote for him.  He has to be better than the current set.


Over at the Jerry Sandusky trial, Mrs. Sandusky took the stand for the defense today.  Before the questioning got started, Mrs. Sandusky was heard to ask why Jerry kept asking her to dress up like an altar boy.    [I made this up.]


And lastly, Msgr Lynn, of the Philadelphia Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, has requested house arrest instead of jail.  I'm not sure but I heard that he's requesting the Ronald McDonald House arrest.

All the Military News That's Unfit to Print

The Pentagon, in a break with tradition, is to celebrate Gay Pride this year by recognizing gay troops.  Frankly, I'm not buying it.  I suspect this is a less-than-clever attempt to purge the stupid gays from the military.  It would probably go like this:

We would like to recognize Adam Smith, our first gay soldier.  Please stand up!

[PLOOK - Adam is shot]

Next is Melinda Green.  Stand up, Melinda!

[PLOOK - no more Melinda]

Next, John Greenberg.  Please stand up, John.
John?


Remember: It's don't ask, don't tell for a reason.

==========================

A study has just been released, which states that the number two cause of death in the military is suicide.

Presumably the first is admitting you're gay.

Think INSIDE the Box for Once

I can't help it - it's my nature.  All this time with computers and esoteric problems always leads me to a complex and bizarre cause for any issue.  I am the original outside the box thinker: my problem is trying to think inside the box.

It might not be my fault... my dad is the same way with cars.  If I tell him my car is making a slight whirring noise, he tells me that it's probably the transmission.  This must be the transitive property of step-parents.  It operates in both directions, as I developed kidney stones years before he had one.  I figure I passed it up the line.  It also confuses the hell out of the hospital when you tell them that.


Tonight's goal: hook up an older linux laptop with an S-video output to our television.

This was something I wanted to do for a while but never got around to.    I decided to call it a goal so maybe there would be a small chance I would take a shot at it.  Since the wife took the night off crazy, it looked like an interesting project.

To anyone familiar with different video standards, this would not be a big problem.  Of course, the same could be said for heart surgery.

I figured a great place to start would be locating an S-video cable.  This is exactly the kind of detail that normally derails my projects.  S-video cables are mysterious little buggers that are omnipresent.  They're all around the tv area, in the computer room and the kitchen, every day of the week except the day you need one.  By some miracle there happened to be one of the very cables I needed with some other cables. This proves I have successfully outsmarted myself by hiding something in the exact place where it belongs.  By doing this, I virtually guaranteed I'd never find it.

Next up was plugging the cable into the tv and laptop.  Simple enough for even the dog, who is much smarter than me and was off evaluating his options vis-a-vis the trash.  In a perfect world, it is at this point everything would Just Work.  But as we all know, part of the joy of this blog is that I live in a world somewhat far-removed from perfect (to be polite).

Although I've been using linux for a few years, finding out about the S-video output on a laptop is not something that springs immediately to mind.  As usual, a search engine was my friend and off I went. Another thing I learned about linux is that video is generally a huge pain in the posterior.  Since I never needed the S-video output on the laptop, I obviously completely ignored it.

Searching around a bit revealed all sorts of interesting facts about video, S-video, cables and bizarre file modifications necessary to make all this happen.  Also there was something about malfunctions causing fuzz or a black and white picture.

With the help of xrandr, I managed to get the S-video out working.  Apparently the operating system didn't `know' there was an S-video out and it was my job to break the news as gently as possible (airborne laptops tend to become more difficult to operate with time).

Kirsle was of immediate assistance.  He showed me how to inform linux that there was indeed an S-video output like so:

xrandr --output S-video --set load_detection 1     for detecting the output

xrandr --output S-video --set tv_standard ntsc     use NTSC in the USA

xrandr --addmode S-video 1280x800     add this mode

xrandr --output S-video --mode 1280x800     use the specified resolution

For some strange reason, the S-video sprang to life and started appearing on my tv screen.  I was beside myself with joy.  And if you've ever seen me, you definitely don't want to see me beside myself or anywhere near myself.

One of the great parts of playing with xrandr is that it worked without having to play with xorg.conf  Xorg.conf was designed by the Illuminati but after a few years was outlawed by the Geneva Convention as being too cruel even for them.  It is a file that contains specifics of your video configuration.  Messing with it can improve your situation greatly or completely hose your video, requiring you to boot into command line only interface and figure out how to reverse all the damage you just did with a few small keystrokes.

After years of messing with xorg.conf and gaining the slightest knowledge of its structure and operation, some really funny fellow upstream in the Xorg Organization thought it would be kinda neat to do away with the xorg.conf file completely.  Thus the first time anyone had a video problem and went looking for xorg.conf to edit, they got a rather rude surprise, in that the file didn't exist.  And if you tried to use the file, well, you'd have better luck voting libertarian for president.

Heaven help you if you require a proprietary video driver.  You might as well light a candle to Satan and switch to Windows.

It became immediately obvious to me as well as the dog (black and white vision, you know) that the picture on the tv lacked color.  In fact, it lacked just about every color.   Remembering that I saw something about black and white picture, I went back to searching for reasons the picture would lack color.

The fixes varied wildly from further xorg.conf suggestions to driver ideas, all the way down to cable selection.  Of course none of them applied or worked.

I was fairly flummoxed.  At this point it occurred to me to try thinking inside the box.  I pulled the S-video cable from the tv, blew on it, plugged it back in, and beheld Immediate and Glorious Color, just like on my laptop screen!  The picture was fairly stunning, especially as I was expecting to see some crappy streamed internet video blown all the way up to an old 32" flat screen CRT.  Aside from the normal streaming hiccups, the video was almost broadcast quality.

I used a set of external speakers for audio, as I didn't want to make up adapters to get the sound from the computer into the tv.  A project for later this week will be figuring out how to control this all remotely.  This will most likely involve my good friend x11vnc, so I can use the laptop on my actual lap to remote control the laptop across the room that's streaming to the tv.  It's just about the height of laziness and I'm damn proud.

But mostly I wanted this to serve as a reminder to all of us to Sweat the Simple Stuff First, lest you chase all over hell's half acre looking for a solution you'll never find.

Hey - did you plug it in?

===============================

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Sensation Gets an Ice Cream Sandwich

I got notice that my HTC Sensation phone had an update available.  This was the much-discussed update to Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest and supposedly greatest version of Android.

The update downloaded and installed smoothly.

When I rebooted, I noticed that my connection had been upgraded to 2g from 4g.  In fact, ever since the upgrade, I have yet to receive a 4g signal.  And just about every one of my calls has fuzzed out and dropped.

The update also did weird things to the user interface.  I installed Zeam Launcher to get rid of all the unnecessary bling and blinky lights but Ice Cream Sandwich still managed to munge things up.  There are now no icons on my lock screen.  I had to add them to the main screen.

My phone is also significantly slower regardless of what it's doing.

Ice Cream Sandwich is a huge failure in my freezer.  Apparently I'm not alone, as most people over at Android Forums want to know how to get rid of this perilous upgrade.  Unfortunately the only way to rid one's phone of Ice Cream Sandwich is to root it and install a custom ROM.  As I'm due for a new phone any day now, I'm trying to hold on to this phone, with all its minimal performance.

I have had nothing but bad luck with T-Mobile.  Given the choice, I'd dump them like hot lava.   I never had a dropped call when we were with Verizon.

Pain Meds - Let's Pass the Blame

I have watched the healthcare system go downhill for quite a number of years.  While there is no shortage of reasons for this, one of the larger ones is insurance.  I say this because we have still managed to get a certain level of care - it's just that insurance makes it so much more difficult.

When the HMOs started, all we heard was how efficient and inexpensive they were.  They promised us the moon: they delivered some sort of irradiated space rock.  They promised to lower overall healthcare costs: instead they climb like a Saturn 5 rocket.  First I suggest we hold the people who made the promises responsible.  Let them pay anything above reasonable from the date of the start of their HMO.

Next up is the prescription pain medication debacle.  My mother-in-law has been denied medication simply because the insurer refuses to pay for it.  Apparently this is perfectly ok.  My wife suffers chronic pain and used to take Oxycontin.  She had a lot of trouble getting it because people would abuse it and the pharmacies would look at her like a criminal and say they refuse to carry Oxycontin.  I say there's no problem: let the junkies kill themselves on it but allow the people who need it for pain management to have it.  This is not so much an insurance problem as a federal issue.

Fortunately for her, my wife no longer takes opioid-based medicine.  However, the insurance companies manage to screw this up anyway in terms of approvals.  Certain medicines require approval, as if the word of your prescribing doctor isn't enough.  Doctors have to jump through hoops to get the correct meds for some of their patients (pain and otherwise).  This requires additional staff in some practices.  Guess what this does to the cost of medicine in general?

As if this weren't enough fun by itself, the insurer reserves the right to review whether they will cover the prescription every year or so.  And of course, that time came upon us last week.  The time when the insurer has to decide if they'll cover the pain prescription that has been in-place for two years.  It would seem fairly obvious, but there we are.

The determination tends to come as a surprise.  The prescription is called into the pharmacy and my wife has to call the pharmacy to see if it's in yet.  This time it wasn't, because a review was required.  Now she has to contact the doctor to make sure he is on the ball, answering the review questions.  Once this is done, it can be up to forty eight hours before the determination is made.  That's forty eight hours without pain medication.  Since this debacle began close to Friday, we have to allow another forty eight hours because the prescription company doesn't work on weekends (although people have pain on weekends).

But wait - it gets better.  The prescription was dropped at the pharmacy early in the week.  When the prescription company was called, at first they said it was in process.  Then they said it wasn't.  Then they said it only got called in on Friday from the pharmacy.  That's certainly a lot of different answers.

The pharmacy was sorry.  Yes, sorry.  No pain meds for the weekend, but they're sorry.

Monday morning the prescription company says the doctor never called them back.  But the doctor wasn't supposed to call them back.  The prescription company screwed up and thought the meds were given for a different reason.  They're sorry too.

A few hours later, the pharmacy company said the doctor sent the wrong form and was going to have to send another one.  It would be another forty eight hours.  When my wife explained that this was not acceptable, they said they'd mark it urgent so it would only take twenty four hours.

Day Five with no pain meds.

I should mention at this point that if the doctor had put in a new prescription, the insurer would approve a small amount of pills until the review was completed.  Because this is an existing prescription, nothing doing.

I went to my company's benefit folks and told them to DO SOMETHING, please.

If I were less civilized, mayhem would ensue.  It may still.


Now tell me insurance isn't a problem.
When the bean counters are allowed to dictate coverage (HMO anyone), this is what happens.  The ObamaChrist is not our friend.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Til We Die!

The mayor of New York has spoken and it is apparent that someone needs to politely ask him to submit to an IQ test then a reality test.  I do not want to come right out and call Mayor Bloomberg an idiot because that's an ad-hominem attack.

The reason I question his sanity is that unconstitutional legislation should not be put through as law and (hopefully) most of us realize that banning large size sodas is clearly unconstitutional.  I don't care about his lofty ideals: the law is unconstitutional.

In addition to unconstitutional, the law goes against common sense and everything our founding fathers fought for.  Let's face it: no one wants anyone to get fat.  But that's not the point here.  The point is the incessant Nanny-State-ism being foisted upon us by our kleptocracy (aka government).

Will Bloomberg or his minions be there to intercept the Twinkie as it heads to our gaping mouth?
Will all windows in New York be ordered shut because someone might jump?
Will the fine for jaywalking be increased to the death penalty?
Will the mayor personally put his foot under your gas pedal to make sure you don't exceed the speed limit?

It's bad enough that our rights are being eaten at a record rate.  Let's not have the government `protecting' us also.

Remember - George Washington fought for our right to gorge ourselves until our heart gives up out of sheer hopelessness.




P.S. the First Lady approves of the mayor's ban, while talking out the other side of her mouth about a federal ban.

Special Music Issue!

Today's news is one of special note to musicians and music fans alike.  It deals with some extremely important events in the world of music that happened over the weekend.


Which would you rather see:

Madonna's nipple

or

Lady Gaga receiving a concussion


BZZZT!!!

Oh, sorry, it was a trick question.
The correct answer, of course, is that neither matters to music.

Besides - how could they tell Gaga had a concussion?

Stupidity Knows No Bounds

I won't claim to understand it but here we are.  Today I bring you two Tales of the Stupid from two ends of the spectrum, thus proving Stupidity Knows No Bounds [big echo].

First we have the case of Jacksonville's Paul Causer.  Paul has been officially charged with bigamy after Wife #1 turned him in.   Wife #1 read about Wife #2 on Paul's Facebook page, where his status was listed as "It's complicated."

What kind of Rhodes Scholar puts this information on a public forum?

Bigamy: one wife too many

Monogamy:  see Bigamy

----------------------------------------

Next up is Des Moines, Iowa public schools superintendent, 57-year-old Nancy Sebring.  Nancy's emails were requested by reporters and were discovered to contain all sorts of Juicy Stuff<tm> about her extramarital affair.

While Nancy was not stupid enough to show pictures of her affair on Faceyspaces, she did send these emails from school district devices in school district email.  I suppose this makes her one degree less stupid than the above-mentioned Mr. Causer but the jury may still be deliberating this case.

Following are some of the highlights, courtesy of TSG:

In the correspondence, Sebring and her lover, who is also married, wrote about nipples and oral skills; how Sebring had “fallen in love with your d...”; missing each other; kissing; ass licking; horniness; sexy thoughts; gushing; 69; anal sex; late-night texts; orgasms; dick pics; suction cup dildos; and hands slipped under Sebring’s dress.

I am repeatedly reminded (by everyone around me) to try to be positive.   To that end, I'd like to say that Nancy is quite attractive for 57 and it's wonderful to hear that her sex life is so fulfilling (and active) at that age.  It gives us all hope.

Joe Walsh - Analog Man

I'm a big Joe Walsh fan from way back.

It's rare to find a rock star who shares so many of my passions: tone, tubes, lunacy, ham radio, guitars, and writing.  It's also rare to locate a writer whose melodies stick inside my head in a forever kind of way.

We haven't heard any solo Joe since 1992's Songs for a Dying Planet, which would be our loss.  Joe's back with Analog Man, which was, of course, recorded digitally.  The title refers to being an analog man in a digital world.  There's a great line about having to ask a ten year old how to operate something.

Joe has loosely joined the extended Beatles family by marrying Ringo's sister-in-law (or something like that).  Ringo appears on two tracks.  But nothing says Beatles like being produced by the Invisible Beatle, Jeff Lynne.  Usually Jeff's sterling production is stamped all over the songs in a very sonically apparent way.  Fortunately this is not the case here.  Don't get me wrong - I like Jeff Lynne as a musician, writer, singer, and player.  And occasionally a producer - he has done some great work.  One Day at a Time is pretty heavy Jeff.  The combination of the acoustic guitars and too heavily compressed clean guitars leaves no room for guessing.

So what's new?  Joe has stopped drinking.  You can tell from the song titles and a bit of listening that he is a happy ex-drunk: Family illustrates this well but not in an over-the-top way.

I got on the mailing list so they notified me that today was the official release.  Joe himself will be appearing in New York, but unfortunately at an Apple store.  If I go anywhere near an Apple store, I may melt and don't want to take that chance.  My browser broke last time I had to go to apple.com and I'm still trying to clean out the smoke.

What I'm looking for from the new release is the same thing I'm looking for from any Joe Walsh music: some tunes that will not leave my head.  Melodies that get stuck and will be replayed forever, like Indian Summer and At the Station.

Want some familiar, radio-friendly Joe?  Funk #50 would be your tune, complete with hooks you might already know.


Joe: thanks for being part of the soundtrack to my life.  Stop by when you're in Philthydelphia (no dates scheduled) or drop me a line.  We'll talk tubes and you can try to convince me to learn code  :)

Bilderbergers, Meet the Alex Jones Mafia

Last week saw the start of the yearly Bilderberg meeting.  This year it was in Virginia.

Who are the Bilderbergers?  A group of very high-level influential politicians, businesspeople, and world leaders.  They acquired their name from the hotel where the first meeting was held.  What do they do?  Set the agenda for the coming year.  At this conference, Romney's running mate was decided.

The Bilderbergers are a behind-the-scenes powerful group, like the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.  They set the tune to which the rest of the world will march.

Don't call this conspiracy theory: it's all out close enough to the open for everyone to research.

But don't try getting into the Bilderberg meeting.  Since Alex Jones and others started their investigations, security has gone through the roof.  Guests of the hotel are summarily ejected, even if they have prior reservations.  Protesters are kept far enough away so as not to disturb the decision-makers.  They roll by in blacked-out limousines.  But leaks are usually good enough that an attendee list makes it out before the end of the conference.  Don't count on the mainstream media: they are forbidden by their corporate masters from reporting.

Say what you want about Alex Jones: he's over the top, hyperbole, pushes his advertisers' goods; the man is a force of nature.  He has done more to expose these secret groups than anyone.  Because of this, he has taken quite a beating during his occasional appearances on or in mainstream media.  They love to label him a conspiracy nut.  To be honest, there's no conspiracy here - it's largely out in the open.

Who was there this year?  Glad you asked....

Educate yourself.

Why Am I Not Making Anything from MIB 3?

This is gonna seem weird, but if it didn't, you wouldn't be reading ThermionicEmissions.
I don't get a single cent for product placement or even recommendations.  Therefore when I recommend something, I had better like it.  Or be really bored at the moment.

If my wife hasn't been to `our' Dunkin Donuts in a day or two, they send her cards asking if she's feeling well.  I like DD but not quite as much.   As I've outlined, there are certain conditions that must be met before setting foot into a Dunkin; largely that the crew is Asian of any variety.  You want to avoid Indian DD's and stay completely away from any Dunkin with a caucasian at the counter.  In fact, if my wife comes across one of the two minority-hire caucasians at our DD, she will wait in a different line.  It probably hasn't made the official statistics yet, but caucasians can't make coffee.

To be truthful, I could take or leave the donuts.  If my wife takes one, it comes back to haunt her for two days, like some sort of deep-fried Zombie Gastritis.  We like the coffee.

I have tried Wawa coffee.  Several different kinds.  And I consider it swill.  It should be against the law for them to call it coffee, which might explain why they spend so much money advertising it.

Unfortunately lately our Dunkin Donuts' coffee has been going downhill.  I only get one good cup out of a few.  This was right up until the MIB 3 promotion happened.  I wasn't aware of the movie or the promotion but the drink looked pretty good on the ad at the store, so I got one.

Yes indeed, that is a serious coffee chocolate drink.  It's iced because there's no sense in drinking it hot.  You don't need to - it's perfect as it is.  My wife gets mad because she gets hot coffee, tastes mine, then realizes she should have gotten a MIB herself.

In addition to the drink, there are a few donuts.  One is a generic chocolate with chocolate frosting.  The other is shaped like a star and has a positively orgasmic deep, rich chocolate cream filling.  Apparently that was enough of a description to convince my wife to try one so off we went this morning.

The first thing I noticed was that the parking lot at `our' DD looked like it needed a couple of traffic cops because it was mobbed.  While we eventually found a spot, the traffic jam on the way out added thirty minutes to my commute.

My wife came out, looking disappointed.   When she went to order the donuts, she was told that they're so popular that they can't keep them on the shelf.  Oh yeah, and today was Donut Day, where they gave out free donuts.

BLOODY HELL - I don't want free donuts.  I'm the kind of guy who doesn't mind paying for his donut, provided the vendor has the donut available for sale.  We got all excited about those chocolate donuts of death, only to be thwarted by the March of the Great Unwashed toward free donuts.  How disappointing.

Furthermore, DD's are generally corporate, so availability is governed by Corporate.  Since I am unwilling to let the drink or the donut go, I shall be writing to Dunkin and I urge you to try them and write along with me.

The Great Sock Crisis of the 2000's

Today I'd like to revisit an old, important, and painful issue: socks.

As some of my original readers might remember, I have had many issues around socks.  It started innocently enough, when I caught my wife snickering to her friends about throwing out certain socks.  The girls were all snickering along knowingly.  When I listened in, I discovered that my wife was systematically disposing of all my socks with colored stripes around them.

When confronted, she claimed it was only because they were worn out.  This might also explain why the new socks that tended to magically appear now and then had no stripes whatsoever.  You can call them Magic Socks if you like but I was pretty agitated when I discovered this nefarious plot.  And you have never experienced anything like a room full of women knowingly laughing at you (I hope).

Next up was the grief I experienced from my band, all older than me, some by ten years.  I appeared at an outdoor gig with shorts and suffered no end of teasing from my bandmates about my socks.  I checked for stripes but there were none, so I had no idea what was so funny.

This time the issue was height.  Yes, apparently my socks were too high.  After the trauma of the stripes, I couldn't imagine things could get worse, but there I was, with socks that were apparently way too tall.  Now I know for a fact that my socks did not grow: they were the same socks at the same height I had always worn them.  For purposes of identification, the packages say Crew Socks.  They have heels and come midway up the leg.  I refer to them as Regular White Socks, as I'd imagine most of us do.

A quick look around revealed that my bandmates were either wearing nothing or gay socks.  Now before you get your panties in a knot, my wife's best friend, a gay male, refers to socks that don't cover the ankle as gay socks.  My wife, thrower-out of all socks striped, confirms that I'm simply not a gay socks kinda guy.  I'd have to go along with that assessment.

I have to admit this was a bit of a surprise.  There I was, playing the guitar like a man possessed, totally unaware of my apparent Fashion Faux Pas, when the guys, impersonating the Fashion Police, dropped the sock bomb on me.  I was totally unprepared for it.

Fortunately the lead antagonist, the drummer, is also a bit OCD and complained additionally that my socks were not even (pulled up to the same level).  I pushed one all the way down, much to his vocal dismay, and did the rest of the set that way.  This might explain his performance that day.  Imagine... being picked on by a drummer!

Apparently the band was too polite(?) to mention my shorts.  Shorts, much like socks, have always been the same for me.  I managed to ignore the `shorts' that come below your knees, as well as the Multi-Person Pants, into which you can probably fit a small band, not to mention pants that look like you're going to walk out of them at any moment.  I'm opposed to crack in any form.

Our yearly outdoor pig roast is almost upon us and after looking at pics from last year, I have decided to avoid all of the usual hagging and criticism from my Queer Eye bandmates and just not wear shorts, thereby hiding my apparently way-embarrassing socks.  As they're expecting 500 people this year, that comes to 250 people laughing at each sock.

But things haven't all been sunshine in the sock department.  My niece looked on in horror as she patiently tried to explain socks to Old Uncle lefty.  She really tries to look less mortified as she attempts to correct my horrid abuse of clothing (and speaking) etiquette.  After her explanation, I realized that I had taken on the appearance of a Crazy Old Man who doesn't even realize that most of the known universe laughs at his socks (even when he wears them with long pants).  It was a sobering moment.

Unwilling to remain sober for too long, I consulted a coworker who is hip and only ten years my junior.  I thought for sure she would understand socks.  But nooooooooo..... she too recognized gay socks as the only socks.

My nephew apparently loves socks.  No one knows why.  He told my wife that if he ever wins the lottery, he wants enough socks to wear a new pair every day (aim high!).  Oddly enough, Jerry Lewis refuses to wear a pair of socks more than once.

I was feeling terribly old and decrepit (even though I'm in my late forties).  Suicide was contemplated but quickly taken off the table.

The other day I auditioned an additional band.  I liked their selection of music and they spent the entire time verbally assaulting each other.  It was a beautiful thing; just like where I work.  Everything seemed ok until I stopped and looked around.  Every one of them was wearing shorts that came past their knees.  Two of them wore gay socks.  The rest of them wore no socks at all.

I officially give up.