back to article HomePod, you say? Sex sex sex, that's all you think about

My wife has a hairy tongue. At least, I think she may soon develop one. The source of this information is the package leaflet inserted into the box of capsules she's been prescribed for what the doctor reckoned was a bad case of Woman Flu. Fans of Japanese surreal fiction and body horror should spend more time reading these …

  1. jake Silver badge

    Rings.

    All evidence seems to suggest that Apple has gone full-DevOps and fired it's QA department. Much merriment will no doubt ensue.

    N.B. Some folks might find a hairy tongue to be somewhat stimulating. Conversationally, of course. Although I suspect they'd be on the receiving end of the ol' hairy eyeball ...

    1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      Re: Hairy tongue

      Apparently it isn't uncommon and isn't serious (and isn't actually hair) but I don't recommend looking it up, because inevitably you will also get to read about black hairy tongue...which may be the same thing, but it's hard to read about it with fingers over my eyes. (As a defensive posture, not another alarming clinical condition.)

    2. Omgwtfbbqtime
      Coat

      "...Apple has gone full-DevOps "

      Is that like Full Bursar?

      That's mine with the dried frog pills in the pockets.

      1. Mark 85

        Re: "...Apple has gone full-DevOps "

        Frog pills are definitely better than "Frog in a Blender*".

        *Reference: This will work or Google for Bassomatic.. http://joecartoon.com/watch/k1bbbc/Frog_in_a_Blender

  2. chivo243 Silver badge

    Hey Pinky!

    Another one in 100 will see their hands swell up like balloons...

    Hairy tongue would need a tongue razor? A quick google doesn't show any current product, business opportunity?

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: Hey Pinky!

      "hands swell up like balloons..."

      Sometimes referred to as 'Gilmouritis'

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hey Pinky!

      "A quick google doesn't show any current product, business opportunity?"

      There are tongue scrapers on the market.

  3. TRT Silver badge

    Oh those silicone implants...

    are such a bother.

    I'd far prefer to have a felt ring on the bottom.

    1. Chemical Bob
      Coat

      Re: Oh those silicone implants...

      I felt it, feels like silicone...

  4. frank ly

    Ahh, wood jokes :)

    I've been a keen hobbyist woodworker for years and it never gets old.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: Ahh, wood jokes :)

      Old woodworks never retire, they just get knotted.

    2. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Ahh, wood jokes :)

      Beavis and Butt-head in HollyWOOD.

  5. Fading
    Holmes

    Trouble shooting guides.....

    Still available and still as useless as always - no picture - is the TV turned on? - press power button.

    Only the brave though read the notes that come with pills - given the list of side-effects a placebo would be preferable.....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Trouble shooting guides.....

      "Only the brave though read the notes that come with pills - given the list of side-effects a placebo would be preferable"

      In fact placebos can have side effects too, especially if the patient reads the possible side effects of what they think they are getting.

      Psychosomatic effects can be just as severe as straightforward diseases.

      1. rmason

        Re: Trouble shooting guides.....

        indeed.

        Psychosomatic effects. Like my "catch 22 asthma".

        Essentially I don't have asthma *unless* I don't own an inhaler.

        The second the brain realises there are none of the relevant drugs in the household - it turns on like a switch has been flicked. Incredible thing, the brain.

        1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: Trouble shooting guides.....

          Incredible thing, the brain.

          Indeed. I'm firmly convinced everyone should be issued with a working one.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Trouble shooting guides.....

          Essentially I don't have asthma *unless* I don't own an inhaler.

          I used to have the same thing! Except it was with vodka.

          My brain kept thinking I was going into alcohol withdrawl

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you had a hairy tongue would you be immune to the dreaded lamp post lick stick?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "[...] to the dreaded lamp post lick stick?"

      One of our teachers recounted the tale of a boy who - in a very cold winter in the 1940/50s - licked the iron railings outside the school. There was then an exercise in gently freeing his tongue from the frozen surface.

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Pour boiling water on it, mate. They will be free from the post as soon as they see the kettle.

      2. Martin an gof Silver badge

        the dreaded lamp post lick stick

        I refer the honourable gentleman to the excellent episode of John Finnemore's Cabin Pressure titled St. Petersburg

        M.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
          Happy

          Cabin Pressure is a work of genius.

          I'm sure MJN Air would have sorted out the farting passenger on the Dutch plane without being forced to divert. Unless of course the pilots wanted to divert anyway, in order to get a nicer hotel say, or for some other nefarious reason.

  7. Potemkine! Silver badge
  8. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Happy

    Simple solutions to the HomePod thing

    1) Don't buy it. Get a Sonos instead... Oh wait.. It leaves rings as well. Just don't bother with this POS and technology dead end.

    2) Got a paper hanky? Put that under it and problem solved. Fanbois won't do that though. They'll spend thousands on new 'ring proof' furniture instead.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: Simple solutions to the HomePod thing

      It's a case of putting the D'Oyly before the Carte.

      1. Filboid Studge

        Re: Simple solutions to the HomePod thing

        Let 'em eat antimacassars!

    2. short a sandwich

      Re: Simple solutions to the HomePod thing

      There is a $20 coaster in leather just advertised to keep your wood ring-free.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Simple solutions to the HomePod thing

        "There is a $20 coaster in leather just advertised to keep your wood ring-free."

        Which will take away one of the features, the bass resonance.

    3. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Simple solutions to the HomePod thing

      So, I should get a grip on my ROD and keep a paper hanky nearby? Makes sense.

  9. Elmer Phud

    Mr Dabbs,

    That has to be one of your finest, the segue from furry tongues to Siri buggers is a work of art.

    It must be nearly lunchtime . . .

  10. tiggity Silver badge

    Norwegian wood

    plenty of that at the Winter Olympics (those athletes have plenty of partying to attend to as soon as their event(s) are over)

    disclaimer: Other nationalities of wood are available

  11. Pen-y-gors

    Medication warnings

    So true. But as they all seem to include 'May cause death' they do rather put you off taking the things.

    1. BrownishMonstr

      Re: Medication warnings

      They are likely putting your ailment in perspective. If you would rather die than be ill then fine, take the damn pills. Otherwise stop being such a <insert choice of words>.

      1. onefang

        Re: Medication warnings

        My favourite, and I see this way too often, is "may cause the symptoms you are taking the medication to alleviate".

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Medication warnings

          My favourite, and I see this way too often, is "may cause the symptoms you are taking the medication to alleviate".

          Yes. My wifes anti-depressants have depression as one of the possible side effects.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Medication warnings

        "do not take if you are allergic to any of the ingredients"... for crying out loud, it's a plain (non-hallucinogenic) cough syrup!!!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "[...] customers are being advised to "oil their wood" [...]"

    Wood and ring - sounds like a Prince Albert. NSFW

  13. DropBear
    Joke

    Wonderful! It's really about time microwave ovens start coming with off-putting lists of possible side-effects as well considering how wildly dangerous they truly are - such as: "...including severe adverse financial effects*, concussion-like swelling**, extensive third degree burns***, loss of your home****, cardiac arrest*****, asphyxiation******, irreversible loss of cerebral activity*******, violent seizures******** and general cessation of existence by spontaneous summoning of a quantum singularity from a parallel dimension*********". Scary stuff, I tell you!

    * by electricity bill, if you keep melting the cheese on your sammiches with the grill heater for every single meal

    ** by contact with your neighbour's baseball bat when he finally realizes why his WiFi keeps dropping the connection on the other side of the wall

    *** go ahead, look up that Youtube clip about microwaves and superheated water, then ever again dare to re-heat a cup of tea, I dare you...

    **** by the fire caused by a shitty extension cord that starts arcing at the plug

    ***** by leaking enough EM radiation to reset your pacemaker into "firmware update" mode

    ****** assuming you fail to remove it quickly enough after you cement your head into it just for teh lulz

    ******* assuming your door interlock is faulty and you decide it's easier to see up-close when the food is done with the door open

    ******** by electrocution via the high-powered high-voltage transformer when you go "hold my beer, I can fix this even plugged in..."

    ********* impossible to conclusively prove it cannot happen so if it does guess who you won't be suing? Not us!

  14. Kevin Johnston

    As a teen in the 70's I took great delight in very carefully copying some Japanese characters to make a poster for above my bed. The characters were on an 8" floppy disc sleeve and (according to BASF) translated to 'Insert Carefully'

    It's not the words, it's the mind reading them

    1. herman

      Well, if you have an 8 inch floppy, then 'Insert Carefully' will not really help.

  15. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Antibiotics for flu?

    Not unless there's a bacterial secondary infection.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      >> Antibiotics for flu?

      Our chief sub raised this matter with me and we discussed it at length. She suspected that I might be deliberately provoking pedants to add comments on these lines, and she considered adding a footnote to explain that Woman Flu is not a real ailment recognised by the medical profession but a joke name used in this column because it sounds funnier than "ear-ache".

      1. lglethal Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: >> Antibiotics for flu?

        Oh come now, dont try and tell me that gender specific Flus arent real. Everyone knows that the pain a woman experiences in child birth is ALMOST as bad as a case of Man-Flu.

        Almost....

      2. Wensleydale Cheese
        Happy

        Oi, Dabbsy

        I found a solution to the problem you described in your review of the iPhone X the other week.

        Day 10: I think I’ve got the hang of transferring the photos to a computer. My choices are AirDrop (to a Mac, very fussy) or via USB cable and an import utility (again very fussy as I have to tick every image one by one).

        Using the USB cable route, the answer is to click one of the photos and then hit Command-A, to select all of them.

        (I did manage to get away with just a Command-A, but that first click on an image ensures that the right bit of the screen has focus.)

      3. David Roberts
        Unhappy

        Re: >> Antibiotics for flu?

        The humour would probably more rib tickling if I wasn't participating in the team game of "couple flu" at the moment.

        My score sheet is not looking good (not looking very healthy?) so far.

        Demerit #1 for catching the original infection and bringing it home.

        Demerit #2 for recovering more quickly, possibly due to having a flu jab before Xmas.

        Demerit #3 a possibility for removing the phrase "Oh, it was only man flu" from future discussion and analysis.

        So more rib aching at the moment.

        Off to do some active cherishing.

        Oh, and a Dabbs demerit for even suggesting antibiotics for flu. Not funny when you know it isn't a cure. Also, Doctors across the nation will damn you to hell for all eternity when all the whingeing buggers turn up first thing on Monday demanding antibiotics because "they read it on the Internet".

        All that is left for me now is the mind bleach as I contemplate how you might be assisting your poor suffering Lady Wife to partake of the medication "as big as a horse suppository". No, get me a bigger bottle!!

        My heartfelt sympathy to her with wishes for a speedy recovery and less user agressive medication.

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: >> Antibiotics for flu?

          I don't know... my ex-wife insisted on having antibiotics whenever she had flu/cold/virus because once upon a time when she was a teenager she was prescribed some and it worked.

          Every time I would insist she didn't go to the doctor for antibiotics, she would hold off a day or two then sneak over there when I was at work, insist on antibiotics (we must have had such a weak willed GP or she wore them down), then the next day after starting a course would be getting better and cured within 48 hours.

          This, apparently, was proof that antibiotics cured viruses and that I, and the rest of medical science, were idiots.

          We are now divorced. I cited unreasonable behaviour in the papers; not doing what she was told to by her husband mental and physical cruelty.

          1. David Roberts

            Re: >> Antibiotics for flu?

            Given that a virus will usually clear in a week then by the time most people get to the stage of demanding and starting to take antibiotics they are starting to get better anyway.

            You could prescribe almost anything from water upwards with equally effective results.

            My Doctor is wonderful. He cured my flu with his special treatment of vintage champagne and rough sex with the pool boy. In a couple of days I was cured!

            1. TRT Silver badge

              Re: >> Antibiotics for flu?

              Dr Brown Bear was told not to give Peppa Pig any more antibiotics, and within a week, she was cured.

          2. herman

            Re: >> Antibiotics for flu?

            Note, your ex-better half probably got prescribed placebos instead of anti-biotics. Doctors and pharmacists know how to handle people who self diagnose and insist on medication.

  16. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    There is a scene in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid where Steve Martin shaves his tongue, but I can't find a link right now.

  17. Dr_N

    Ring care

    Just be careful logging off it you are experiencing ring trouble.

  18. Chris G

    @ Doc Syntax, In Spain, the moment you show signs of a cold or flu everyone is telling you to get some antibiotics.

    Even worse, because they don't have self certification, they all go to the doctor who then idiotically gives them the aforesaid noneffective antibiotics.

    1. herman

      Nope - they give them super expensive sugar pills, which work every time.

  19. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    Relax!

    The chances of turning into Michael Portillo are exactly a million-to-one ...

  20. DJO Silver badge

    You need Dr Flimflams Miracle Cream.

    http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/File:Dr.FlimFlamMiracleCreamBack.jpg

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Likelihood of side effects

    I wish the FDA would require chance of side-effects. You see a TV commercial for some new treatment for, say, Aardvark-Neurismo disease, and they tell you in a very cheery voice "side effects may include nausea, narcolepsy, sonambulism, depression, suicide thoughts, colonic reversal, loss of limbs, prostate cancer, male pregnancy, and rarely cardiac failure". Yes, but HOW rarely?

    1. Montreal Sean

      Re: Likelihood of side effects

      I'm less worried about the rare possibility of cardiac arrest, and way more worried about the risk of male pregnancy!

  22. Floydian Slip
    FAIL

    Sie Effects (or is that Side Affects?)

    Side effect of ibuprofen - headaches.

    Go figure

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sie Effects (or is that Side Affects?)

      "Side effect of ibuprofen - headaches."

      buprofen is not safe for continuous, daily, long-term use due to its affect on the liver, kidneys and blood pressure.

      P.S. I know somone who has suffered those side effects, and as a result they are now on other drugs for the rest of their life.

    2. Wensleydale Cheese
      Happy

      Re: Sie Effects (or is that Side Affects?)

      Side Effects: other stuff wot happens.

      Side Affects: Only when I laugh.

  23. Astrohead

    List of side effects

    I was once given a prescription for some heavy duty pain-killers.

    After two nosebleeds in two days I decided to look at the leaflet that came with the pain-killers.

    The list of possible side effects ran to about 3 foot of very small text. It was in alphabetical order.

    Naturally I scanned down to side effects beginning with "N" (for Nosebleeds).

    Sure enough "Nosebleeds" was listed, fourth one down on the list of side effects beginning with "N".

    It was the first three side effects beginning with "N" that caught my attention though.

    These were the first four entries beginning with "N":

    No Blood Pressure.

    No Breathing.

    No Pulse.

    Nosebleeds.

    I'm pretty sure the first three should have been listed under "D". As in "Dead".

    1. quxinot

      Re: List of side effects

      "Naturally I scanned down to side effects beginning with "N" (for Nosebleeds).

      Sure enough "Nosebleeds" was listed, fourth one down on the list of side effects beginning with "N"."

      You're lucky it wasn't listed as "epistaxis", as most people wouldn't know to find it as that.

  24. Chemical Bob

    Dabbsy, how could you forget

    the IBM mouse balls memo?!

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Dabbsy, how could you forget

      "Mouse Balls" was written as a joke field service memo by a FSE at IBM Boca in roughly 1988, soon after the release of the IBM PS/2. Seems manglement were going on and on about the importance of the mouse with OS/2, and he was in the mood to poke fun at them.

      The memo looked official, the original had the actual part number of the FRU mouse balls. It also had the tie-line number of the FSE who wrote the memo. It was never supposed to go outside his immediate office. He is embarrassed about it to this day.

      The last time I checked (10 years ago (??)), P/N 33F8462 - Domestic Mouse Balls and P/N 33F8461 - Foreign Mouse Balls were still valid part numbers at IBM, with inventory on hand. No doubt the Chump administration will be purging the foreign ones shortly, with great fanfare and a televised EO signing.

      In other news, grounded anti-static mouse mats were an actual thing. They were to ground the user, not the mouse. Seems the average secretary can generate upwards of 85KV walking down the hall to get a cuppa ...

      1. Montreal Sean

        Re: Dabbsy, how could you forget

        Domestic mouse ball with twist on cover is still available here, though it's very pricey!

        http://www.memory4less.com/ibm-mouse-33f8462

  25. Dippywood

    Comb?

    A comb - to treat the symptoms? Address the problem at source, and make the gift a tongue razor!

    1. Jan 0 Silver badge

      Re: Comb?

      Wouldn't a tongue epilator be more appropriate?

  26. PhilipN Silver badge

    Jekyll-Hyde

    Nice clip, Dabbsy - thanks. Haven’t seen it before, and I am mightily impressed by the special effects, since everyone knows special effects were invented by George Lucas several decades later.

    For aficionados Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor (no, not the pathetic Eddie Murphy re-make) did equally entertaining conversions in what is a very funny movie.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A hairy tongue ...

    Requires a tonsorial visit.

  28. Ian Joyner Bronze badge

    Stick to the facts

    Just report that current base of HomePod might mark a wooden table, so put a cloth underneath until Apple fixes it (as I'm sure they will). The rest of this article is junk and very boring reading.

    1. BoldMan

      Re: Stick to the facts

      Lets play spot the Apple shill with no sense of humour...

      Oh there he is!!!

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Stick to the facts

      How are Apple going to fix it? You can't fix an inappropriate use of materials with a software update.

      Who was the person that decided that the communication between software and hardware required firmware? And do the programmers have to use viagra in order to get their software to become firmer?

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    it's gone quiet and I'm on my own right now. Loving the ZZ top. Great choice!

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