| Monday, February 26, 2007 |
| I'LL CALL YOU |
I like my new telephone, my computer works just fine, my calculator is perfect, but Lord, I miss my mind! ~Author Unknown
I have a very chequered history with mobile phones. I didn't get one for a long time after everybody else had one. Eventually I was given one by my then girlfriend so I had no excuses to be out of touch.
That phone met with bad ending - which was a genuine accident - I dropped it down 5 flights of stairs.
I then didn't have a phone for a few months.
NOTHING BAD HAPPENED TO ME AS A RESULT OF NOT HAVING A PHONE.
The next one I got was a bit older. In another genuine accident I dropped it into a pint of water. End of phone 2.
I then didn't have a phone for a year.
NOTHING BAD HAPPENED TO ME AS A RESULT OF NOT HAVING A PHONE.
I was given a third phone and at a new year party a few people were arguing and they were all a bit out of it (Scottish new year parties are like that - they usually don't stop till about February). I tried reasoning with them and it didn't work so I microwaved my phone. This ended the argument and became the talking point of the evening.
I learned two things because of this...
1. Mobile phones that have been microwaved retain their heat for a long time.
2. Doing something stupid stops an argument more quickly than trying to reason with people.
I then didn't have a phone for another year or so.
NOTHING BAD HAPPENED TO ME AS A RESULT OF NOT HAVING A PHONE.
I honestly can't remember how I got the next one although I am sure I got it for free. I got a bit drunk and upset one night and smashed it.
Then I went away for a year (as I intimated a couple of posts previously) and my employers gave me a mobile phone. My friend in the place I was in was drunk and thought it would be a good idea to jump about on my bed. SHE smashed the phone.
And now I am home, and I don't have a phone again, but unless my work plans change then I don't need or want one.
Some people you meet are just permanently under the tyranny of their mobile phone. They spend more time sending pointless texts back and forth than they do talking to the people they are with.
Don't get me wrong, there are a very few situations where a mobile phone is both a useful and positive thing, but these situations are far fewer and further between than most people think.
One day I was taking a class and one of my students (she would have been about 19) said something along the lines of "I just don't understand how people lived without mobile phones, I just couldn't do it."
I stared at her for a minute and said "we used our wits."
Labels: mobile phone phones telephone cellphone |
posted by michael the tubthumper @ 5:53 pm  |
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| 9 Comments: |
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Exactly my sentiments. Good grief, we traveled about, all over the world, in fact and were always able to handle situations with a little intelligence and patience and no mobile phone. Also, when I am away, I like to be away and not attached to some invisible cord.
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sounds like me dude. most people were on their 2nd or 3rd phone by the time I finally got one. the company then fucked me over, so I didn't have one for a while again. now I have one and 90% of the time I don't want to talk to the person calling
i am going to carry around a cup and a string instead
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whats wrong with shouting?
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I too once had a cellphone, but I threw it in the river. Now my wife and I have one. And it eats up all the money we feed it whether we make calls or not.
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I'm thirty now: two things I wasn't born with and hope hope to die without are my mobile and my email address.
And my computer.
And my @#$% website.
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justin, why did you throw it in the river?
kier... your writing on your website is excellent.
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I dropped mine in a cup of tea. It seems to have survivied, but the few days when it wasn't working were an oasis of claim. Unfortunately I don't have a landline and organising activist stuff was more challenging without it.
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"5 flights of stairs." How did it make it around the dog-legs? What a marvelous shot!
Incidentally, I absolute love the idea of microwaving a cell phone. How long was it in the micro? What was the result (beyond getting very, very hot?)
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Hear, Hear!
I've had two. One died of obsolescence after eating all the money fed to it whether calls were made or not. The second was run over by a car. My car. On purpose.
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Name: michael the tubthumper
Home: Glasgow, Scotland
About Me: Tub-Thumper - 1. A speaker or preacher who for emphasis thumps the pulpit; a violent or declamatory preacher or orator; a ranter. This blog will be a combination of reasoned posting somedays and an occasional rant.
28 years old, I write and research for a couple of websites and also do my own stuff.
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I have made a few short movies. Here are links to free downloads for them all in the order that I made them (as far as I can remember). Please feel free to use, distribute, disagree with, shout at etc etc
Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition
This was a REAL song from World War 2. I was so stunned by it I had to make a movie
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This is my attempt at a video for the excellent, if worrying, David Rovics (see links) song
What You Like
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Imperial Measures
What is going on in Iraq? Some things you knew, some you didn't. A couple of bits of info are out of date now.
Wish You Were Here
Wish You Were Here is a 6 minute film about the unprecendted rate of animal extinction we are currently experiencing
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Exactly my sentiments. Good grief, we traveled about, all over the world, in fact and were always able to handle situations with a little intelligence and patience and no mobile phone. Also, when I am away, I like to be away and not attached to some invisible cord.