“I can’t get a good nights sleep!” cried the patient. “Every time I get into bed, I think there’s somebody, or some thing, under it. I feel like I’m going crazy!”
“It would seem you are suffering from a form of clinophobia,” remarked the psychiatrist. “It will take some time, but after three sessions a week for ten weeks, I can cure you of this fear.”
“How much is this going to cost me?”
“Two hundred dollars per visit.”
After doing a mental calculation in his head, the patient said, “I’ll have to think this one over.”
Six months later the psychiatrist bumped into the man on the street and said, “You never came to see me again. Has your condition improved on its own?”
“After I realized your services would cost me $6000, I felt like I needed a drink,” explained the man. “After a couple of stiff rounds, my bartender cured me for less than twenty bucks!”
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!
Two young boys were talking to each other on the playground.
The first one said, “My dad works twelve hours a day to give me a nice home and good food. My mom spends the whole day cleaning and cooking for me. I’m worried sick!”
The other kid replied, “What have you got to worry about? Sounds to me like you’ve got it made!”
The first responded, “Yeah, but what if they try to escape?”
Two old men were sitting on a park bench outside the local town hall where a flower show was in progress.
One turned to the other and said, “This town is getting to be so boring. For $5.00, I’d take off my clothes and streak through the flower show!”
Holding up five dollars, the other old fellow said, “You’re on!”
As fast as he could, the first old man fumbled his way out of his clothes and ran completely naked through the front door of the town hall.
A huge commotion could be heard coming from inside the hall, followed by a loud applause. The streaker burst out through the door surrounded by a cheering crowd.
“Wow, what happened?” asked his friend.
With a big grin, the old man said, “I won first prize for dried arrangement!”
On a whim, Jennifer decided to purchase the flight insurance at the ticket counter. She had some time before her flight’s departure, so she stopped at a Chinese restaurant in the concourse.
Everything seemed well until she read her fortune cookie: “Today’s investment will pay big dividends!”
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!
You know I almost forgot it, and just by chance I remembered. Today is Gail's 5th birthday! That's right! That little puppy I started posting pictures of back in 2019 is a full 5 years old today.
You might have noticed I stopped posting weekly pictures of her a while ago. For the most part, she had stopped growing, so there really wasn't that much of a change from week to week. Also, I was having trouble finding the time to make the effort.
Rest assured, Gail keeps on being an indomitable force in my life. Never does a day go by that I'm not forced to wait on hand and foot to this ornery critter. Other than when I'm at work, Gail is almost always with me. You'd think she'd be better behaved by now, but this dog loses her shit every time she sees a ball... or another dog... or food... or just realizes when we've turned down any of the roads on the way to one of her many favorite places.
To say this dog is spoiled would be an understatement. To me, spoiling means you treat them better than they deserve. With my previous dog, Grace, she was so good, spoiling was effectively impossible, but with Gail, spoiling is simply unavoidable. She lacks any sort of self-control or discipline, and she isn't shy about letting you know how she feels in any given situation. If you have her on a leash, you better be careful because she can easily dislocate your shoulder.
But Gail is also easy to love. It's amazing how she is such a people magnet. Gail has her own fan club, and people take walks by my yard just to come up to the fence to say hi to Gail and pet her. She's very friendly and wants nothing more than to eat, play, and be loved.
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.
