TurkeyMonkey

It’s a bottle opener! A sonogram! A hand grenade! A mouse trap! Mace! Treadmill! And so much more!

Thanks to my brother-in-law, Dan, for sending the YouTube link.

Alright, you know how a few days ago I posted that despite all my best efforts, my blog is best known for a post about the laxative effects of maltitol? Well, the greater irony is that today, just before watching “Notes on a Scandel,” Ana and I picked up a couple bags of sugar-free candies sweetened with — you guessed it — maltitol. (We’re making a go of Atkins again, and despite some excellent early weight-loss, the movie-theater candy craving hasn’t quite gone away yet.)

Suffice it to say, I’m retarded for even agreeing to peruse the CVS candy aisle, much less absent-mindedly consuming a full bag of sugar-free Twizzlers. I’m now doubled over in pain, running back and forth to the bathroom, and unable to sleep. Ugh.

Blogging may be great for sharing my picks and thoughfully reflecting on my latest unheathly obsession, but when it comes to teaching me the error of my ways — eh, not so good.

Or is there any way to sweet-talk Verizon and Apple into playing nice and making the iPhone available to non-Cingular customers? Time to start a petition.

If you haven’t checked out the iPhone yet, you must immediately go to the Apple website and kill a half hour watching demos of all its features. Prepare to have your mind blown. I haven’t suffered from such immediate, aggressive techno-lust since — well, the Wii.

But honestly, I don’t think it’s just me being overly gadget happy; these are actually the two coolest gizmos to hit the market in years. Of course, the actual iPhones won’t actually hit the market until June, so until them, I’m going to have to fill the void in my life with a cutout, papercraft iPhone (pictured below) — which I plan to wrap about my Wii controller.

I finally discovered the Murphy’s law of blogging: If you create a personal weblog, update semi-regularly for close to three years, and pour your heart and soul (or at least, your best late-night top-ten lists), the one thing your blog will be known for is a two-year-old post about how the artificial sweetener Maltitol causes massive diarrhea.

Despite my best attempts to mine such topics at the hunt for Nintendo Wiis, the great “Hair Watch” of the 2004 Presidential campaign, or the shiny future of cat toys, it’s the Maltitol post that people keep stumbling on. Normally a post will get one, two comments, tops. Yet somehow the Maltitol one has accumulated 25, most of them stories about other people with similar stories — the evils of Russell Stover jelly beans, nights spent in bathrooms, business meetings disrupted by massive abdominal growling, etc, etc. Even a few have emailed me directly, such as Lisa D., who wrote a couple days ago:

Dear Ted:
I love your blog on Maltitol: A Sweetener and a Laxative in One. Wow! I had the nightmare trip of my life when I was stuck in the Canary Islands and then Madrid just trying to get home before dying of the flu epidemic that killed the Pope. Except I wasn’t vomiting, I was having explosive diarrhea. With total dehydration, the hotel doctor gave me a shot of ?? after which I slept for 20 hours, then I took a bunch of medication. The trip home with all the security zones at the airport (and the bathroom elsewhere) — well, I wished I had bought diapers I was so nervous. I didn’t eat or drink anything for 18 hours just trying to make it back. After getting home I realized the ‘healthy’ bars given to me by my gut specialist (!) were full of maltitol syrup.

Just wanted to let you know and thank you because your blog is the one I’m going to point people to and I’m not logged into Word Press so I couldn’t leave a reply.

Thanks. Lisa D.

So, there you have it. TurkeyMonkey has become a support group for the gastrointestinally abused, artificially sweetened, and Hershey squirted. Welcome to the party.

Ok, I know this is obscenely dorky, but — well this was the year that I indulged myself in every gizmo I could get my hands on …

1. Nintendo Wii (I’ve only had it two days, and I’m already firmly addicted)
2. Verizon’s new VZ Navigator GPS system (which came on my new free Motorola v325 phone)
3. iPod Nano
4. Macbook
5. Olympus DS-2200 digital voice recorder

Need more evidence that the Wii is one of the sweetest gadgets of all time? I present you with Stephen Colbert vs. Nancy Pelosi in Wii Sports boxing:

Because I can’t pick just five …

1. Lost
2. Weeds
3. Big Love
4. The Colbert Report
5. Heros
6. The Daily Show
7. The Office
8. 30 Rock
9. The Sopranos It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
10. The View (which I never actually watch live or TiVo, but has put on an awful good show judging by the umpteen YouTube segments I’ve seen while researching for Suburbarazzi)

Damn, I watch a lot of TV, don’t I?

1. “The Areas of My Expertise,” by John Hodgeman (If you haven’t read this yet, drop whatever the f your doing and go get it. Now. It’s the funniest book you’ll ever read.)
2. “Under the Banner of Heaven,” by John Krakauer
3. “Guests of the Ayatollah,” by Mark Bowden
4. “1491,” by Charles C. Mann (and no, I’m not just saying this because he’s my cousin)
5. “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs,” by Chuck Klosterman

Because I don’t buy full albums anymore …

1. “On the Radio,” Regina Spektor (or really, anything by Regina Spektor)
2. “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,” KT Tunstall (or anything else by KT, with the exception of “Suddenly I See,” which was in just about every TV pilot this year and got totally played into the ground)
3. “Save Room,” John Legend (my favorite off the new album)
4. “Busting up a Starbucks,” Mike Doughty
5. “Let Me Go,” Sonya Kitchell

1. Borat
2. Little Children
3. Little Miss Sunshine
4. The Departed
5. United 93

(My favorites are determined, more or less, by how much water-cooler conversation I got out of them. Actually, by that standard I should also give the #6 slot to The Devil Wears Prada — an especially good one given that I work at an office full of fashion conscious women.)

Ok, I know that the age limit on requesting video games for Christmas doesn’t extend into your 20s, but dammit if I didn’t really, really want the Wii this year. Went so far as to cajole Ana’s coworkers and their spouses into lobbying her to buy me one. But, alas, on Dec. 25 the only console under the tree was a Playstation 2 for the triplets — just not the same thing.

And so, being the obsessive, infantile person that I am — and given that this is the slowest week of the year at work — I set my mind to purchasing one on the 26th. Only problem? The console is completely sold out in Westchester. Actually, the first thing that turned up when I started Googling “where to buy Wii” was an article about supply shortages, which said that stores wouldn’t start getting new ones until March. Nooooo.

But I wasn’t quite ready to give up. I searched a dozen or so message boards, called around, and then visited a dozen stores after work. Still no dice. At some point I stumbled onto a site called iTrackr, which claimed to be:

The only tracking service that sends you an instant notification when the hottest and hardest to find products, like the Playstation 3 or Tickle Me Elmo TMX, are in stock at your favorite local retailers.

Sounded like it was worth a shot. I signed up, paid their $1.99 tracking fee, and then waited for the good news to roll in. Bingo: the first search turned up 1 store in my area with Wii in stock. Unfortunately, when I called, they were already out of stock.

So I resumed calling, searching the internet, and grinding my teeth. I’d all but given up when I arrived at work yesterday and there was a message from iTrackr in my Inbox:

Before you can say “early lunch hour” Ana and I were down in Mt. Vernon, picking up my Wii at Target. When I called to double-check that it was in stock, the store clerk sounded shocked; they hadn’t even put the new Wii boxes on the floor yet. And sure enough, I was the first one to inquire about the shipment.

Afterwards, one of my colleagues at The Journal News, Allison Bert, posted about my quest on her blog, The Cost of Living. And then later in the day I got an email confirming that all of the store’s 22 Wiis sold out by 3:12 pm. You snooze you lose.

Anyway, I’m a very happy boy now with my Wii. Although I haven’t been able to get a second controller to go head-to-head with Ana (iTrackr hasn’t been much help with that), I’ve been happily boxing my own virtual TurkeyMonkey, playing tennis with four Ted clones, and practicing my golf stroke.

Now if only I could make good on my Suburbarazzi promise to take on Ang Lee at the bowling alley …