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How Do I Make My Netbook More Manly?
basementman writes "I recently purchased a 10 inch white MSI wind. As you can see it's a small computer and it's good for what I use it for. I get a lot of comments from women saying it is 'cute' or 'adorable.' Not the good kind of cute that will get me the attention I want though, the kind of cute that says they think I have a different presence than I actually want to portray. So how can I make my netbook more manly, or at least have some witty line to respond to the their comments?" Hopefully basementman didn't get a netbook with the hopes of it getting him some action, but what cool mods (or witty one-liners) have others used to salvage their dignity from hardware that is "a good size"?
Heavy metal stickers. Lots of them!
Maybe, just maybe, someone calling a small laptop "cute" is not a reflection on your sexual identity or masculinity. And maybe you should take it as a compliment, because that's likely how it's intended!
This is like asking how to make a small, fluffy puppy look intimidating. Anything you do to it will only serve to make it more comical, particularly to the opposite sex. Stop being so insecure and enjoy your freaking laptop! If someone says its cute, just say, "Yeah, it is, thanks!"
Oh, and if you really need a line, next time someone says its cute, respond with, "Yeah, it's a 10-incher, just like my cock." Problem solved!
Add a dongle?
Just throw on a Type-R sticker...seems to work for Honda.
"it's not the only 10 inches I have."
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Next time you should buy a small-sized Thinkpad. I bought a used x31 (12") for half the price of a netbook. I'm still finding new stuff on it (like a reading light and a microphone), the performance is comparable to a netbook, and you really can not find a manlier laptop on the planet.
It is very bad if my car breaks when I try to brake.
Scooty Puff, Sr: The Doom-Bringer
http://pnwriders.com/image.php?u=1155&dateline=1231816052
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Run Linux on it, not windows.
Not the good kind of cute that will get me the attention I want though, the kind of cute that says they think I have a different presence than I actually want to portray.
Really? Do the women who compliment your netbook immediately ask if you're gay or something? Are you sure it's not all in your head?
Either way, the conversation is started. If they suspect you're gay at least that's disarming, and they'll figure it out eventually.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Women are coming up to you, in public, and complimenting your laptop and you're pissed because the language they're using is cute and adorable? Were you raised in a barn?
And the 'attention you want' is ANY. Just because you lack the social skills to turn a 'wow that laptop is cute' into a 'hey would you like to have dinner' doesn't mean some Metallica Stickers are going to fix it.
I was with my Dad and his dog and my Girlfriend at a rugby tournament this weekend. Every single woman that walked pass came up and started petting the dog. I told my girlfriend next year she wasn't invited and I was just going to bring the dog.
And some neon light trim for the edges.
Hydrolics, press a button and the laptop starts trying to hump the your desk.
Replace the fan with a smaller diameter one with higher RPM, get the jet engine noise when it kicks in.
Bling, use a solid gold chain to keep it closed.
Don't shave, wear a mussed up t-shirt. And add scorch marks to the plastic exterior.
Why on earth would you want to make your netbook more manly? You've already lured them in - so pounce! Buy them a skinny mocha chino latte, gaze into their eyes and suggest 10 inches is enough for most people.
* Cover it with metal spikes and skulls.
* Tie it to the front grill of a Hummer.
* Convert it into an ammo clip for an Uzi.
* Build a beer helmet around it and wear it on your head
* Program it to make fart noises every time your finger is pulled. With a name like "wind", you could even pretend it came that way from the factory.
* Put an Oakland Raiders logo on it.
* Tie it to the back of a pit bull with a chain collar.
* Put it down your pants for some "natural male enhancement".
* Tie it to your stomach (under your shirt), and tell woman to punch it so they can feel how hard your "abs" are.
* Keep it open and playing a heavy metal video nonstop at full volume. Make sure there are plenty of half naked women being objectified in it.
* Tell the girls you have a small notebook because you have no reason to compensate for anything else.
Really, the possibilities are endless.
It's a good thing. Could be worse. At least they're talking to you.
They could be made aware of the fact that you go by the alias BASEMENTMAN.
...that a person with a small laptop has no need for compensation.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Screw the speed strips, what he needs is some speed holes. It will make the computer faster too.
Monstar L
Huxley: "An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex." Being "manly" in the sense I get from the summary is something only troglodytes admire. I would find more pressing things to stress over. And no, I don't have a sense of humor, so bugger off.
... you can put the same on your White Wind. Go to a copyshop that also has those cut-plotters and get a set of decal lettering cut out in black saying "I'm his new Netbook and help him pick up chicks." That should fix both the 'manly' and 'whitty reply' part in one stroke. And it's quite funny aswell.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
From the Badass Manly Anime Reviewer:
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Your list of netbook features reminds me of the machine Paul Atreides used for combat training.
Even if your netbook is lacking in manly stature, mentioning the above reference will tell her what kind of guy you really are.
Here are some stickers to apply:
Flipper
Bambi
Willy (Free Willy)
An Aboriginal
Creech
Gollum
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Tell the women these were your animal forms in past life times. Tell her you're a sexual expert in all fathoms, climes, caves, and skies. Now that you are human, you're entitled to make all sorts of squirmy noises in bed but that she should not be unduly alarmed. If she's not impressed, add more animal signs...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Liking Unicorns doesn't make me gay, does it?
Ask the members of S.M.U.T.L.U.V. (Strong Men Unafraid To Love Unicorns Visibly).
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Personally I'd make it pink and give it a Hello Kitty sticker. Keeps people on their toes ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Years ago, I was waiting in the rain at the staff parking lot for the college newspapers to arrive so I could earn my work-study $4.25/hour delivering them around campus. The college president came out, made some snide remark about our dedication, then got in his red corvette. Our editor, a tall Texan woman, muttered "nice car", and as he drove off, yelled "Sorry about your penis!"
Shiny cars were last generation's penis-compensation trip. This generation, they're laptops. Let's face it: we carry them around with us everywhere, we always insist on using our own, we're proud of its power or versatility, and we carry it with us into the bathroom. It's a penis.
Most women with braincells are going to recognize that, and infer every other corollary. Guys with big laptops with more power than they ever use are likely compensating for something else. If a guy can come up with something "cute", maybe he knows he can deliver.
Of course, big, powerful and macho will impress the boys down at the server farm. Come to think of it, the big marketing whole right now is the lack of laptop commercials along the lines of pickup trucks: big burly men, toiling on the server farm. Country music blasts as foreman-looking nerd with glistening muscles and big hands drops a big-ass render project onto his Dell XPS, drops the sucks -- still running -- into his shoulder bag, and walks out the door into the sweet light of sunset.
* Put a 10-inch dongle on it
Table-ized A.I.
Hmmmm. That might explain why the father at my old Catholic High School (Marian Central) bought a new Trans Am 455HO. Of course, back then, I just thought that he wanted to have a good time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think tiny netbooks are the equivalent of a tiny piano (+pianist) for the uninitiated: They look stupid.
Hey! Leave my tiny pianist out of this!
which is totally what she said
Nothing can make your laptop look cool and tough and tough and cool like some Duct Tape. Yea my laptop is small but I am so tough that I need to put duct tape on it to keep it together. A cat may be cute, But an ally cat with its fur riped off and its ear chewed up isn't
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I recommend that you get this little free utility called ZoomIt and add its shortcut to your startup folder (assuming you're on Windows, and not Linux -- most Linux flavors can configure this with Compiz Fusion). It's not going to make your sub-netbook more manly, but it might just make it more useful.
I installed ZoomIt on my mom's sub-netbook which is even smaller than yours (its screen is 8.4 inches and it has Windows XP Home edition), and it definitely helped. Let's say you want to show someone something on your screen, you just press Ctrl-1 to zoom in (it uses the pointer of your mouse to know where to zoom in) and to come back to normal -- you just release those keys. This zooming effect is really smooth and gets even better if you hook up a mouse with a wheel on it. Also, as an added bonus, the program allows you to draw on the surface of your screen once you're zoomed in, which is useful if you want to call attention to a particular part of the screen.
And of course, it comes in really handy if you have to strain your eyes to read some of the stuff on that small screen. Some of the Internet browsers (like Opera) also have some decent zooming facilities, but it's better I think to get used to one zooming facility that you can use everywhere on any application that you might be working on, and it's definitely one of the most usable ones -- with one of the smallest memory footprints -- I've seen out there.
If your that insecure
Parser error, line 1, near "that"
Bow-ties are cool.
Long ago I learned the best way to meet women is a) be injured, b) go shopping with a baby, and c) walk around a park with a cute dog.
I'm aged and married now so this tip is useless to me, but since I'm not stingy I figured I'd pass this along. =)
I bought a coffee at my favorite coffee shop near my college about a dozen years ago. As I rounded the bend I saw a kitten stuck in a snowdrift. It was pretty obvious he was recently placed there. Discarded would probably be the better word.
Couldn't abandon him, so I parked the car, grabbed the kitten and set about looking for the owner.
Walk into a college coffee shop with a kitten sometime. Thank me later.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This has been my answer for years, any time someone tries to ridicule my subcompact car:
"You know how some guys get big SUVs or sports cars to compensate for their sexual inadequacy? I'm doing the same thing, just the other way 'round."
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
You just need a new purse to put it in that will let people know what kind of man you are.
Sounds like he did.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
..with the OP.
2 years ago I was on a flight watching a movie on my Samsung Q1-ultra. The flight attendant leaned over, look at the UMPC (which was in the general direction of my lap) and said "Wow, that's cute, I've never seen one so small".....
You know what drives me batshit insane? Men who are so ridiculously insecure that any suggestion that they aren't filthy, hair-covered savages breaking trees in half with their teeth sends them into an identity tail spin.
All your concern about the "image" that your laptop presents is an indication that you really are a weak, unmanly wuss. Use conditioner and lotion, pluck the center out of your monobrow (and clean up around the edges if necessary), wear clothes that fit (baggy may be comfortable, but you look like a tool). All of these "feminine" things will draw much more desired female attention than "My laptop is cute??? What do you mean by that???" ever, ever, ever will.
Confidence is manly. Get some.
If you have women approaching you to admire your laptop they obviously already don't find you repulsive or unapproachable.
That's a damn good start by any measure.
You must also live in a region where having a laptop or a iphone or whatever actually gets you attention, rather being a minimum requirement to not be outright ignored. (hmmm where do you live? what's real estate like there at the momment?)
Most girls do like geeky guys in actual fact. It's an observation of mine that only certain kinds of adolescent females that don't date geeky types, the kind of woman who is at that age rather concerned about her self image and social success (as we all are, infact it's a big measure of self-worth until we grow up a bit). In the real adult world the nice girls will end up with the geeky guys.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
You don't remember the scene where Alia is going at it naked with the machine, and Paul comes in and tells her she's nuts to be using it at so high a setting, and she tells him he's just jealous because he had never had it turned up so high?
I look like the poster child for heavy metal and testosterone injections. In order to help soften up my image with women I put cute little dino and bug stickers on my netbook. Got them at a crafts store for $2 a book while I was picking up knitting supplies. I look manly, my netbook doesn't need to.
I am often told by women that their first impression of me is that I am tall dark and intimidating. Anything can do to give them an excuse to think otherwise is fine by me.
Ascii artist &
I have to admit, I'm not sure how to make a netbook more macho but I did customize my netbook.
My EEE 900HA came with a really glossy finish on the cover which made it a fingerprint magnet. I tried to get around this with a can of spray paint, which surprisingly gives a fairly professional thinkpad-like finish.
I figured while I was at it, I'd decorate it with a painted pearljam-alive figure. It wasn't really my intention, but occasionally I do get a comment about Pearljam which is a bit of a conversation starter.
Pic here:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=51953
But if you're looking for something manlier still, maybe you can glue a gun to your netbook or something ;)
--
#include <malloc.h>
free(your.mind);
Hello Kitty.